Play'n GO · Rich Wilde · 10 paylines
Book of Dead slot: one drawn symbol decides the whole round
Book of Dead is the book that every other Egyptian slot copied, and Play'n GO still keeps it near the front of the lobby. Three books anywhere on the 5x3 grid send Rich Wilde into the tomb for 10 free spins, and a draw before the first of them names the single symbol that will open across its whole reel and pay on all 10 lines at once. Land the explorer on that draw and the round can run all the way to 5000x. The demo below runs on the studio launcher with no account and no deposit; for real money the card sits in the Hit tab at Vavada, where every spin counts towards the welcome package. RTP 94.25% in this build and high volatility I take apart further down.
- ProviderPlay'n GO
- RTP94.25%
- VolatilityHigh
- Max win5000x
- Reels5x3
- Ways to win10
- ReleaseJanuary 2016
What a spin does before the books arrive
The paytable is short and every symbol on it comes out of the same expedition. A normal spin pays left to right along fixed lines, usually in small change: a pair of card values, sometimes three jackals. The list below holds the whole rulebook, and the bottom of it is where the money in this game actually comes from.
- Rich Wilde pays the most. Anubis, the golden pharaoh mask and the falcon sit under him, and the Ten through the Ace fill the cheap half of the table.
- The book is wild and scatter in one symbol: it stands in for anything on a line and pays wherever it lands, with no line needed.
- Three books anywhere on the grid open 10 free spins. The grid is 5x3, the 10 lines are fixed, and one bet covers all of them.
- Before the first free spin the game draws one ordinary symbol at random, and for the rest of the round that symbol is the expanding one.
- Any base game win can be carried into the card gamble, which gets its own paragraph further down with Rich himself.
RTP 94.25% and what high volatility costs per hour
Dry part first. Play'n GO ships this game in several RTP configurations and the casino picks one, so the figure in the passport, 94.25%, is the setting a catalogue recorded for a common deployment. The live one is printed on the game's own info screen, behind the i button in the window, and for a game this widely installed the click is worth it. Across a very long distance that percentage describes how much of the money staked comes back. Across one evening it promises close to nothing, because the distance in question is years of play by everyone who ever opened the game, and your evening disappears inside it.
High volatility is the part you feel. The base game pays rarely and pays little, and a hundred spins with nothing on the screen is ordinary here. That sets the bet size: small enough that a hundred empty spins do not end the evening on their own. Neither the card nor the passport publishes a bet range for this game, so what a spin costs across the 10 fixed lines is whatever the panel in the window offers, and it is worth opening before the first press: the 5000x ceiling is counted from the bet that was running when the three books landed, and raising the panel afterwards leaves that round priced where it started. The gamble ladder moves the spread and leaves the percentage alone. This profile fits a player who sits down for one round and accepts leaving without it. If you want the balance to move every few spins, take a medium volatility game from the same tab and keep this one for a night with patience in it.
Ten spins, one symbol, and the draw that runs them
Once enough copies of the drawn symbol are on the grid to make a payout, each copy opens across its whole reel and pays on every line it covers, wherever those copies happened to land. Three more books inside the round add another 10 spins and keep the same symbol. The ceiling of 5000x lives in one script only: the draw names Rich Wilde, he opens on all five reels, and every line pays at the top of the table.
| What triggers it | What it gives | My take |
|---|---|---|
| Three books in the base game | 10 free spins and a draw for one expanding symbol | the entire game in one row |
| Enough copies of the drawn symbol | the symbol opens across its reel and pays on every line, in any position | this is what the empty spins were for |
| Three more books inside the round | another 10 spins, the same symbol as before | a gift after a generous draw, a sentence after a weak one |
| Rich Wilde as the drawn symbol | the run at 5000x | the one combination the dead spins are paid for |
The round I remember best went the other way. Three books on reels one, three and five, the picker turning slowly, and it stopped on the Ten. Ten spins later the tomb had paid back roughly what the spins before it had cost, and that was the whole event. That is the part of this game I find hard to forgive.
The tricks every second Book of Dead slot review sells
All of them collapse on the same detail: the result of a spin and the identity of the drawn symbol are settled by the random number generator the moment you request the spin, and it knows nothing about what you staked a minute ago.
- Spin minimum until the books come, then raise. The round pays multiples of the bet that brought those three books in, and once the round is running the bet is locked.
- Autoplay pays worse than pressing the button yourself. Same call to the same server; the button is a preference, and the generator never sees who pressed it.
- The gamble ladder improves your returns. Doubling on colour or quadrupling on suit changes how wide the swings are and leaves the percentage where it was.
What you genuinely choose here: the bet, the ceiling for the evening, and the moment you close the window. The common mistake is mine as well, and I have made it more than once: raising the stake after a dead stretch because the bonus feels due. Nothing is due.
Book of Dead demo above, and what changes on real money
The window at the top loads the game from the public Play'n GO launcher in practice mode: no account, no deposit, play money on the balance, and the same generator and paytable the paid version uses. One thing can differ, and it is the RTP setting: the launcher runs the build the studio put there, the casino runs the build it ordered, and the two do not have to match. So the demo is where you watch the picker turn and decide whether this volatility is yours. For the percentage, open the game in the lobby and press i.
One thing to check. Vavada carries a free mode of its own: hover the game card in the Hit tab and press Demo. The i button in that window shows the setting of the build you opened, and looking costs nothing.
On real money, three numbers shape the session here. The welcome package doubles your first deposit, and that 100% is wagered x35 in slots, where this game counts as long as its card carries no lock for bonus play. The 100 free spins handed out at sign-up wager their winnings x20 in any slots, and they can be spun right here. Then there is the X tournament: a race for the biggest single multiplier on one spin, a 60 000 USD pool, entry from the Beginner status, and a top line that held x25000 on a 0.56 USD bet at the time of checking. A full screen of Rich Wilde in the free spins is precisely the kind of multiplier that race pays for. Entry rules and the game list live on the tournaments page, and the wagering terms on the bonuses page.
When to take the sequel and when to leave Egypt
Legacy of Dead keeps the formula and hands out one more expanding symbol with every retrigger, so a long round there can finish with half the paytable standing open on the reels. Take it when you are hunting one big round. Take the original when you want a shorter distance between bonuses and Rich Wilde on the top row, which is still the reason I come back. If the tomb has worn thin and you want an Egypt where every spin does something, Le Pharaoh from Hacksaw Gaming sticks winning symbols in place and re-drops the rest of the grid around them. The other books, and everything else being played right now, sit in the Hit tab.
Spin it or skip it: what the money buys
- What works
- One draw and 10 spins that can turn an evening around inside a minute
- A full screen of Rich Wilde: the 5000x ceiling and the sort of multiplier the X tournament pays for
- The whole game is a book and a draw: no symbol collecting, no bonus buy, no meters to read
- The Play'n GO demo sits open right above this text, with no account needed
- What to keep in mind
- The base game is close to silent: long dead stretches are the norm, so pick a bet that survives them
- A weak draw like the Ten cannot be played around, and the sequel with its retrigger is the answer if that stings
- RTP 94.25% in this build sits at the low end of the tab: being the original costs you percentage
Yes, if you are clear about the trade: one draw and 10 spins that either bring the evening back or do not, at RTP 94.25% in this build and a 5000x ceiling. No, if you want a steady hour of small regular wins, because the tab keeps medium volatility games for that and this book was never one of them. The draw is the whole game, and I still lean towards the screen every time the picker starts turning.
