Book of Ra Deluxe Slot Review Review

Book of Ra Deluxe follows the life of an explorer who heads to Ancient Egypt. The slot follows the fairly conventional format found within online video slots today, built around a 5-reel, 3-row format.

There are ten paylines in play, and, depending on which version of the Book of Ra Deluxe you’re playing, you may be able to adjust the number of paylines in play. However, it seems as though the more modern HTML5 versions of the game tend to offer this option more rarely.

Visually, Book of Ra Deluxe is pretty basic — there’s not a huge amount going on, both in terms of graphics or animations.

This simplicity is to be expected from a slot built so long ago. The fact that it remains so popular, despite its age, showcases just how popular the game’s managed to become.

Book of Ra Deluxe is known for its high volatility nature, and this is largely thanks to the fact that the slot’s capable of pushing out wins worth upwards of 5,000X your stake.

This potential is mainly found within the free spins feature. Still, it’s also possible to hit wins of up to 500X your stake during the main base game, so you don’t need to look far to see how this game can pay!

The high variance nature of Book of Ra Deluxe (and it is high variance; the base-game can be very unkind to your balance) is backed with a fairly low RTP of 95.1%. Despite this low RTP, it’s important to note that the RTP doesn’t matter too much during short-term playing sessions.

From what we’ve gathered, much of the RTP within Book of Ra Deluxe is packed into the main free spins feature. So that’s what you’ll be aiming for when you give the slot a try for yourself, as it’s where most of the win potential comes from!

Betting and Game Options

Like the original Book of Ra slot (a game that’s rarely found these days), the deluxe version of the game allows you the chance to wager from as little as $0.10 — a very low min bet. The max bet can reach as high as $100 per spin, depending on the online casino in question.

You may find that you’re able to play from just $0.01 per spin if you’re able to adjust the number of paylines active per spin. However, as mentioned earlier, this version of the game has become increasingly rare, with most online casinos choosing simply to feature the ten fixed paylines version of the game.

Like most of Novomatic’s games, the in-game options in Book of Ra Deluxe are pretty scarce. Aside from a volume on/off toggle, the only function you’ll find is the autoplay feature.

This autoplay option allows you to set up to 100 spins to play out automatically. You can set special parameters to stop the bonus once the free spins feature is triggered or if you hit a max win/max loss limit.

The Ancient Egyptian theme within Book of Ra Deluxe is seen in the symbols on view. Let’s take a look at what these include.

First off, we’ve got the low-value symbols. These, as you’ll see, are represented by playing card values, including 10, jack, queen, king, and an ace. They don’t pay much, worth up to 15X your stake for forming a 5-of-a-kind combo.

The game’s higher-paying symbols are all theme specific and include a Scarab Beetle, the Eye of Horus, Tutankhamen, and the Explorer himself.

The Explorer is the highest-paying symbol within the game, and landing a 5-of-a-kind of him (even in the base game) pays a whopping 500X your stake. So, you can start to get a feel for how well Book of Ra Deluxe can pay, even without triggering the main free spins feature!

Novomatic’s Book of Ra Deluxe slot is all about the bonus feature. There’s one main free spins feature and one gamble feature — both of which we’ll take a look at below.

Free Spins

Triggering the free spins bonus within the Book of Ra Deluxe slot is achieved by landing three of the wild symbols anywhere in view. You will then receive ten free spins, and before these ten free spins play out, a special expanding symbol is chosen at random.

This special expanding symbol is then a “scatter pays” symbol for the duration of the bonus. That means you need to land two (if a higher-paying symbol) or three (if a lower-paying symbol) anywhere in view to form a win.

If you manage to get the expanding symbol to be one of the game’s premium symbols, you can hit big wins, especially if you manage to form 5-of-a-kind combos during the free spins feature! This symbol will then expand to cover the entire reel it lands on for that free spin — you’ll then be pad out on all ten paylines.

We should also point out that you can re-trigger the feature, which is achieved by landing another 3, 4, or 5 of the scatter symbols anywhere in view. This scatter symbol, by the way, is the Book of Ra Deluxe Book, which also acts as the game’s wild, substituting for all other symbols in the game.

Doing so during the bonus round will award you with an additional ten free spins, and there’s no limit on the number of free spins you can win in total while playing the Book of Ra Deluxe slot.

Gamble Feature

While this isn’t a bonus game, per-se, the gamble feature allows you to try and double your winnings after any win — both in the regular base and from the bonus rounds.

If you choose to gamble your winnings, you’ll be taken to a new screen of the online slot, where you simply need to try and guess the colour of the next playing card dealt. Guess correctly, and you’ll double your winnings.

If you want to try and quadruple your winnings, you can also try and guess the playing card’s suit.

The Beginning of an Era

It’s unlikely that Novomatic ever anticipated how popular their Book of Ra Deluxe slot would become — especially when it was found only in land-based casinos and real-life betting establishments.

However, the format of the Book of Ra Deluxe slot proved popular with players. Today, you can find more than 100 “clones” of the game online.

The best-known of these clones is arguably Play’n Go’s Book of Dead. It’s a slot that features an identical game mechanic, where you’ll get the special expanding symbol within the free games bonus along with the same payouts. We’ve also seen clones from other software providers, like Stakelogic and Microgaming.

The mechanic found within the free games bonus round is arguably one of the most popular features out there today. Triggered through just three scatter symbols, actually triggering the free games feature isn’t usually too hard — hence why it’s made its way into so many online video slots today!

Novomatic’s Book of Ra Deluxe slot has proven itself to be a phenomenal success — and the deluxe version of the game is even better than the original. (For those wondering, the deluxe version of the slot simply features more updated and crisp graphics.)

We particularly like the Book of Ra Deluxe free spin feature. If you play Book of Ra Deluxe for yourself, this is what you’ll be keeping an eye out for, as (we’ll be honest) the regular game doesn’t offer much in the way of potential. Unless, as discussed, you manage to line up a 5-of-a-kind combo of the Explorer symbol.

We also like that there are a couple of bonus features. While many players wouldn’t call the gamble function one of the game’s bonus features, we do like how it’s another option available to you.

If you’d like to play Book of Ra Deluxe for yourself but don’t want to risk any real money or just try out the video slot for free, you’ll find yourself able to enjoy a demo version of the game right now here on this page. Simply head to the top of this page, and you’ll be able to load up the video slot and play it as much as you want — for free!