Book of Dead is Play'n GO's Egyptian adventure slot starring explorer Rich Wilde. It runs on five reels with ten paylines and builds almost everything around one free spins round where a randomly chosen symbol expands across the reels. If you like simple rules, long dry spells and the chance of a large hit in the bonus, it suits you. If you prefer steady small wins, a lower volatility game will feel calmer.
How does Book of Dead work?
You play on a 5x3 grid with ten paylines that pay from left to right. You can adjust how many lines are active on some versions, but most players keep all ten switched on so they do not miss combinations.
The Book symbol does two jobs. It is the wild, standing in for every other symbol, and it is also the scatter. Low-paying card symbols fill most spins, while Rich Wilde, the pharaoh mask, Osiris and Anubis pay the most.
After a win you can try the gamble feature, guessing a card colour to double or a suit to quadruple the prize. It is optional and it adds risk without improving your long-term return.
What are the Book of Dead bonus features?
Three or more Book symbols anywhere award ten free spins. Before they start, one regular symbol is picked at random to become the special expanding symbol for the whole round.
When that symbol lands on enough reels to form a win, it expands to cover each reel it appears on and pays across all ten lines, even if the reels are not next to each other. A high-paying symbol such as Rich Wilde is where the 5,000x top prize comes from.
Three more Books during the feature add another ten spins, and a new expanding symbol is not chosen, so a good pick stays with you.
Is Book of Dead worth playing? RTP and volatility explained
The top published RTP is 96.21%, which is around the market average. Play'n GO also offers lower settings down to about 84%, and some casinos choose them, so the version you play matters more than the headline figure.
Volatility is high. Many sessions end without a big win, and most of the value sits inside the free spins. Treat it as entertainment with a fixed budget rather than a way to grind small profits.
An RTP of 96.21% is a long-run average over millions of spins: in theory the game keeps about 3.79 of every 100 units wagered. It does not predict a single session. High volatility means long runs of small or no wins are normal, and a large share of the total return is packed into rare feature rounds.
Tips before you play Book of Dead
- Open the paytable or game rules before your first spin and check the RTP figure shown there, because Play'n GO offers several RTP settings and the casino picks one.
- Keep all ten paylines active, because the expanding symbol pays on every line and fewer lines cut your bonus potential.
- Set a session budget that covers a few hundred spins, since the free spins can take a long time to land.
- Skip the gamble feature if you want your results to stay closer to the game's stated RTP.