Book of Dead pokie: play free online and where to play for real money in Australia

Book of Dead in two minutes

Book of Dead is a five-reel, ten-line pokie that Play’n GO released on 14 January 2016, the second outing for its explorer character Rich Wilde. It is a direct descendant of Novomatic’s Book of Ra: land three books for ten free spins, and one symbol is picked at random to expand across whole reels for the length of the feature. That expanding symbol is the entire game. If it is Rich Wilde and the reels fill with him, the round pays the 5,000x cap; if it is a ten, most of the feature pays nothing.

How it plays

The grid is 5 × 3 with ten paylines paying left to right from the leftmost reel. The symbols are Rich Wilde (top), a Pharaoh mask, Anubis and a falcon, then ace to ten. Two Rich Wildes on a line already pay, and five on a line pay 5,000 times the line bet, which on a ten-line stake is 500x the total bet. The book is both wild and scatter: it substitutes for every regular symbol and three or more anywhere pay 2x, 20x or 200x stake on top of starting the free spins.

Play’n GO’s own game page data lists the bet range as 0.10 to 100 per spin; at an AUD casino that is A$0.10 to A$100, although operators can and do narrow it. Any base-game win can be sent to a gamble: guess the colour of a hidden card to double it or the suit to quadruple it, with a loss forfeiting the win. The studio rates the game’s volatility as high (7 on its ten-point scale) and does not publish a hit frequency on its public page, so we have not quoted one.

Bonus features

Free spins. Three, four or five book scatters anywhere on the reels award ten free spins, plus the scatter payout. Before the first spin, one of the regular symbols (Rich Wilde down to the ten) is chosen at random as the special expanding symbol for the whole feature.

Expanding symbol. When the special symbol lands and is part of a win, it expands to cover all three positions on its reel. The rules state that special symbols do not need to sit on adjacent reels: two or three of them scattered across the grid still count, and after expansion they pay on every active line. That is why the symbol you draw matters far more than the number of spins. Five expanded Rich Wildes cover all ten lines at the top line payout, which is where the 5,000x total-bet cap comes from.

Retrigger. Three or more books during the free spins add another ten spins. Play’n GO’s rules say only that “an additional 10 free spins are awarded”; we found no published limit on the number of retriggers.

There is no bonus buy in the original Book of Dead, and no multiplier anywhere in the game.

RTP and volatility

Play’n GO certifies every title at five levels, and Book of Dead’s page data on playngo.com lists them exactly: 96.21%, 94.25%, 91.25%, 87.25% and 84.18%. The 96.21% level is the studio’s headline figure and what appears in the demo. Play’n GO’s head of studio has said that in most regulated markets you will see 94 or 96 per cent, but offshore casinos serving Australia have no such floor, and a casino running the 87.25% build keeps almost nine dollars more per hundred than one running 96.21%. The info panel inside the game at your casino, in real-money mode, is the only figure that applies to you.

The maximum win is 5,000x stake, and the studio’s page data confirms a “win cap” of 5,000 with a maximum exposure of 500,000 at the 100-unit top bet. At A$1 a spin that is A$5,000; at A$100 it is A$500,000. In practice that number requires Rich Wilde as the expanding symbol and a full screen of him, and the free spins themselves land only every 170-odd spins by the estimates we have seen. Most sessions are long runs of small or no wins between features, which is what “high volatility” means here.

Where to play Book of Dead in Australia and New Zealand

One casino we recommend names Play’n GO in the pokies section of its review: Just Casino, which carries the widest studio list of anything on our recommended side. Two sites we warn against also name the studio, Casino Mate and Royal Reels, and we do not send readers to either for the sake of one pokie. Play’n GO is licensed into regulated markets and is choosier about its operators than the studios that supply anyone, which is why the list is this short.

If Just Casino is not for you, the comparable high-volatility session at the casinos we rate higher is Pragmatic Play’s Gates of Olympus, named at RocketPlay, Spin Samurai, Richard Casino, Bizzo and Golden Crown — Pragmatic is the studio those lobbies are built around.

Free demo

The demo button above opens Play’n GO’s own practice-mode launcher for Book of Dead, the same link the studio publishes on its Book of Dead page. It runs the full game with play-money credits at the 96.21% level. Because the feature arrives roughly once in every couple of hundred spins, a short demo session will mostly show you the base game; the point of the demo is to see how often three books land and what a low-paying expanding symbol looks like before you stake real money.

Verdict

Book of Dead is the reference book pokie: ten lines, one expanding symbol, no multipliers and no bonus buy. The whole return sits in a random symbol draw during a feature you will not see often, and the five RTP levels mean an offshore casino can quietly run it as low as 84.18%. Play it in the demo first, and if you play it for money, read the info panel before the first spin.

FAQ

Is there a Book of Dead free play demo? Yes. Play’n GO publishes an official practice-mode version, linked above, with play-money credits at the 96.21% level.

What is the RTP of Book of Dead? The default is 96.21%. Play’n GO also certifies 94.25%, 91.25%, 87.25% and 84.18% builds, and the casino chooses which one it runs. Check the game’s info panel at the casino.

Is Book of Dead available online in Australia? Only at offshore casinos that carry Play’n GO. Of the sites we have reviewed, the only ones that name the studio are ones we do not recommend, so we list no casino for it.