Book of Dead Slot Review for Players in India

What Book of Dead is

Play'n GO released Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead on 14 January 2016, and it became the provider's best known slot. Rich Wilde is the adventurer of a whole Play'n GO series; before Egypt he went after the Pearls of India and the Aztec Idols. The provider also files this game in its Dead series, which later continued with Legacy of Dead.

The layout is classic on purpose. Five reels, three rows, up to ten paylines paying left to right, one symbol that doubles as wild and scatter, and one bonus round. No cascades, no multiplier meters and no feature buy. Everything interesting happens in free spins, where a randomly picked symbol can expand to fill whole reels and pay on every line at once.

Play'n GO rates the game high volatility, 7 on its own scale. Expect long runs of small or no wins, broken by rare rounds where the expanding symbol lines up on four or five reels.

For players in India: gambling is regulated mostly at state level, and the rules are not the same in every state. Check the position where you live before playing for real money. Real money play is for 18+ only.

How a spin works, step by step

1. Choose lines and coin value. Up to 10 lines can be active, always in numerical order. You also set coins per line (up to 5) and a coin value. The provider's standard configuration runs from a 0.01 minimum to a 100 maximum in the site's currency units; the rupee limits on your site are shown in the rules.
2. Spin. Five reels stop on a 5x3 window.
3. Line wins are checked. Wins pay left to right from reel 1, and only the highest win per active line is paid.
4. The book substitutes. The book is the scatter, and the rules say it also acts as a wild for all other symbols.
5. Scatter check. Three or more books anywhere award 10 free spins.
6. Optional gamble. Play'n GO lists a gamble mode, so after a win you can usually collect or risk it on a card guess. Operators can turn it off.

One point about lines: at full stake you play all ten, and each paytable value below multiplies the bet on one line. At a ₹100 total stake on ten lines, each line carries ₹10.

Symbols and paytable

The reels hold four premium symbols from the Egyptian setting (the provider's artwork shows Rich Wilde, Osiris and Anubis among the characters), five card ranks and the book. Play'n GO's official rules sheet lists these multiples of the line bet. The last column converts five of a kind at ₹10 per line.

Two details matter. The four premium symbols pay for just two in a row, which the card ranks never do. And the book has its own award of 2, 20 and 200 for three, four and five, but the rules sheet is not fully clear on whether that multiplies the line bet or the total stake, so check the in-game paytable of your build before relying on it.

The book as wild and scatter

The book does two jobs. On a line it replaces any symbol, so a book on reel 2 can complete a premium line that starts on reel 1. Anywhere on screen, three or more books start the free spins. Five books on one line also form the top wild combination, which the sheet prices the same as the top premium symbol.

Because one symbol does both jobs, a single spin can pay twice: a line win with the book acting as wild, plus the scatter award and the trigger. That moment is what most sessions are built around.

Free spins and the expanding symbol

Three or more books award 10 free spins. Before the first one, the game picks an ordinary symbol at random to be the special expanding symbol for the whole round. Then the rules run in this order:

• Normal line wins are paid first, exactly as in the base game.
• The special symbol may then expand to cover all three positions on its reel, but only if that creates an extra prize on active lines.
• Expanded symbols do not need to sit on adjacent reels. Reels 1, 3 and 5 count as three of a kind.
• Three or more books in the round retrigger another 10 free spins, and the special symbol stays the same.

The third rule is the heart of the game. An expanded reel pays on every line and adjacency no longer matters, so a few scattered symbols can turn into a full screen payout.

Worked example in rupees

Take a ₹100 stake on ten lines, so ₹10 per line. The game picks premium HP3 as the special symbol.

• Three reels. HP3 lands on reels 1, 3 and 5. All three expand and every one of the ten lines now shows three HP3. Each line pays 40 x ₹10 = ₹400, so the spin pays ₹4,000, or 40 times the stake.
• Four reels. The same symbol on reels 1, 2, 4 and 5 pays 400 x ₹10 = ₹4,000 per line, or ₹40,000 for the spin.
• Five reels of the top symbol. If HP4 is chosen and fills all five reels, each line pays 5,000 x ₹10 = ₹50,000, and ten lines make ₹5,00,000. That equals the 5,000x cap on a ₹100 stake, so it is the ceiling of the game.

The low symbols show the other side. If a card rank is chosen and expands on three reels, ten lines pay 5 x ₹10 x 10 = ₹500, just five times the stake. The symbol drawn at the start of the round decides a lot, and nothing you do can influence it.

Book of Dead versus Book of Ra

The comparison with Book of Ra comes up constantly because both rest on the same idea: a book that is wild and scatter, and a free round with one expanding symbol. The verified differences:

The return gap is the key point: about four percentage points between the default builds. If you like the book format but want ten lines in the Novomatic range, Book of Ra Deluxe is the closer match.

RTP builds and volatility

Play'n GO publishes five return settings: 96.21%, 94.25%, 91.25%, 87.25% and 84.18%. The default is the 96% build, but the operator makes the final choice. The gap is not cosmetic. Over a long run, an RTP of 96.21% returns about ₹96.21 for every ₹100 staked on average, while 84.18% returns about ₹84.18. The lowest build costs you roughly three times as much per spin.

On volatility, the provider label is high. Most of the game's value sits inside free spins with a well placed expanding symbol, so a short session tells you almost nothing about the long run return.

Testing it in the demo

The demo on this page is Play'n GO's own practice version with virtual credits. A good way to use it:

• Open the paytable screen first and note the values at your stake, including the book awards.
• Play at least a few hundred spins to feel how rarely three books arrive.
• In every free round, write down which symbol was chosen and how many reels it covered. You will see how much a premium draw changes the result.
• Check the rules screen for the RTP figure and the bet limits of that build.

Budget and stake sizing

In a high volatility book slot, your stake relative to your balance matters more than any feature. Pick a stake small enough to ride out long gaps between bonuses; a balance worth a few hundred spins is a sensible floor. With ₹5,000 for a session, that points to ₹10 to ₹20 per spin rather than ₹100. Playing fewer lines lowers the cost per spin but also shrinks what an expanding symbol can pay, since expansions only pay on active lines. Set a stop point before you start, and skip the gamble feature if you want the session to follow the game's normal maths.

Where Book of Dead is offered for real money

Welcome bonus up to 500% on the first deposits18+ · Terms apply · Indian law restricts online money games, check the rules that apply to you

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PaylinePilot editorial team · Figures on this page are taken from the in-game rules and paytable, not from promotional material.