Book of Dead Review for Kenya with Payouts in Shillings

The game in plain terms

Play'n GO launched Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead in January 2016. The explorer had already appeared in earlier Play'n GO releases, and this Egyptian outing is the one that made his name. Years later the studio built a sequel on the same engine, Legacy of Dead, so the original now heads a small series.

Nothing about the setup is complicated. The screen holds five reels with three positions each, wins run across up to ten paylines from the left, and a single book symbol handles both the wild and the scatter duties. You will not find tumbling reels, a multiplier trail or a buy button. All the excitement sits in one bonus: ten free spins with a randomly picked symbol that can stretch across entire reels.

Play'n GO grades the game as high volatility, a 7 on its in-house scale. That label is honest. Plenty of spins pay nothing, small line hits keep the balance ticking over, and the large results come from free spins where a strong symbol lands on four or five reels.

Setting your stake in shillings

The bet is built from three parts: how many lines are active (1 to 10, switched on in order), how many coins sit on each line (up to 5) and the coin value. Play'n GO's own configuration runs from a 0.01 minimum to a standard 100 maximum per spin in the base currency. What you see in KSh depends on the platform, and the exact shilling limits appear in the game settings and rules.

The easiest way to think about it on a Kenyan account is per line. Play all ten lines at KSh 10 each and the spin costs KSh 100. Drop to KSh 2 a line and the spin is KSh 20, a sensible test level if you are spending a weekly data bundle's worth of money rather than a salary. Keep all ten lines on whenever you can, for a reason explained in the free spins section below.

One spin from start to finish

1. Pick lines, coins and coin value, then press spin.
2. The reels settle on a 5x3 window of fifteen symbols.
3. Each active line is read from reel 1 to the right. Only the best combination on a line is paid.
4. Any book on a line works as a wild and helps complete the combination.
5. Books anywhere on the screen are counted. Three or more pay a scatter award and start 10 free spins.
6. If the operator keeps the gamble option switched on, you may risk a fresh win on a card guess or simply collect it.

A full spin takes a couple of seconds, and the game runs comfortably on a mid-range Android phone over mobile data.

Paytable at KSh 10 per line

Play'n GO's official rules sheet lists the payouts as multiples of the line bet. The table below adds the shilling value at KSh 10 a line, which is a KSh 100 spin with all ten lines on. The studio does not name each premium symbol in that sheet, so they are listed by rank.

Two things stand out. The four premiums pay for just two matching symbols, while the card ranks need at least three. And the book award of 2, 20 or 200 is written without a clear basis in the rules sheet, so check the in-game paytable to see whether your build multiplies it by the line bet or by the whole stake.

The book symbol does two jobs

On a payline the book replaces any other symbol. A premium on reel 1 followed by a book on reel 2 is already a two-symbol premium win. Off the lines, the book is a scatter, so three of them anywhere trigger the bonus, even if they sit on rows that no line crosses. Five books on one active line also count as the top wild combination, priced the same as five top premiums.

Because one icon plays both parts, a single spin can deliver a line win through the wild and the free spins trigger together. That double hit is the moment the whole game is designed around.

Free spins and the chosen symbol

Land three or more books and you get 10 free spins. Before they start, the game draws one regular symbol at random, and that symbol keeps the expanding role until the round ends. During each free spin the order is fixed:

• Ordinary line hits get settled before anything else, just like outside the bonus.
• After that, the chosen symbol grows to fill its full reel, but only if doing so adds a prize on the active lines.
• Expanded reels do not have to be neighbours. Copies on reels 2, 3 and 5, for example, still make a three-symbol win.
• Another trio of books inside the round add another 10 free spins, with the same symbol still in charge.

Here is why line count matters. An expanded reel pays on every active line, so with ten lines on, one expansion can pay ten times. With only five lines, the same picture pays five times. Cutting lines saves money per spin but halves the payoff of the one feature that carries the game.

Worked example in shillings

Take a KSh 100 spin on ten lines, so each line carries KSh 10. The draw before the round picks the second premium symbol.

• Three reels. It lands on reels 1, 3 and 5 and all three expand. Every line now shows three of a kind, worth 40 x KSh 10 = KSh 400. Ten lines give KSh 4,000, which is 40 times the stake.
• Four reels. It covers reels 1, 2, 4 and 5. Each line pays 400 x KSh 10 = KSh 4,000, so the spin returns KSh 40,000.
• The ceiling. If the top premium is the chosen symbol and covers all five reels, every line is worth 5,000 x KSh 10 = KSh 50,000, and ten lines total KSh 500,000. That equals 5,000 times the KSh 100 stake, the game's official cap.

Now the less pleasant draw. If a lower card rank is picked and expands on three reels, ten lines return 5 x KSh 10 x 10 = KSh 500, five times the stake. The symbol drawn at the start of the round shapes the result more than anything else, and you have no control over it.

The same cap at other stakes: KSh 20 a spin tops out at KSh 100,000, KSh 50 at KSh 250,000 and KSh 200 at KSh 1,000,000.

Five RTP versions and what they cost you

Play'n GO supplies this game in five return settings. The 96.21% build is the default, while 94.25%, 91.25%, 87.25% and 84.18% are optional, and the operator decides which build to load. Our RTP guide explains the theory; in shillings it looks like this. Over a very long run, every KSh 10,000 staked on the 96.21% build returns about KSh 9,621 on average, so the expected cost is around KSh 379. On the 84.18% build the cost is around KSh 1,582, roughly four times higher, for exactly the same graphics.

The figure for your version sits in the game rules, usually under the info or question mark icon. Look before you deposit, not after.

As for volatility, the high rating means most of the long-run return is packed into a few strong free spins rounds. A session of a hundred spins tells you very little about the true return either way.

Book of Dead next to its relatives

Book of Ra is the older Novomatic title that set the template, and its default return is about four points lower. Legacy of Dead keeps the Play'n GO engine but adds an extra expanding symbol on each retrigger, which suits players who find one symbol too thin. Book of Dead sits between them: simpler than the sequel, better paying on paper than the classic.

Trying it before real money

This page loads the studio's practice mode, with play credits only, so no M-Pesa or Airtel Money deposit is involved. Our demo guide covers the basics. A useful plan:

• Open the paytable and match it against the table above at your chosen line bet.
• Play a few hundred spins and count how long it takes for three books to show up.
• In every free round, write down the chosen symbol and how many reels it filled.
• Check the rules screen for the RTP build and the bet limits of that version.

Budget, phone play and the rules in Kenya

Treat a session like a chama contribution: a fixed amount decided in advance, not money you will need for fare or rent. With a high-volatility game, a sensible starting balance covers at least 200 spins at your stake, so KSh 4,000 for KSh 20 spins or KSh 10,000 for KSh 50 spins. Set a loss limit and a time limit, and leave the gamble button alone if you want the game to follow its normal math. No pattern predicts when books will land, because every spin is independent.

Online gambling in Kenya is licensed nationally. The Gambling Control Act 2025 replaced the older law and handed oversight from the BCLB to the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Kenya. Play only with operators licensed for Kenya, and only if you are 18 or older.

Where to play Book of Dead in shillings

Welcome bonus up to 500% spread over the first deposits18+ · Terms apply · Check that an operator is licensed by the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Kenya

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PaylinePilot editorial team · We took every number on this page from the game's own rules and paytable, never from promo banners.