The Book of Ra slot, the original Novomatic game makes its way to mobile, with 9 paylines and walls of scatters to keep you digging through the dusty, but gold riddled, Egyptian sand.
The Book of Ra mobile slot should not be confused with Book of Ra Deluxe, which is the follow up, or Book of Ra 2 if you will. The one you are reading right now is the original slot game that was, back in the day, one of the most popular land based slot machines with players world wide.
It hasn’t aged well. The graphics on the deluxe version already felt old, so the old Book of Ra video slot is even further down the line. If this was an ancestor of yours he’d be hitting his nearest mate with a club and dragging it back to the cave.
But you got to give it to the ol’ gal, she is still people’s favourite for a reason. That reason is the free spin bonus that can give you a very plausible and very happy 5,000x your bet win.
Novomatic slot machines are rarely complicated games. They leave that to the ‘online’ youngsters like Microgaming and NetEnt to make things flash and dazzle.
Instead they concentrate on giving you bonus game features that know how to grab your heart and keep a hold. In this case it’s the free spins, which upon getting them, will randomly grant you one extra symbol as a scatter.
That means that if that symbol shows up in multiples where it could get you a win (2 or 3 more) they expand to cover the reels and give you multiple scatter wins. The higher value symbol the better, but even with just your high card symbols, this feature easily gets you at least a good 100x your bet win, so you don’t feel like your efforts were wasted getting here.
Getting those free spins is no mean feat. The fact that when they come they hit hard, and that it’s the only bonus feature other than to act as a wild, means you should budget for some good 200 spins to ensure you hit it.
They may come sooner of course, but this mobile slot machine is volatile, so it’s as likely to open up its ancient coffers as to make you walk through endless sandy dunes with no water in sight.
In short, you got to be a bit of a risk taker to love the Novomatic Book of Ra slot game.
Fun Fact: This slot has spawned many variations including the Book of Ra Magic, Book of Ra Mystic Fortunes and Book of Ra Deluxe 10, plus many others.
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Mobile Slot released | September 2014 |
Slot type | Video Slot |
Software | Novomatic |
Slot reels / paylines | 5 Reels / 9 Paylines |
House edge / RTP | 5.74% / 94.26% |
Slot volatility | High |
Coins range | 0.04 - 4.00 |
Min/Max bet | 0.36 / 36 |
Max win | 180,000 |
Free spins | 10 Free Spins / Expanding Scatter Symbols |
Bonus rounds | Scatter Wilds and Free Spins |
Slot Themes | Adventure & Explorer |
Scatters & Wilds: The Book of Ra slot symbol itself is both the wild and the scatter symbol. So it will replace all other symbol on the reels for your winning pleasure.
Scatters & Free Spins: Get three of these and you'll trigger 10 free spins. Here one of the other symbols will be randomly picked as an extra scatter.
Whenever possible, whenever that symbol appears on the screen and can create a win, it will expand to cover the whole reel. This usually gives you generous 2, 3 or even 4 of a kind wins.
It's easier to see it in the images above.
The real dream is getting that adventurer Indiana Jones type symbol as the scatter and getting those covering the screen back to back. Now that would be one hell of a jackpot adventure.
Gamble Feature: After any win you can choose to gamble your winnings in a simple game of chance. Just guess if the colour of the next card being turned will be red or black to double your winnings. If you guess wrong, you're winnings are forfeited.
Good for when you get a win that doesn't quite cover your bet and you want to try and get your money's worth.
Personally we will probably head to the Book of Ra Deluxe far more often than the original. This is mostly because it has a bigger jackpot and one extra payline to entice us. The graphics are marginally better, but neither could be called true visual gems.
However, if the second machine is treating us mean, we may yet venture back to the Book of Ra mobile slot and try our luck. After all, they are so similar it's always worth testing the slots against one another in the hope that one decides to pop a generous win.
Review by Lucky Mobile Slots, last updated: June 1, 2020 - Rating