Book of Ra deluxe: honest review, 10 lines and a 5000× ceiling

Book of Ra deluxe is probably the slot most European players picture when they hear the words “casino machine”. Novomatic released it in 2008 — the group’s online arm is called Greentube — and it travelled the opposite way to most games: it was born in Austrian and German gaming halls and only later moved into online lobbies, with almost nothing changed. Five reels, three rows, ten adjustable lines and an explorer in a hat looking for a book inside an Egyptian tomb.

Check the title before you play. Several slots carry “Book of Ra” in the name: the original Classic, this deluxe, Book of Ra Magic and Book of Ra deluxe 6, which adds a sixth reel. They share the theme and the Book symbol, but they are separate games with different grids and different maths. This page is about the deluxe — the 5×3, ten-line build, and the one with by far the most demand. If your casino lists two or three of them, confirm the full name on the loading screen.

Is Book of Ra deluxe worth playing?

It is for you if you like old slots played the old way: no tumbles, no bonus buy, no accumulating multipliers. Ten lines, one special symbol and a free spins round — that is the whole game. Anyone who played the physical cabinet recognises the rhythm instantly, and anyone who never did will understand the rules in a single spin. When the bonus does land it carries a genuine tension few modern slots reproduce: you see the drawn symbol and spend the entire round waiting for it.

It is not for you if you are shopping on RTP or want steady sessions. This is a top-of-the-scale volatility game — Greentube itself rates it at the maximum level — and its reference RTP sits below what counts as standard in modern slots. If you are used to the 96.5% of the Pragmatic Play generation or the 96.8% of PG Soft, Book of Ra deluxe will feel expensive for what it returns. And if new mechanics are what move you, this is the exact opposite: a 2008 design preserved as it was.

The Book: wild and scatter in one symbol

The entire game turns on a single symbol. The Book acts as a wild — substituting for any other symbol to complete combinations on active lines — and as a scatter, meaning it pays and counts regardless of whether it sits on a payline. That double duty gives the game its particular economy: a lone Book on reel 3 can rescue a spin that would otherwise pay nothing, and three Books anywhere on screen open the free spins round.

There are no stacked wilds, no sticky wilds and no base-game multipliers. The Book is the only piece that changes the outcome of a spin — which is exactly why the base game runs so dry between bonuses.

Free spins and the expanding symbol

This is where Book of Ra deluxe earns its reputation. As the free spins round begins, the game draws one special symbol and shows it to you before the first spin. For the rest of the round that symbol expands: whenever it lands, it covers the whole reel and pays as if it occupied every position in that column — and, unlike in the base game, it pays without needing adjacent positions along the line.

The practical consequence cuts both ways, hard. If the draw lands on a low-value symbol (the card ranks), the round tends to return little no matter how often it expands. If it lands on the explorer or the pharaoh and they show up on three, four or five reels, that is where the prizes that built the game’s reputation come from. Three Books during the round retrigger it, keeping the same drawn symbol.

The exact number of spins awarded and the per-symbol values depend on the build your operator is running — the info panel inside the game always carries the numbers for yours.

Ten adjustable lines: turning them off is not saving

Unlike most modern slots, you choose how many of the ten lines stay active. It is tempting to treat that as a way to stretch a balance, and technically it is: with five lines, each spin costs half as much.

The trouble is that expected return scales down in exactly the same proportion — you get half the combination opportunities per spin. There is no mathematical edge in playing fewer lines; there are only cheaper spins and more dead ones. If the goal is a longer session, it is more efficient to keep all ten lines active and lower the per-line stake. The one real exception is budget: if the per-line minimum is already as low as it goes and the spin still costs too much, cutting lines is what is left.

Symbols and payouts

We do not publish a per-symbol value table here. Novomatic distributes Book of Ra deluxe through several operators and integrators, and the concrete values depend on the build your casino is running — giving you numbers that might not match your screen would be worse than giving none. The info panel inside the game always carries your version’s paytable. What can be described safely is the structure and the features:

Element	How it works
Grid	5×3, with 10 adjustable paylines
Wins	Matching symbols on adjacent reels, left to right, on an active line
Symbol hierarchy	Explorer and pharaoh at the top, scarab and statue next, card ranks (10 to Ace) at the bottom
Book (special symbol)	Acts as wild and scatter — substitutes for any symbol and pays from any position
Free spins	Triggered by 3 or more Books anywhere on screen
Expanding symbol	Drawn at the start of the free spins round; covers the whole reel whenever it lands
Retrigger	3 Books during the round restart it, keeping the same drawn symbol
Gamble	Double-or-nothing on the colour of a card (available in most builds)
Max win	5000× your bet
Minimum bet	0.02 per line, in your casino’s currency

Note: unlike almost every modern supplier, Greentube does not publish an RTP for this slot on the official game sheet. The 95.1% shown on this page — and on practically every site covering the game — comes from secondary sources and operator panels, not from the manufacturer. Novomatic ships different configurations by market and by operator, and the differences between builds are real: the same game can run at a noticeably different RTP in two casinos. Treat 95.1% as a reference estimate, never as a guaranteed figure, and always confirm the number in the info panel inside the game before betting. The usual rule applies too: RTP is an average over millions of spins and says nothing about your session.

Book of Ra deluxe vs the competition

Set against the slots we cover, Book of Ra deluxe is the oldest and the one that looks worst on paper — which does not condemn the game, but it does put the price in context:

Slot	Default RTP	Volatility	Max win	Note
Book of Ra deluxe	~95.1% (unofficial)	High	5000×	10 lines, expanding symbol during free spins
Gates of Olympus	96.5%	High	5000×	Same ceiling, clearly better RTP — and published
Wanted Dead or a Wild	96.38%	High	12500×	Comparable volatility, far taller ceiling
Mystic Fortune Deluxe	96.71%	Medium	8888×	Habanero, 28 fixed lines and a much gentler pace
Iceland	97%	Medium	10000×	Spadegaming, the highest RTP on our list
Fortune Tiger	96.81%	Medium	2500×	PG Soft, 3×3 — the opposite extreme in simplicity

The reading is straightforward: if pure value is the criterion, today’s lobby holds several better options with supplier-published RTPs and equal or taller ceilings. Book of Ra deluxe gets picked for other reasons — the design, the nostalgia, and that free spins round with the drawn symbol, which still has no direct equivalent. It is an emotional choice, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as you know you are paying for it.

Bankroll tips

Treat this slot as what it is: maximum volatility with a reference RTP below the current average. In practice that means your balance lasts fewer spins than in most modern games, and that almost all the value sits in a bonus round that may not appear for hundreds of spins. Set your session limit before you open the game, not halfway through a dry run.

The practical rule: if the balance you brought does not comfortably cover around a hundred spins, your stake is too high — lower the per-line amount rather than switching lines off, because switching lines off removes opportunities without improving anything. And resist the gamble feature after a decent win: it is a coin flip on money that is already yours, and no run of previous correct guesses changes the odds on the next card.