Book of Ra Slot Review
The Book of Ra RTP is 92.13 percent, four points below the Book of Dead that copied it. Greentube keeps no public page for the game it built the genre on.
Book of Ra invented the mechanic that half the slot industry now sells, and it returns 92.13 percent. The most famous copy of it, Book of Dead, returns 96.21 at its default setting. Four percentage points separate the original from the imitation. I score it 5 out of 10.
This is a Greentube slot from 2005, part of Novomatic, on five reels and three rows with up to nine paylines you select yourself. Three Book symbols anywhere pay a cash award and start ten free spins. Before those spins the game promotes one ordinary symbol so it expands to fill a reel. Every book slot you have ever played is a version of that paragraph.
Below is what the return costs you, what the Deluxe version does differently, and what the studio publishes about any of it. I also owe you a correction. This page previously printed 92.31 percent, which is a transposition of the real figure. It is 92.13, confirmed against the databases.
Book of Ra at a Glance
Greentube keeps no public game page for this slot. Everything below was cross checked against independent databases, and the rows that cannot be verified are marked rather than filled in.
| What it is | The figure |
|---|---|
| Return to player | 92.13%, a house edge of 7.87 percent |
| Studio and year | Greentube, part of Novomatic, released around March 2005 |
| Grid | Five reels, three rows, one to nine paylines that you choose |
| Stake range | From 0.01 a line, with sources disagreeing on the ceiling |
| Maximum win | 5,000x your stake |
| Volatility | High |
| Scatter payouts | Three, four or five Books pay 2x, 20x or 200x your stake before the free spins begin |
| Free spins | Ten, with one random expanding symbol, and ten more if the Books return |
| Gamble feature | Double any win by calling the colour of a face down card |
| Hit frequency | Printed as 28 with no unit anywhere, which makes it unusable |
| Free spin frequency | Not published |
| Bonus buy | None |
How to read this. The hit frequency row is not a joke. The one database that lists a figure prints the number 28 and no unit, so there is no way to know whether it means 28 percent of spins, one in 28, or something else entirely. That is the state of the public record on a game this old and this widely played.
The Score, and What Went Into It
Casinos on this site are scored on four published criteria and so are games, on four of their own. Each is marked out of ten and the average is rounded to a whole number, with a half rounding up. Where a studio publishes nothing a criterion can be built from, I leave it unscored and average the rest. The bands are published in my scoring method.
| Criterion | Score | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Return to player | 2 / 10 | 92.13 percent sits in the band above ninety two and below ninety four. There is no jackpot and no feature that explains it, and the studio sells a 95.10 percent version of the same game alongside it |
| Cost of reaching the feature | 10 / 10 | No bonus buy and no level that unlocks on a counter. Three Books on a paid spin is the whole requirement, from the first spin at the minimum stake |
| Volatility honesty | 2 / 10 | No studio page exists. The hit frequency that does circulate is printed as a number with no unit, and there is nothing on the feature rate or the ceiling odds |
| Session survivability | Not scored | The band needs a published free spin frequency. There is none |
| Overall | 5 / 10 | Average of the three that could be scored, rounded |
How to read this. Two, ten and two make fourteen. Divided by three that is 4.67, which publishes as five. The parts are printed so you can redo it.
Five out of ten for the game that invented the format will read as ungrateful, so here is the distinction I am drawing. The design earns its reputation. Nothing in this review disputes that the expanding symbol was a genuinely good idea, or that it has entertained people for twenty years.
What the score measures is the deal on offer today. You can play the mechanic at 96.21 percent somewhere else, or at 95.10 percent one tile away in the same lobby, and the studio has never published a line of math about any of it. Two of the four criteria have no honest answer other than a low one.
The Original Book of Ra, and What the Copy Returns
Book of Ra came first. Everything that followed, including the most played book slot in the world, took its structure: a book that is both wild and scatter, three of them for ten free spins, and one random symbol promoted to expand across a reel.
What the copies also did was pay more. Book of Dead, released eleven years later with a near identical feature set, defaults to 96.21 percent. This game returns 92.13. On a hundred euros of turnover that is 7.87 euros kept here against 3.79 there, for a mechanic that behaves the same way on screen.
| Game | Year | Return | Kept per 100 staked | Paylines |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book of Ra | 2005 | 92.13% | 7.87 | Up to 9 |
| Book of Ra Deluxe | 2008 | 95.10% | 4.90 | 10 |
| Book of Dead | 2016 | 96.21% at default | 3.79 | 10 |
How to read this. The row that should annoy you is the first one. It is not a worse game to play, it is the same game to play, and it charges more than twice what the newest version of the idea charges. Age is not the reason, because the Deluxe version from 2008 sits almost three points above it.
I am not telling you to avoid it. People play this game for the version of the feature they remember from a bar machine, and that is a real reason. I am telling you what the nostalgia costs, which is about four euros per hundred staked compared with the modern alternative.
Deluxe Is a Different Game, and It Pays Three Points More
Book of Ra Deluxe is not a reskin of this slot. It is a separate game in the same lobby, released in April 2008, and the differences are worth money.
| What changes | Original | Deluxe |
|---|---|---|
| Return to player | 92.13% | 95.10% |
| Paylines | Up to 9 | 10 |
| Maximum win | 5,000x | 10,035x |
| Free spins | Ten, expanding symbol | Ten, expanding symbol with an added multiplier |
| Released | March 2005 | April 2008 |
How to read this. Three percentage points of return, double the ceiling and an extra payline, on a game that sits one tile away in the same lobby. If you are going to play a Book of Ra, there is no argument for playing this one over the Deluxe except that you prefer the look of it.
What the Book of Ra Expanding Symbol Does Here
Three Books anywhere on the reels do two things at once. They pay a cash award of 2x your stake, or 20x for four and 200x for five, and then they start ten free spins. That scatter payment is worth noting, because several later book slots dropped it.
Before the first free spin the game picks one ordinary symbol at random and promotes it. For the whole round that symbol expands to cover its reel whenever a win is possible, and it pays across every active payline rather than needing to sit on consecutive reels.
| If the game promotes | What the round tends to be worth | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The explorer | The round worth remembering | The top paytable symbol, expanded across a reel |
| The pharaoh or the scarab | A strong round | Upper paytable symbols where expansion pays |
| The statue | A respectable round | Mid paytable, and the expansion still helps |
| Ace or king | Usually small | Low value symbols even when they fill a reel |
| Ten or jack | Often a loss | The cheapest symbols in the game |
How to read this. Nobody publishes the weighting of that draw, so this table describes outcomes rather than odds. It is also the reason two people can play the same game for an hour and describe two different machines. They were handed different symbols.
Running fewer than nine paylines is possible here and it is a trap worth naming. The expanding symbol pays on active lines only, so cutting the lines cuts the value of the one feature the game has while leaving the house edge exactly where it was.
Fifty Euros at 92.13 Percent
At one cent a line across all nine lines, the minimum spin costs nine cents and fifty euros buys about 555 spins. That is a long session. What it costs is set by the return figure and nothing else.
| Money staked in total | At 92.13% here | At 95.10% on Deluxe | At 96.21% on Book of Dead |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | 3.94 | 2.45 | 1.90 |
| 250 | 19.68 | 12.25 | 9.48 |
| 500 | 39.35 | 24.50 | 18.95 |
| 1,000 | 78.70 | 49.00 | 37.90 |
| 5,000 | 393.50 | 245.00 | 189.50 |
How to read this. Staked is not deposited. A balance that wins and gets replayed turns over several times its own size in an evening, which is how a fifty euro deposit reaches the middle rows. These are long run expectations and no single session will match them.
What You Cannot Verify About Book of Ra
I have now scored five classic slots on this site and this is the only one whose studio keeps no public page for the game at all. Evolution publishes pages for Starburst and Gonzo. Nolimit City publishes the odds of its own maximum wins. Here there is nothing to read.
| Figure | What is published | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Return to player | 92.13%, from databases rather than the studio | The one number you can work with |
| Hit frequency | The number 28, with no unit | Unusable, which is worse than absent |
| Free spin frequency | Nothing | You cannot cost a session |
| Odds of the 5,000x ceiling | Nothing | The headline has no price attached |
| Expanding symbol weighting | Nothing | The feature that decides the round is a black box |
| Studio game page | None exists | There is no primary source to appeal to |
How to read this. This is a game that has been in bars, arcades and online lobbies across Europe for twenty years. A single page of math would take an afternoon to publish and it has never appeared.
Every Book of Ra in Our Library
Five Book of Ra titles sit in our library. I have verified returns for two of them to the standard I use on this site, and I am not going to print figures for the other three that I have not checked.
| Game | Return | Maximum win | Free demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Book of Ra | 92.13% | 5,000x | Play it free |
| Book of Ra Deluxe | 95.10% | 10,035x | Play it free |
| Book of Ra Deluxe 6 | Not verified | Not verified | Play it free |
| Book of Ra Magic | Not verified | Not verified | Play it free |
| Book of Ra Mystic Fortunes | Not verified | Not verified | Play it free |
How to read this. Three unverified rows on a five row table is not a good look and I have left them that way deliberately. The alternative is copying figures from sites that copied them from each other, which is how 92.31 ended up on this page in the first place.
If you want the shortest useful advice on this family, it is this. Open whichever one you like the look of, open its information screen, and read the return figure before the first spin. Between the two I have verified there are nearly three percentage points, and the game does not announce which you have opened.
Four Clauses to Check Before You Play It for Money
The game is the same everywhere. The terms wrapped around it are not, and that is where a session quietly gets more expensive. Four things are worth thirty seconds each.
First, the return printed in the game information panel, every time you open the game at a casino you have not used before. Plenty of slots ship in more than one build, and that panel is the only place the figure you are actually playing is shown.
Second, how the game counts toward wagering, and whether buying a feature voids an active bonus. Slots usually count in full, but feature purchases are excluded under most terms and some casinos cancel the bonus outright for one. The wagering terms are where both of those live.
Third, the maximum stake allowed while a bonus is running. It is commonly five euros a spin, and going over it once is enough for a casino to void everything the bonus produced.
Fourth, the cap on what you may withdraw from bonus winnings. A large maximum win means nothing if the terms stop your payout well below it, and that ceiling is printed in the bonus terms rather than in the game.
What an Hour of Book of Ra Costs
The return figure on its own tells you nothing about what a session costs. What costs you money is the return multiplied by how much you push across the table, and a slot pushes a great deal. Six hundred spins in an hour is an ordinary pace once autoplay is running.
At 92.13 percent the house keeps 7.87 percent of everything staked. Here is what that is worth at three ordinary stakes, using the same model as my cost per hour table.
| Stake per spin | Wagered in an hour | House edge | Cost of the hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| €0.20 | €120 | 7.87% | €9.44 |
| €0.50 | €300 | 7.87% | €23.61 |
| €1.00 | €600 | 7.87% | €47.22 |
Six hundred spins an hour, the house edge applied to everything wagered in that hour. These are averages over a very long run, not a prediction for one session, and the swings in either direction are far larger than the edge.
Play Book of Ra Free
The demo runs on a play money balance with no account and no deposit, and it resets when you reload. Play it next to the Deluxe version if you have twenty minutes, because the difference between them is the most useful thing on this page.
Play the Book of Ra DemoFree play money balance. No account, no deposit, no email address.
Where to Play Book of Ra for Real Money
Eighteen of the 36 casinos I have reviewed record this studio in the supplier list I pulled from their lobby. Exactly one of them reaches seven out of ten, which is the thinnest result I have found on any game on this site.
| Casino | Score | Full review |
|---|---|---|
| National Casino | 7 / 10 | Read the review |
| Bizzo Casino | 6 / 10 | Read the review |
| Spinanga | 6 / 10 | Read the review |
| Betibet Casino | 6 / 10 | Read the review |
| Tsars Casino | 5 / 10 | Read the review |
| BillyBets Casino | 5 / 10 | Read the review |
How to read this. Six of the eighteen are shown here and the other twelve score five or below. One casino at seven out of ten is not a shortlist, it is a single option, and that is worth knowing before you go looking for this game.
National Casino takes the link below because it is the only one of the eighteen at seven. It scores eight for payouts and six for terms fairness, and the full list shows where the other seventeen lose their points.
Play It at National CasinoAffiliate link. 7 out of 10 in my review, the only one of the eighteen to reach seven. 18+, play responsibly.
FAQ About Book of Ra
What is the RTP of Book of Ra?
92.13 percent, which is a house edge of 7.87. That is the lowest return of any non jackpot game I have reviewed on this site. This page previously printed 92.31, a transposition of the digits, and the figure is now corrected everywhere it appears.
Is Book of Ra Deluxe better than the original?
On the numbers, yes, and it is not close. Deluxe returns 95.10 percent against 92.13, carries ten paylines instead of nine, doubles the ceiling to 10,035 times your stake and adds a multiplier to the free spins. You can try it on our Book of Ra Deluxe demo page.
How does Book of Ra compare with Book of Dead?
They run the same mechanic and that is not a coincidence, since Book of Dead arrived eleven years later with a near identical feature set. The difference is the price. Book of Dead defaults to 96.21 percent against 92.13 here, which is roughly four euros per hundred staked.
How do the Book of Ra free spins work?
Three, four or five Book symbols anywhere pay 2x, 20x or 200x your stake and then start ten free spins. Before the round begins the game picks one ordinary symbol and promotes it, so it expands across a reel whenever a win is possible. Three more Books add another ten spins.
Should I play fewer than nine paylines?
No, and this is the one piece of tactical advice on the page. The expanding symbol pays on active lines only, so reducing the lines cuts the value of the single feature this game has while leaving the house edge untouched. It makes the game worse without making it cheaper.
What is the maximum win on Book of Ra?
5,000 times your stake. Nobody publishes the odds of reaching it, and in this case nobody publishes much of anything, since Greentube keeps no public page for the game at all.
Does Book of Ra have a bonus buy?
No. The only way into the free spins is three Book symbols landing on a paid spin. That absence is genuinely in the player’s favour and it is why the game scores a perfect ten on the cost of reaching its feature.
Can I play Book of Ra for free?
Yes, on a play money balance with no account and no deposit. Our library carries the original and four more titles in the family, which is the easiest way to feel the difference between them. Start on our Book of Ra demo page.
Why does this review score Book of Ra 5 out of 10?
Three criteria could be scored and one could not. The return earns two, the complete absence of gates or purchases earns ten, and disclosure earns two because the studio publishes nothing at all. Fourteen divided by three is 4.67, which publishes as five under my scoring method.
Which casinos have Book of Ra?
Eighteen of the 36 casinos I have scored record this studio in the supplier list taken from their lobbies, and only National Casino reaches seven out of ten. The other seventeen score six or below, which is the weakest field behind any game on this site.
Who Wrote This
Srboljub Simunović
Responsible editor, Casinos.si. Six years reviewing online casinos, based in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
I came to this from finance, so a slot review that tells me a game is iconic tells me nothing. What I want is every published number in one place, converted into euros, with the missing ones named rather than guessed at. On this game the missing list is longer than the published one, and I have said so rather than filling the gaps.
This page also corrects an error of mine. It previously printed 92.31 percent as the return, which is a transposition of 92.13, and the figure is now right here and in the table on our slots hub. Three rows in the family table are marked unverified because I have not checked them myself. I am responsible for everything published here. If a figure no longer holds, write to me and I will check it.
18+. Gambling can be addictive. The demo linked on this page is played with play money that has no cash value and cannot be withdrawn. Return to player describes millions of spins and predicts nothing about a single session. No slot can be beaten with strategy, and the result of every spin is independent of the one before it. If gambling has stopped being entertainment, free and confidential help is available in Slovenia through NIJZ.
