Book of Dead: one book, one symbol, and a number you must check

The game in one paragraph

Book of Dead was released by Play'n GO in 2016 and follows an old European arcade formula: five reels, three rows, up to ten lines, and a book that is both wild and scatter. Three or more books award ten free spins. Before they start, one symbol is chosen at random to become the expanding symbol for the round. Whenever it lands during the free spins in enough positions to pay, it expands to cover its whole reel and pays on every line, even when the reels are not adjacent.

That is all. There is no multiplier, no collect mechanic and no progressive feature. The drama comes entirely from which symbol the book picks, and whether it then turns up on enough reels.

Why the chosen symbol decides everything

If the book picks a low card symbol, the round usually pays a little. If it picks Rich Wilde himself, the top-paying symbol, and he expands on all five reels, you reach the game's ceiling of 5,000 times the stake. Between those two extremes lies every bonus you will ever play. Most players remember the explorer rounds and forget the dozens of ten-and-jack rounds that paid under thirty times the stake. The memory is selective; the maths is not.

Retriggers help: three more books during the feature add another ten spins with the same expanding symbol. A long run with a premium symbol is how the big results happen, and it is rare by design. Play'n GO rates the game highly volatile.

The RTP table nobody shows you

Play'n GO publishes Book of Dead in several return-to-player configurations and lets the operator choose. The top one is 96.21%. The others are markedly lower, and the lowest are well below 90%. It is the same game, same graphics, same feature. Only the numbers inside are different.

Checking is easy. Open the game, tap the menu or information icon and look for the return-to-player line in the rules. If it reads 96.21%, you have the best version. If it reads something lower, you are paying more for exactly the same entertainment, and the same is true of most Play'n GO titles.

Budgeting for a high-volatility book slot

1. Choose a stake that gives you 250 to 300 spins from your session money. The feature can take a few hundred spins to appear.
2. Expect most bonuses to return less than you would like. Treat an explorer round as a pleasant surprise, not the plan.
3. Do not raise the stake after a string of small bonuses. Nothing about the next feature has changed.
4. Stop when you reach the limit you set, including when you are ahead. A win banked is the only kind that counts.

Relatives and look-alikes

The same book-and-expanding-symbol idea runs through dozens of titles, and Eye of Horus is the closest cousin with a different twist. Play'n GO has also built a Rich Wilde series around the character. The studio is profiled on Play'n GO, and if you want to understand how rare a 5,000x result really is, our page on big wins puts it in context.

Where to look for book slots

Book-style slots with expanding symbols are a staple of large European lobbies. These are the five sites we cover, with the welcome code for each. Always check the RTP line in the game before you play.