Book of Dead

Book of Dead comes in five RTP versions

Book of Dead is the clearest example in this index of a slot that exists in several mathematical versions under one name. Play’n GO has described certifying its games at five return tiers, and the figures reported for this title are 96.21%, 94.25%, 91.25%, 87.25% and 84.18%. Every version looks and plays the same: the symbols, the free spins and the 5,000x cap are identical, and only the frequency and size of wins differ.

What each configuration costs

The difference becomes concrete when the return is turned into an expected cost, which is simply the volume staked multiplied by the house edge of the version in use. Over 1,000 spins at one unit each, a volume an ordinary player can reach in an evening or two, the five configurations of the Book of Dead RTP work out as follows:

• 96.21%: about 38 units of expected cost;
• 94.25%: about 58 units;
• 91.25%: about 88 units;
• 87.25%: about 128 units;
• 84.18%: about 158 units, more than four times the cost of the top version.

No design choice in the game comes close to that gap. A player who moves from the lowest to the highest configuration of the same slot saves more than any change of title, theme or stake strategy could offer, which is why checking the active figure is the most useful single habit for anyone who plays this game.

How to tell which version is loaded

The return is printed in the game’s own rules, and the check takes less than a minute. Regulated operators in Great Britain must make it available, and most others display it in the same screen, so the procedure is the same almost everywhere and needs no account or deposit when a demo version is offered by the casino:

1. load the game in real-money or demo mode at the casino in question;
2. open the menu and choose the paytable or game rules;
3. scroll to the end of the rules, where the theoretical return is stated;
4. compare the figure with the five configurations listed above.

Demo modes usually run the same configuration as the real-money game at that operator, but not always, so the check is most reliable when it is made in the version that will actually be played. If the rules screen shows no figure at all, that is itself worth noting, since a licensed operator in a regulated market is expected to make it available.

How the expanding symbol pays

The whole value of Book of Dead is concentrated in its free spins. Three or more Book symbols anywhere on the reels award ten free spins, and the Book also acts as a wild in the base game. Before the feature starts, one regular symbol is chosen at random to become the expanding symbol for the whole round, and that choice decides most of what the feature can pay.

Why the explorer symbol matters most

When the special symbol appears on enough reels to form a win, it expands to fill each of those reels and pays across the active lines. If the chosen symbol is a low-value card, a full screen still pays modestly; if it is Rich Wilde, the highest-paying symbol, five expanded reels produce the 5,000x maximum win. The probability of that outcome has been estimated at well under one in a million spins, so the cap should be read as a ceiling rather than as a realistic target. The same random draw that can pick Rich Wilde can just as easily pick a ten or a jack, and the outcome of the round depends heavily on it.

Retriggers and active lines

Three or more Books during the feature add another ten free spins with the same expanding symbol, which is how the best rounds are built. The game allows between one and ten active lines, and because expanded symbols pay only on active lines, playing with fewer than ten reduces what the feature can return without making the base game cheaper per unit of return. Almost every analysis of the game therefore assumes all ten lines are active, and the published figures are normally quoted on that basis by the studio and by test labs.

The gamble feature does not change the return

After any win, the player can risk it on a card: guessing the colour doubles the amount and guessing the suit quadruples it. The arithmetic of a fair card draw shows why this does not help. A colour guess wins half the time and pays double, so its expected value is exactly the amount risked; a suit guess wins a quarter of the time and pays four times, which again returns the same amount on average.

The gamble therefore leaves the long-run return unchanged while making results much more volatile, and it turns small wins into either nothing or a larger amount. Some operators limit the number of consecutive gambles or the maximum amount; those limits could not be confirmed from an official source and vary by market. Whether the option appears at all depends on the operator and the market, so its absence at one casino is not a fault in the game.

Playing Book of Dead at a reduced RTP

Reduced versions of popular slots are common because operators use them to pay for bonuses, high marketing costs or the taxes of a particular market. A casino that offers generous promotions may run the 91.25% or 87.25% version of Book of Dead, and the difference in the cost of play can easily exceed the value of the bonus itself.

Why the same casino may run a lower version

The choice of configuration is made per operator and sometimes per market, so the same brand can run different versions in different countries. Nothing on the game screen changes, which is why the reduced version is invisible unless the rules are checked. A lower return is not a sign of a rigged game: every version is certified by an independent test lab, and each one does exactly what its paytable says over the long run. The issue is transparency, not fairness: the player simply needs to know which version is in front of them before deciding whether to play.

What to do when the figure is low

If the rules show 87.25% or 84.18%, the simplest options are to play the same title at an operator that runs the 96.21% version, or to choose a different game whose active return is higher. Neither changes the volatility of the experience, but both lower the expected cost of the same session by a large margin. The habit takes a minute, and on a title with five versions it is worth more than any bonus code. Writing down the figure seen at each casino also makes it easy to notice if a version changes later, which operators are allowed to do.

The Rich Wilde series

Book of Dead, released on 14 January 2016, made Rich Wilde Play’n GO’s best-known character and set the template for the book sub-genre that many studios copied. The studio has since built a series of related titles, each with its own mathematics, so the figures on this sheet do not carry over to them:

• Legacy of Dead, released in January 2020, with a similar expanding-symbol feature;
• Book of Dead GO Collect, a newer version built on the studio’s collect mechanic;
• Rich Wilde and the Tome of Dead, Myth of Dead and Fate of Dead Blitzways, which reuse the character with different reels and features.

Comparing two book slots by theme says little about their cost, however similar their reels and their expanding symbols look. The questions that matter are the same for every title: which return the operator runs, how volatile the game is, and what the maximum win is capped at. The Play’n GO profile lists the studio’s licences and its other sheets in this index.