If there's one part of all human culture you can rely on when it comes to slots and casino games, it would be the mysterious and treasure-filled world of Ancient Egypt, packed with pyramids, a pantheon of gods and untold buried riches. Everyone who plays online casino and slot games is familiar with the pharaohs, the birds and the scarabs by this point, and most can probably name Anubis or Thoth just at a glance by now.
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It doesn't matter if it's in brick-and-mortar casinos or online ones, Egypt slots are a mainstay and most of the biggest developers have at least one or two of them in their libraries. Below are 10 of the best examples of Egyptian-themed slots out there and a little bit about what makes each one special.
Starting off with the biggest name on the list, not just for Egyptian slots but all online slots in general, Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead is one of the most enduringly popular slots out there. From veteran developer Play'n GO, it kicked off an entire franchise of slots following the Wilde family and their globetrotting adventures.
The biggest draw is the bonus round with its "special expanding symbols", a gamble feature where one symbol is chosen at the start of the spins to fill an entire reel when it lands. A full board of Rich Wilde's face is worth 5,000x and there's even a gamble mechanism after the spin to increase the win size. That huge potential payout per spin is something that keeps players coming back to Book of Dead and you'll often see it at the top of the rating lists.
As an interesting fact to start off with for this slot, the city of Luxor is actually a modern Egyptian city, which contains the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. It's still technically one of those Egyptian-themed slots though, and the imagery is very much on the ancient side, so it counts for this list in a bit of a loose way.
The key feature that makes Luxor Gold Hold & Win interesting is that even the bonus game has a bonus game. With the original free spins mode, players get a board containing only high-paying symbols and coins. Get enough of the instant cash win coins on a single spin though, and you enter the jackpot bonus, where landing a coin on every space can trigger one of the four jackpots. It doesn't even end there, as you still get the rest of the free spins after the jackpot game ends.
When you first open up Yggdrasil's entry of Valley of the Gods, named likely in reference to the real-life Valley of Kings that contains all the biggest pyramids, the first thing you'll notice is that the board looks a bit different to usual.
It has a 1-3-5-3-1 layout in a diamond shape to start with, with more spaces opening with winning symbols. Those newly opened symbols only stay open for the respins though, with bonus rounds which carry on until no win lands on a spin, at which point the board resets. There's also a bonus round available if all the symbols are opened up, which has growing multipliers with more symbols that are matched.
Remember that franchise of slots with the Wilde family mentioned earlier? Well, this is one of the rare entries in the series that doesn't actually feature one of them while still keeping the same core features going. It shares a lot of the same DNA but cuts out the Indiana Jones angle and instead sticks to the standard Egyptian themes and symbols.
Like Book of Dead, the bonus features those same Special Expanding symbols, although Legacy of Dead takes the whole concept a step further. In this game, if the bonus retriggers, another symbol is chosen to be a special symbol, and that one will also expand like the first to fill entire reels. They also expand one after the other, so each symbol can win on any given spin.
One of the more recent entries on this list, the Curse of the Mummies slot from developer Blue Guru is a game that dives much more into the horror side of Egyptian-themed slots with gruesome-looking mummies all over the place. Ironically, the mummies are the symbols you'll actually want to see, as they come with all the highest values.
Aside from the free spins feature with an increasing multiplier up a huge amount by landing scatters or 10x super scatters, there's also the Rise from the Crypt feature which triggers on any regular spin and transforms a random symbol into either wild symbols or a scatter. If you're a fan of Blue Guru's other games then it might feel familiar, as it's one of their tried and tested systems but this time in a pharaoh's crown and hat.
It's quite easy to spot an Egypt slot machine made by developer 4ThePlayer, as each of their games will feature the number four at the start, and 4 Secret Pyramids is clearly no exception. It's hard to nail down whether this is Ancient Egyptian or not, but from the name, the best guess is that an explorer discovered some secret land hidden for thousands of years.
The game features two full-reel wilds at either end of the board and an interesting free spins mechanic where the player climbs the pyramid. The higher they get without hitting a red X, the more free spins bonus, and the larger multiplier they get to play with. There are up to 55 spins available through this, and those can all come with huge multipliers as well.
As the name of developer Pragmatic Play might suggest, this slot is much more on the standard side of things compared to some of exciting features of the others on this list. Indeed, Egyptian Fortunes has the least features in either the basic version or the free spins and sticks to Tutankhamun and god statues for the design.
The main unique part of the free spins mode is that only three of the symbols from the base game can appear on the reels so, in theory, matching lines are much easier to find. There are also the energy spins which can pop up after wins, and they basically just give a handful of extra regular spins to play with, although what exactly triggers them is one of the mysteries of the Nile.
The third entry by Play'n Go, this slot is taking things all the way back to the start of the entire civilisation in Dawn of Egypt, with plenty of animal-headed Egyptian gods. This starts out looking much more like a standard slot game as well, although it takes a turn when you do activate the bonus game, as there's a lot going on there.
To start with, you'll need to spin a wheel after landing three pyramids to tell you how many spins you'll be getting, which can be anywhere between three and 20. As an extra, one of the low-paying symbols will transform into a high-paying one for the duration of the spins, and the whole thing can be retriggered as well with another wheel.
While the title of this slot suggests it would be a continuation of the previous entry, both games don't even share a same theme or developer. The Rise of Egypt slot by Playson is one of the more subdued Egyptian-themed slots visually, and it strikes the eye much more like an older-style game in the base version. With that said, it has enough interesting gameplay to make that not matter too much.
The base game is quite standard, but the bonus game has a lot of potential to get big quickly. First off, all the wilds that land becomes expanding wilds and cover the entire reel for that spin. They also bring you one extra spin each and also level up the high-paying symbols to the next symbol up. Once six wilds have landed, all of the top symbols in middle reel will instead be the highest-value symbol and they'll stay that way for the rest of the free spins.
Despite having the most straightforward name ever, the Ancient Egypt slot by Pragmatic Play isn't actually the original of the Egyptian-themed slots, although it definitely has a more classic look to it. It also features both Cleopatra and the scarab as symbols, icons which are both less common than you'd think in these things. That scarab actually functions both as the wild and the scatter for the slot.
If you started from the top of this list and are working your way through, the bonus game in Ancient Egypt will likely look very familiar. It plays almost identically to Book of Dead complete with the special expanding symbol and 10 extra spins on the retrigger. With that said, there's nothing wrong with using a formula that's already proven popular with players, and it certainly makes playing this game plenty interesting.
Check out various slots in our lists: