Egyptian Themed Slots Egyptian Slots

Overview

Egyptian-themed slots (Egyptian Slots) are slots that use ancient Egyptian pyramids, pharaohs, Cleopatra, gods like Anubis, and hieroglyphs as backdrops and symbols. Golden tombs, desert sands, and symbols like the scarab (beetle), ankh (key of life), and Eye of Horus often fill the screen, so you can usually get a feel for the mood from the title alone.

It’s one of the longest-running slot themes, with flagship titles in both offline casino machines and online slots. On AI Slot alone, nearly 50 games have Egypt, Pharaoh, Cleopatra, Anubis, or Tut in the title.

Common characters and symbols

Low-paying symbols are often the card letters A, K, Q, J, and 10 styled like hieroglyphs. For how symbol tiers are organized, see Slot symbol types.

The book symbol and Egyptian slots

The way “book” symbols are used played a big part in making Egyptian slots feel like a genre of their own. The “Book of Ra” series from Novomatic popularized this structure offline, and online, Play’n GO carried the trend forward by releasing Book of Dead on January 14, 2016.

• Book = wild + scatter: a single open book substitutes for other symbols, and 3 or more of them trigger free spins.
• Expanding symbol: before its 10 free spins begin, Book of Dead picks one symbol at random, and when that symbol lands it expands to cover an entire reel.
• Basic structure: a simple 5-reel, 3-row layout with 10 paylines, so even first-time players can pick up the rules quickly.

Book of Dead has several RTP settings within the same game, from 96.21% down to 84.18%, so different casinos may offer different versions. The AI Slot game page lists 94.25%, and version differences are explained in RTP versions.

Changes after the book

In 2015, NetEnt’s Pyramid: Quest for Immortality used a 3-4-5-4-3 reel shape with a cascade system where winning symbols disappear and new ones drop in, showing that Egyptian slots weren’t limited to the book structure. Since then, games have kept coming that use Megaways, like Egypt Megaways, and games that grow multipliers through Anubis’s power. There’s also a clear trend toward larger max wins in more recent releases.

Featured AI Slot games

Even among Egyptian slots, the 2015 Pyramid has a max win of 1,700x, while the 2023 Egypt Megaways lists up to 34,104x. A bigger max win generally goes along with higher volatility.