In this article we cover the structure of online video slots so you can easily understand what they are, how they work and how to play. If you are interested in learning more about slots, read on.

A video slot game is a casino game of chance which is made up of reels and rows with symbols in each cell.

In the below image, is the user interface of the popular online casino video slot by software development company Play’n’ Go. The title of the game is ‘Book of Dead’. The slot structure is made up of 5 reels on 3 rows – slots of this kind are also known as a 5×3 video slots.

Book Of Dead – Game Rules

When a slot game is being designed, the game -mathematician decides what the game’s theoretical return to player will be and establishes how many paylines it will have, whether they are fixed, which pay-lines these will be and lots more. Before playing a video slot, you should read through the game rules, view the paylines and paytable. These can be found by clicking the in-game menu.

Book Of Dead – Payline Wins

Book of Dead has 10 fixed pay-lines on which you can win. This means if at least 3 consecutive matching symbols starting from the leftmost reel, land on one or more of the pay-lines, the player wins an amount of money as per the pay-table.
This is known as a “payline win”. Payline wins occurring with a scatter symbol are accepted both ways.

Book Of Dead – Symbols Pay Table

Some symbols are worth more than others and one can find out the value of each symbol from the pay-table. As a general rule, the card symbols such as Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten are usually worth the least, whereas the symbols displaying the main characters in the game are worth the most. If we look at the paytable for Book of Dead we see the lowest paying symbols are “Q” “J” “10” whilst the highest paying symbol is Rich Wilde, the explorer in Book of Dead.

Book Of Dead – Wild / Scatter Symbols

Just like you have might have “wild jokers” in card games (which can represent any other card in the game), you have scatter symbols in video slots, (also known as wild symbols).

For Book of Dead, the book symbol is the Wild and Scatter symbol which can be substituted for any other symbol to form a winning combination. The scatter symbol will pay both ways on the reels (not just left to right). Scatter symbol wins are multiplied by the total bet staked (for example 2 x €0.10) , rather than by the bet staked per line (for example 5x €0.01) as per payout with other symbols.

Book Of Dead – Game Features

Free Spin Feature

Game features are what make a video slot exciting. Book of Dead has a a number of fun features.

Let’s start with the free spins feature on Book of Dead.

A free spin feature means that you get extra free spins without paying for them. As you are aware, every time you spin the reel on a slot game your bet amount is deducted from your balance. The result of your spin could be a win or a loss of your bet, but it could also result in unlocking an in-game feature such as a bonus game, free spins and more. With Book of Dead, if you hit 3 or more scattered books on any of the 5 reels you unlock 10 free spins. Once in free spin mode, players can win more due to the special expanding symbol which is randomly chosen. In the screen shot example, the 10 (ten) card symbol has been randomly chosen.

Gamble Feature

Book of Dead has a popular Gamble Feature so that every time a player wins they can choose whether they wish to “gamble” or “collect” their winnings.

In this case, we won 5 coins and I clicked the “gamble” option. The screen shot displays my two options and automatically calculates what my coin payout will be based on the 5 coins I just won but decided to gamble. Option 1. Color pays 10 (5 coins x 2 multiplier) if I correctly predict the colour of the card. Option 2. Suit pays 20 (5 coins x 4 multiplier) if I correctly predict the suit of the card. This gamble session keeps going until either the player loses or chooses to collect their winnings.

How to calculate your wins on online Slots like Book of Dead

Book of Dead is a great video slot because with every win it tells you how many coins you won per pay line. Just be aware that not all slots show this information and it is up to you to understand how they pay out. Luckily all this information can be easily found from the game rules.

In the screen shot below we see we see 2 consecutive “Rich Wilds” symbols on payline 4. If we quickly check out the paytable for “Rich Wilde” symbols, we see that it pays out 10 coins x bet per line. We are betting at 0.01 per bet line, so 10 coins x €0.01 per bet line gives us an added €0.10 to our balance (if we choose to collect it).

Summary

In this short slot guide on Book of Dead we too you through the structure of the slot, what a pay-line is and where to look for the game rules and pay-table information of a slot. We then ran through the features of Book of Dead, such as the Gamble Feature and the Free Spins feature, and finally we explained how you can calculate your winnings. We hope you enjoyed reading our slot guide on Book of Dead.

Thomas Nielsen

Tom is a Sports and iGaming Journalist living in the USA.