How to play
The tomb is a 5 × 3 grid of reels read along 20 fixed paylines. You decide one thing before each spin: the line bet, chosen from the buttons marked 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20. All twenty lines are always played, so the stake per spin is twenty times that figure, from 20 up to 400 credits. A new session opens with 1,000 credits.
After Spin, the five reels stop in order from the left. Any payline holding three or more of the same symbol, counted from reel one without a break, wins that symbol’s prize multiplied by the line bet. Wins on separate lines stack. If a single line could be read two ways, it pays only the better one.
What you’ll see on the reels:
- Golden mask: the wild. It counts as any symbol you need, apart from the papyrus scroll. It also pays on its own when masks line up.
- Papyrus scroll: the scatter. Scrolls anywhere in the window are counted together, one per reel, regardless of lines.
- Scarab, ankh, sacred eye, cat statue: the four picture symbols, in falling order of value.
- A, K, Q, J, 10: the low symbols.
Three or more scrolls pay a multiple of the whole stake and start free spins. These replay automatically at the same line bet; the main button switches to Free spin and the bet row stays locked until they’re used up. Scrolls landing during the bonus extend it.
A rare scarab and a rich scroll
Two features set this machine apart from its siblings.
The first is the scarab itself. Each reel is 36 stops long and holds just one scarab, while the ankh, eye and cat appear at least twice per reel. That scarcity is why five scarabs return 950 times the line bet. Golden masks can help complete the line: a line of masks and scarabs, at least one of them a scarab, still pays as five scarabs. Counting that help, five scarabs on some line come up on average about once in 14,300 spins.
The second is the scroll prize. Five scrolls pay 100 times your total bet, which at the minimum stake is 2,000 credits before the 20 free spins even begin. No other five-reel slot on the site pays that much for its scatter. The catch is that five scrolls are rare: each reel shows a scroll in one spin out of six, so all five together happen once in 7,776 spins.
Pay table
Line wins, in multiples of the line bet:
| Symbol | ×3 | ×4 | ×5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golden mask | 55 | 275 | 1,900 |
| Scarab | 40 | 200 | 950 |
| Ankh | 30 | 125 | 475 |
| Sacred eye | 19 | 75 | 225 |
| Cat statue | 14 | 45 | 150 |
| A | 9 | 30 | 95 |
| K | 8 | 25 | 75 |
| Q | 6 | 19 | 55 |
| J | 5 | 14 | 45 |
| 10 | 4 | 11 | 40 |
Scroll wins, in multiples of the total bet: 3 scrolls pay 2 plus 10 free spins, 4 pay 10 plus 15, and 5 pay 100 plus 20. The Pay table button opens the same numbers already converted to credits at your current stake.
The odds
Stops are uniform: each of the 36 positions on a reel is equally likely, and reels are independent. Three or more scrolls arrive about once every 28 spins. Working through every symbol count gives an exact long-run return of 96.79%, free spins included. A little over a third of that return is paid out during free spins.
Strategy
Nothing you do changes the outcome. There are no holds, no nudges and no gamble step, and a spin doesn’t know what the last one did. Over time the machine keeps about 3.2% of what goes in, at every line bet.
Some things are still worth knowing:
- Big totals here come from rare events (five scarabs, five masks, five scrolls), so short sessions often end below where they started. Small stakes let you see more spins.
- The five-scroll prize scales with the total bet. At line bet 20 it is 40,000 credits; at line bet 1 it is 2,000. The chance is the same.
- Because free spins keep the stake that triggered them, changing your bet between spins has no effect on a bonus you’ve already won.
Frontier Town is built on identical reel strips, one top picture per reel included, but pays its scatter less and its free spins longer. For a ten-line take on a desert setting, see Desert Gems.
If you enjoy Scarab Tomb, try Scratch Tic-Tac-Toe or Seven and a Half next.
