John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen slot

John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen is a 5x3, 25 payline slot where the line wins are the background noise. The real game is the money symbol. Scarab beetles land on reels 1 to 4 carrying a cash value, and they pay nothing on their own. They need a Collect symbol to land on reel 5 in the same spin. When it does, the game takes every scarab on the screen, applies whatever the Collect does, and pays the lot. At 96.5% the return is standard for Pragmatic Play, and the 10,500x max win is one of the largest in this series.

There are five Collect symbols, and the one you get decides the size of the payout. The plain Collect simply adds the scarabs up. Extra Collect adds a bonus to each scarab first. Multiplier Collect multiplies every scarab by up to 25x before paying, which turns a R30 pile into R750 at the top end. Expanding Collect grows to fill reel 5 before it collects, adding extra wins on top. Respin Collect holds the scarabs where they are and spins the other positions once more, so a second Collect can pay them again.

Three pyramid scatters on reels 2, 3 and 4 give eight free spins, and more scatters during the round add more. Eight is not many, but the round plays differently to the base game: the scarabs collected across the spins are kept, and when the last spin is done the game runs one final respin and pays the cumulative value of everything collected. That final respin is where the long-run maths of this slot lives, and where the big number comes from.

There is no bonus buy on this game, so the only way into the free spins is through the scatters. Reel 5 is the reel to watch on every spin. A screen of scarabs with no Collect pays nothing, and that happens a lot. Scorebet carries the John Hunter series in its Pragmatic Play catalogue, licensed by the Northern Cape Gambling Board, for players aged 18 and over.