Cleopatra

Quick verdict: an old-school line slot that rewards reading the paytable properly

Cleopatra is IGT's Egyptian-themed 5x3, 20-payline video slot, listed with an online release date of 8 January 2012 and a lineage that goes back further on physical cabinets. It has one wild, one scatter and one feature: 15 free spins where wins are tripled, with retriggers up to a total of 180 spins. There are no modifiers, no collectors and no multiplier ladders.

It is also one of the most misquoted games around. The 10,000x figure attached to its name is a line bet multiple, not a multiple of your whole spin. At 20 lines, that top award is 500x the total stake. Once you account for that, Cleopatra reads as what it is: a medium volatility game with a 95.02% RTP in its commonly listed version, built around steady line hits and a tripled free spins round, rather than a game designed for enormous single outcomes.

Cleopatra: key rules

10,000 on a line is not 10,000 on the spin

Most online paytables for modern slots show wins as multiples of the total bet. Cleopatra's paytable does not. Published versions of the paytable show values per coin on a line, the top prize is widely reported as 10,000x the line stake, and wins are calculated per line bet rather than per total bet.

That changes the arithmetic considerably. With 20 lines, the total stake is 20 line bets. So:

• Five Cleopatra wilds on one line pay 10,000 line bets, which is 10,000 / 20 = 500x the total stake.
• Four Cleopatra wilds pay 2,000 line bets, which is 100x the total stake.
• Three Cleopatra wilds pay 200 line bets, or 10x the total stake.

This is why the table above shows the max win against the total stake as not verified. The 10,000x figure is real, but it answers a different question, and no single all-in maximum expressed as a multiple of the total bet is published for the game. Wins on several lines at once, or a top line award during tripled free spins, could in principle go past 500x, but the exact ceiling is not published and this review does not invent one.

If you see Cleopatra compared directly with modern slots on "max win", check which scale is being used. A 5,000x the bet figure on a modern slot and a 10,000x the line bet figure on Cleopatra are not the same kind of number.

Reading the per-line paytable symbol by symbol

The table below follows published rule summaries of the game's paytable, expressed as multiples of the line bet. The lower values have not been matched against an IGT help screen, so treat them as one reported version and confirm them in the paytable of the version you open. The top Cleopatra values (2,000 for four and 10,000 for five) are the most widely reported figures in the table.

Some descriptions of the game mention other symbols, such as golden ankhs. Symbol sets can vary between versions, so the list above is best read as one documented version, with the in-game paytable as the final word.

To turn these into total-stake terms, divide by 20. Five Scarabs pay 750 line bets, which is 37.5x the total stake. Three Scarabs pay 25 line bets, or 1.25x. Three of the low card symbols pay 5 line bets, which is a quarter of the total stake. That last number is the one to keep in mind: a lot of Cleopatra's base game wins return less than the spin cost, and the game relies on frequent hits of that size plus the occasional premium line.

Wins pay left to right on active lines. The premium symbols (Cleopatra, Scarab, Ring) pay from two of a kind; most of the rest need three.

The divide-by-20 rule assumes all 20 lines are active. Some versions let the number of active lines be changed, and others fix it at 20; the game's settings show which applies. Where lines can be reduced, the conversion changes with them, because the total stake is always the line bet multiplied by the number of active lines. At 10 lines, for example, five Cleopatra wilds would be 10,000 line bets against a total stake of 10 line bets, or 1,000x the total stake. The trade-off is coverage: fewer active lines means fewer ways for a symbol combination to land on a paying line, so the per-line values stay the same while fewer spins produce a line win at all. The Sphinx scatter, covered below, pays anywhere on the reels, so it does not depend on which lines are active.

The Cleopatra wild and its 2x rule

The Cleopatra symbol is the wild. It substitutes for every symbol except the Sphinx scatter. IGT's own press material on the game describes the wild as doubling the award value when line wins include it, and published rule summaries add the exception: the doubling does not apply when a win is made only of Cleopatra symbols. Those all-wild lines are paid from the Cleopatra row of the paytable instead.

Worked through in total-stake terms at 20 lines:

1. Three Scarabs on a line: 25 line bets = 1.25x the total stake.
2. Two Scarabs plus one Cleopatra wild: the wild completes three Scarabs, and the win is doubled to 50 line bets = 2.5x the total stake.
3. Five Cleopatras on a line: paid as the wild's own combination, 10,000 line bets = 500x the total stake, with no doubling.

The wild is therefore more than a gap-filler. Any mixed line containing a Cleopatra is worth twice its normal value, which is a large share of how the base game produces its better results.

The Sphinx: a scatter on a different scale

The Sphinx is the scatter, and it is paid differently from everything else. It pays on the total bet, not the line bet, and it pays anywhere on the reels:

Put on the same scale as the lines, five Sphinx scatters paying 100x the total stake is equal to 2,000 line bets, the same as four Cleopatra wilds on a line. Three scatters paying 5x the total stake is worth 100 line bets, which is more than four Scarabs.

So Cleopatra mixes three scales on one screen: line wins in line bets, a 2x multiplier on wild lines, and scatter wins in total bets. Keeping them apart is the easiest way to understand what a given spin actually paid.

15 free spins at triple value, and the road to 180

The feature is where the game's name recognition comes from, and it is simple:

1. Trigger. Land three, four or five Sphinx scatters anywhere. Unlike many modern games, the number of spins does not scale with the number of scatters. Three, four or five all award 15 free spins. The extra scatters still pay their higher scatter amount.
2. Tripled wins. During the free spins, wins are multiplied by 3x. Published rule summaries describe this as applying to all wins; some versions exclude five Cleopatra symbols from the tripling, so check the paytable for the version in use.
3. Retrigger. Landing three or more Sphinx scatters during free spins adds another 15 spins.
4. Cap. The total number of free spins in one feature is capped at 180. That is the original 15 plus eleven retriggers of 15.

In total-stake terms, three Scarabs worth 1.25x in the base game become 3.75x in free spins. Whether a wild's 2x doubling and the feature's 3x combine into 6x on mixed wild lines is not spelled out in published rule summaries, so check the in-game help screen rather than assuming a combined figure.

The feature does not change the reels in any documented way. There are no sticky wilds, no added symbols and no rising multiplier. The spins are the base game's reels, with the wins tripled, repeated 15 times or more.

RTP: 95.02% or 95.7%?

Cleopatra's RTP is most commonly listed as 95.02% for the online version. Some versions list 95.7%; check the game's info screen for the setting in use.

IGT games are often supplied in more than one configuration, so a second figure usually reflects a different version rather than an error. The gap is 0.68 percentage points. Put another way, the long-run house edge is 4.98% at 95.02% and 4.3% at 95.7%, so over a very large number of spins the higher setting keeps back a little less of every 100 units staked. Nothing else about the game needs to change for that to happen: the reels, symbols and feature rules can look identical while the underlying configuration differs, which is why the information screen is the only reliable place to confirm it.

What 95.02% means in practice: across a very large number of spins, the game is designed to return a little over 95% of total stakes as wins. That is a long-run design figure, not a forecast for any session, and past spins don't change the next one. For comparison with the other games reviewed alongside it on this site, it is lower than Big Bass Splash's 96.71% top version and well below Chicken Road's 98%.

What medium volatility looks like in this design

Cleopatra is most commonly classified as medium volatility, though a few descriptions place it at low to medium or medium-high.

The game's structure points towards the middle. On one side:

• Premium symbols pay from two of a kind, so small line hits are common.
• The 2x wild regularly lifts ordinary lines into better results.
• The 15 free spins come in one fixed size with no need to climb a ladder to reach the multiplier.

On the other side:

• Many line wins are worth less than the total stake.
• The top line award is 500x the total stake, while the feature's 3x and retriggers are where larger outcomes come from.

Compared with a high-volatility collect game, far less of Cleopatra's return is locked inside one rare event. That is the practical difference a player notices.

Where 2012 sits in a longer history

The listed release date of 8 January 2012 is best read as the online release. The retail version is widely reported as dating to 2005, with the online launch following in 2012. IGT's own press releases show Cleopatra already on a mobile app in 2011 and on a social gaming platform in 2012, described as a game already popular on physical cabinets worldwide. It is also often described as one of the first IGT games launched online.

That history explains the per-line paytable. It is carried over from a cabinet design, where coins per line was the standard way to show wins.

Cleopatra's own family

IGT has built a long series on this game. The best-known siblings are:

• Cleopatra II
• Cleopatra Gold
• Cleopatra PLUS
• Cleopatra Diamond Spins
• MegaJackpots Cleopatra, widely described as a progressive version, unlike the original

The siblings' specs are not published in enough consistent detail to compare RTP, volatility or maximums here. The main documented difference is the MegaJackpots link in one version. The original stands out as the simplest of the set: one wild, one scatter and one free spins round with a fixed 3x.

Who Cleopatra suits

• Players who like classic line slots. No collect mechanics, cascades or modifier draws.
• People who read paytables. Cleopatra's numbers make much more sense once you convert line bets into total stake.
• Players who prefer a middle-of-the-road swing over very rare, very large outcomes.
• Less suitable for anyone chasing the biggest possible multiples of the total stake, or anyone who wants modern features such as bonus buys, ladders or expanding grids.

What Cleopatra gets right, and where it falls short

Pros

• One of the clearest rule sets in the genre: 2x wild, total-bet scatter, 15 spins at 3x
• Retriggers can extend the feature to a 180-spin cap
• Premium symbols pay from two of a kind, keeping small hits frequent
• A long-established design with a documented history from IGT

Cons

• The 10,000x headline is a line bet figure, so it is 500x the total stake at 20 lines
• The commonly listed 95.02% RTP is lower than many newer games, and some versions list a different figure
• No features beyond the one free spins round

Cleopatra FAQ