The Cleopatra Bonus explained: 15 free spins, tripled wins and the 180-spin limit

The Cleopatra Bonus starts when three or more Sphinx scatter symbols land anywhere on the reels, and it awards 15 free spins in which every win is tripled, except the five-Cleopatra award. The free spins play at the same line bet and number of lines as the spin that triggered them. Three or more Sphinx during the bonus add 15 more spins, up to 180 in a single bonus.

How the bonus runs, step by step

1. Trigger. Three or more Sphinx land anywhere on reels 1 to 5 during a paid spin. The Sphinx also pay their scatter prize on that spin, on top of any line wins.
2. Award. You receive 15 free spins, set at the line bet and number of lines you were playing. You cannot raise the bet for the bonus: if you were playing 10 lines, every free spin plays 10 lines.
3. Tripled wins. Every win during the free spins is multiplied by three. The one exception is the five-Cleopatra line award, which pays its normal paytable value.
4. Retrigger. Three or more Sphinx on any free spin add 15 more spins to the bonus.
5. Limit. One bonus can hold 180 free spins in total. That is the first 15 plus up to 11 retriggers of 15 spins each.
6. Award cap. In some states the rules cap what one transaction can pay, and the triggering spin plus the whole bonus count as one transaction. If the bonus reaches the cap, it stops at once, even with spins left.

How the wild’s doubling and the bonus triple combine

Two rules meet on a free spin. A Cleopatra wild that substitutes in a line win doubles it, and every win in the bonus is tripled. Read together, a free-spin line win that includes a wild pays six times its paytable value. The game shows each win in currency, so you can check any result against the paytable on screen.

Illustration only. The numbers below are hypothetical, chosen to show the arithmetic, and are not Cleopatra’s paytable. Suppose a combination pays 10 times the line bet and you are playing a $0.10 line bet.

Scatter pays in the bonus follow the same pattern: the Sphinx prize is worked out on your total bet, then tripled.

What is not tripled

The five-Cleopatra line award is the exception written into IGT’s rules: during the bonus it pays the paytable value, not three times it. Because a line of five Cleopatras is a win in its own right rather than a substitution, the wild’s doubling does not apply to it either. The value is on your casino’s paytable.

MegaJackpots Cleopatra has a longer list of exceptions. Its free spins triple every win except the five-MegaJackpots award and the progressive jackpot, and the jackpot can still be won on any free spin. Retriggers there also run up to 180 spins per bonus.

What the bonus does not change

Each free spin is independent, just like a paid spin. A bonus that has already run long is no more or less likely to retrigger on the next spin, and no run of dry base-game spins makes the bonus due. The 180-spin limit is a ceiling, not a target.

The free spins cost nothing extra, but their size is fixed by the bet you were playing when they started. Raising your bet in the hope of a bigger bonus raises the cost of every paid spin along the way, so set your bet for your budget, not for the bonus.

Keep reading

The bonus is one part of what the game returns over time: Cleopatra’s RTP and volatility puts the 95.02% figure into dollars. For the symbols and the bet panel, see how Cleopatra plays online, or go back to the Cleopatra overview.