Pharaoh's Fortune Pokie Machine
Powered by IGT, Pharaoh’s Fortune sees a classic theme brought up to date with some interesting bonus features, including a free spins round with guaranteed wins, huge rewards for landing a wild symbol and scatter wins all wrapped up like a mummy in a pokie that sticks to what is probably the most popular theme of all.
Ancient Egyptian symbols like scarab beetles, chariots and hieroglyphs adorn the reels, all accompanied by the 1980’s Bangles hit, Walk Like An Egyptian playing along in the background. Anyone taking these reels for a spin will probably be humming this annoyingly catchy tune for the rest of the day. It’s a well-designed game, where richly decorated columns sit on either side of the reels, topped off with some heavy stonework and a slightly creepy Pharaoh grins out from above the reels as part of the game title.
Laid out over 5 reels, the symbols are in 3 rows and running left to right across them, we find 15 paylines, all of which are permanently activated. It makes the minimum stake 0.15 per spin and players can go up to a whopping 300.00 a time if they are feeling brave enough, but like all IGT games, it uses a Random Number Generator to ensure fair results and a decent return to players.
Playing Pharaoh’s Fortune
A cool-looking Pharaoh in his multicoloured sunglasses will set the theme for this game as it’s loading up, and once opened, players will see nicely rendered images, all of which are connected the topic of ancient Egypt and its treasures. Various examples of Egyptian hieroglyphs make up the lower-order wins, starting at the bottom, where both the owl and dog symbols are worth 5x, 30x or 100x the line bet when landing on 3, 4 or 5 adjacent reels, across a line running from the left side.
A snake symbol and the eye will each pay 10x, 50x or 100x for the same combinations, and then it’s on to the pictures of various gods and characters including Isis, the winged god who will bless players with 5x the line bet when it lands on reels 1 and 2 across a line, or 100x, 250x and 1000x for filling 3, 4 and 5 reels across a line.
The pyramid and game title symbol will pay 50x when seen on 2 reels, and landing it right across a line will be worth the jackpot of 10,000x. This is also a wild symbol that takes us through to the bonuses that players can expect to receive as they play this pokie.
Pharaoh's Fortune
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Bonus Features
When it acts as a wild symbol, the pyramid can replace any others, with the exception of the scatter and bonus icons, to complete winning lines, filling in any missing pieces of a line, or even stretching a win over extra reels. A scarab beetle is the scatter symbol, so it won’t need to appear across a line, or in any specific places, and every time 2, 3, 4 or 5 stop on the reels after a spin, there’s a prize of 2x, 5x, 10x or 50x the triggering bet to be won.
A separate bonus symbol will take players to a free spins game where among other things, the number of paylines is increased from 15 to 20. The happy Pharaoh needs to land on reels 1, 2 and 3 to start the game, but before they commence, players are shown 30 stone blocks which they need to click to uncover additional spins and multipliers. This goes on until they find a stone that starts the free spins, but however many are collected, there’s a guaranteed winning combination with each and every spin, so even if just 5 or 6 play out, that’s 5 or 6 prizes, with multipliers in effect.
A minimum multiplier of 3x will given, and players can usually expect 10 - 20 spins, but that’s an approximation, and it’s possible, although unlikely, to retrigger the round over and over until 999 free games have been played.
The Verdict
It’s no surprise that Pharaoh’s Fortune has been a huge success, both at land based and online casinos worldwide. This pokie has just about everything that players are looking for, from the theme, to the symbols that are all related to it, to the potential for big rewards, both in the base game and bonus rounds.
Having a free games round where each spin is a guaranteed winner is a real highlight, but there’s plenty else to enjoy in what has deservedly become one of the main games in IGT’s extensive range.