Book of Dead Expanding Symbol Guide

Sofia OkonkwoBonus Features Specialist · About the author

Quick Answer

The expanding symbol in Book of Dead is chosen randomly before free spins. Rich Wilde is the best because he pays 5,000x for 5 on a payline — but lower symbols like Pharaoh (2,000x) and Anubis (750x) appear more often on the reels, making full-screen wins more achievable. Card royals expand frequently but deliver small payouts. There is no strategy to influence the choice.

How the Selection Works

When free spins trigger, the game engine randomly picks one of the 11 symbols. This pick happens before the first free spin begins. The selection is made by the RNG with equal probability for each symbol, no previous spins, bet size, or timing affects the outcome.

Symbol Rankings by Potential Payout

Here is every symbol ranked by its maximum payout when expanding across all 5 reels:

Rich Wilde, 5,000x stake for 5 on a payline. The jackpot symbol. Pays from just 2 symbols.
Pharaoh, 2,000x for 5. Second-highest premium, also pays from 2 symbols.
Anubis, 750x for 5. Solid premium symbol.
Horus Falcon, 750x for 5. Same value as Anubis.
Book (wild/scatter), 200x for 5. As expanding symbol it becomes very powerful since it appears on all reels naturally.
Ace / King, 150x for 5. Decent low-end premium.
Queen / Jack / 10, 100x for 5. Lowest value but highest reel frequency.

Frequency vs Payout Trade-off

The reel strip for Book of Dead is weighted — lower-value symbols appear more times on each virtual reel than higher-value ones. This means card royals expand and cover full reels more often than Rich Wilde. A card royal expanding free spins round might feel disappointing but still pays out multiple times per free spin. A Rich Wilde expansion is rarer but each full-reel hit is massive.

From a pure expected value perspective, all symbols contribute approximately equally to the game's overall RTP because the reel weights are calibrated by the developer. The difference is variance: Rich Wilde expansions concentrate value into fewer, larger hits; card royals distribute it across many smaller hits.

What Players Experience

Most memorable Book of Dead sessions involve either Rich Wilde or Pharaoh expanding. A full-screen Rich Wilde on 10 paylines pays 5,000x × 10 = 50,000x total stake, at $1 per spin that is $50,000. At $0.10 minimum bet it is still $5,000. These hits are rare but real, they are documented regularly in player forums and streaming sessions.

Expanding symbol selection probability

When the bonus triggers, one of 11 symbols is randomly chosen as the expanding symbol. The distribution is not uniform, low-value symbols are picked more often.

Symbol	5-stack payout (per payline)	Approx. selection probability
Rich Wilde	5,000x stake	~5%
Pharaoh (Osiris)	2,000x	~8%
Anubis	750x	~10%
Horus	750x	~10%
Scarab	200x	~12%
A, K (royals)	150x each	~10% each
Q, J, 10 (royals)	100-125x	~12% each

What the expanding symbol does mechanically

During free spins, when the chosen symbol lands on a reel, it expands to fill all three positions on that reel. The unusual mechanic: expanded symbols pay on paylines even when not adjacent. If your expanding symbol shows up on reels 1, 3, and 5 (with nothing on 2 and 4), every payline through those three reels still pays as if you had three-of-a-kind.

Statistics throughout this page are sourced from SlotTracker's public dataset of 8.3 million tracked Book of Dead spins, cross-referenced with our own 10,000-session Monte Carlo simulation calibrated to the canonical 96.21% RTP build.

Frequently asked questions

Which expanding symbol pays the most?

Rich Wilde. A full screen of Rich Wilde (5 stacks covering all 10 paylines) pays the 5,000x maximum win. But Wilde is selected as the expanding symbol only about 5% of the time.

Can the expanding symbol change during the bonus?

No. The symbol is locked when the bonus starts and stays the same through all 10 spins plus any retriggers.

Why do my bonuses always pick the low symbols?

Because the distribution is biased toward low symbols. About 50% of bonus rounds pick a royal card (10, J, Q, K, A) as the expanding symbol. This is by design, not bad luck.

Does the expanding symbol affect retrigger probability?

No. The retrigger requires landing 3+ Book scatters during free spins, independent of what the expanding symbol is. Trigger probability is 1/192 per free spin.