Cleopatra

The number everyone quotes, and what it really measures

Ask about Cleopatra and someone will mention 10,000x. That figure is genuine, but it is counted in line bets, not in whole spins. Spread a stake across all 20 lines and the same top award is 500x the total stake. Getting that conversion right is the key to reading this IGT classic, and it is where many comparisons with newer slots go wrong.

The rest of the spec sheet is short. Five reels, three rows, 20 paylines, an online release listed for 8 January 2012 and an older history on land-based cabinets. One wild, one scatter, one feature: 15 free spins with every win tripled, which can retrigger to a ceiling of 180 spins. No modifiers, collectors or multiplier ladders.

Viewed on the right scale, Cleopatra is a medium volatility line slot at 95.02% RTP in its most commonly listed version. It is built on frequent line hits and a tripled bonus round, not on rare, enormous outcomes.

Cleopatra spec sheet

Converting line bets into total stake

Modern paytables usually express wins as multiples of the full bet. Cleopatra’s does not. Published copies of its paytable show amounts per coin on a single line, the top prize is widely given as 10,000x the line stake, and payouts are worked out against the line bet rather than the total.

The effect on the arithmetic is large. A full 20-line spin costs 20 line bets, so:

• A line of five wild Cleopatras: 10,000 line bets. Divided by 20, that is 500x what the spin cost.
• A line of four: 2,000 line bets, which comes to 100x the spin.
• A line of three: 200 line bets, which comes to 10x the spin.

That is why the spec sheet treats a maximum against the total stake as unverified. The 10,000x number is accurate; it simply answers another question, and no all-in ceiling expressed against the total bet has been published. Several paying lines at once, or the top line award landing during tripled free spins, could in theory exceed 500x, but no exact ceiling exists in print and this page will not make one up.

Whenever Cleopatra is lined up against modern slots on “max win”, check the unit. 5,000x the bet on a modern game and 10,000x the line bet here are different kinds of figure.

The paytable in line-bet units

The values below follow published rule summaries of the paytable and are given as multiples of the line bet. Nobody has verified the smaller amounts against IGT’s own help pages, so regard them as a single reported version and check them inside the game. Of everything in the table, the wild’s top two awards (2,000 and 10,000 line bets) are the figures most widely confirmed.

Some accounts list extra symbols, golden ankhs among them. Symbol sets can differ between versions, so read this table as one documented version and treat the in-game paytable as final.

Divide by 20 to get total-stake terms. Five Scarabs return 750 line bets, which is 37.5x the stake. Three Scarabs return 25 line bets, or 1.25x. Three low card symbols return 5 line bets, a quarter of the stake. Hold on to that last figure: plenty of base-game wins return under the price of the spin, and the game relies on regular hits of that size with an occasional premium line on top.

Lines pay from left to right. Cleopatra, Scarab and Ring pay from two matching symbols; most others need three.

The divide-by-20 rule only holds when every line is active. Some versions let players change the line count, while others lock it at 20; the settings show which. Where lines can be reduced, the conversion shifts too, because a spin always costs the line bet multiplied by however many lines are switched on. Drop to 10 lines, for instance, and the five-wild line is still 10,000 line bets but the spin now costs only 10, making it 1,000x the total stake. The cost is coverage: fewer active lines mean fewer routes for a combination to pay, so per-line values stay put while fewer spins produce any line win. The Sphinx scatter, below, pays wherever it lands and is unaffected by line count.

How the wild doubles a line

Cleopatra is the wild and replaces every symbol other than the Sphinx scatter. IGT’s own press material says the wild doubles the award when it forms part of a line win, and published rule summaries note the exception: a line made solely of Cleopatra symbols is not doubled. Those lines are paid from the wild’s own paytable row instead.

Some examples in total-stake terms, with 20 lines active:

1. Three Scarabs, no wild: 25 line bets, so 1.25x the stake.
2. Two Scarabs and a Cleopatra: the wild makes a third Scarab and the award doubles to 50 line bets, so 2.5x the stake.
3. Five Cleopatras: paid from the wild’s own row at 10,000 line bets, so 500x the stake, with no doubling.

So the wild does more than plug gaps. Every mixed line it sits on is worth double, and that accounts for a good deal of the base game’s stronger results.

The Sphinx pays on a separate scale

The Sphinx is the scatter, and it follows different rules from every other symbol. Its awards are measured against the whole bet rather than one line, and position on the reels does not matter:

Put into line-bet terms, five Sphinxes at 100x the stake equal 2,000 line bets, matching four Cleopatra wilds on a line. Three Sphinxes at 5x the stake equal 100 line bets, more than four Scarabs.

That means three different scales share one screen: line awards counted in line bets, the wild’s 2x applied to those, and Sphinx awards counted in whole bets. Holding the three apart is the simplest way to understand what any given spin paid.

Inside the tripled free spins

This round is what made the game famous, and it is straightforward:

1. Getting in. Three, four or five Sphinxes anywhere start the round. Unlike many newer slots, more scatters do not mean more spins: each case gives 15 free spins, though the larger scatter counts still pay their bigger scatter award.
2. Triple value. Every win during the round is multiplied by 3. Rule summaries describe this as covering all wins; in some versions a five-Cleopatra line is excluded, which the build’s paytable will confirm.
3. Adding spins. Three or more Sphinxes during the round add 15 more spins.
4. The ceiling. One round can hold no more than 180 free spins: the opening 15 plus eleven further blocks of 15.

As an example, three Scarabs worth 1.25x the stake on the main reels become 3.75x during the round. Published summaries are silent on whether the 2x wild and the 3x round combine to 6x on lines that mix wilds and other symbols, so check the in-game help rather than assuming it.

Nothing documented alters the reels: wilds do not stick, extra symbols are not added, and the multiplier never climbs. The free spins use the base reels with wins tripled, 15 times or more.

Two RTP settings in circulation

The online version is most often listed at 95.02%. Some versions show 95.7%, and the game’s info screen is where to check which one is active.

IGT often releases a title in several configurations, and a second published figure normally signals another version, not an error. The difference is 0.68 percentage points. The house keeps 4.98% under the lower setting and 4.3% under the higher one, meaning the 95.7% build retains a little less from every 100 units across a long enough run. None of this shows on the reels. Symbols and feature rules can appear unchanged while a different configuration runs beneath them, so only the information screen settles the question.

In plain terms, 95.02% means the game is designed to return just over 95% of all stakes as wins across a very large number of spins. That is a design target for the very long run; it predicts nothing about one session, and no spin is affected by the ones before it. Against the other games reviewed on this site, it sits below the 96.71% top setting of Big Bass Splash and well below Chicken Road’s 98%.

Where medium volatility comes from

Cleopatra is usually rated medium volatility, though the odd source places it a notch either side.

The design explains the middle rating. Pulling toward steadiness:

• Cleopatra, Scarab and Ring award a line from just two symbols, which keeps minor wins coming.
• The doubling wild often lifts ordinary lines into better results.
• Free spins arrive as a fixed block of 15 with the multiplier already in place, no climbing required.

Pulling the other way:

• A lot of line wins return less than the total stake.
• The best line award is 500x the total stake, so the bigger outcomes depend on the 3x round and its retriggers.

Set beside a high-volatility collect slot, Cleopatra keeps far less of its value hidden behind a single rare outcome. That is what a player feels in practice.

From cabinet to browser

The 8 January 2012 date is best understood as the online launch. The land-based version is widely reported as dating from 2005, and reached online play in 2012. Press releases from IGT place the game in a mobile app during 2011 and on a social gaming service during 2012, both times billed as an established cabinet favourite worldwide. It is also often named as one of IGT’s first online launches.

That background explains the per-line paytable. Cabinets traditionally displayed wins as coins per line, and the online version inherited that convention.

The wider Cleopatra series

IGT has grown a whole range from this title. The best-known follow-ups:

• MegaJackpots Cleopatra, commonly described as a progressive edition, which the original is not
• Cleopatra Diamond Spins
• Cleopatra Gold
• Cleopatra PLUS
• Cleopatra II

The follow-ups’ specs are not published consistently enough to compare RTP, volatility or ceilings here. The one documented difference is the MegaJackpots link on one edition. Of the whole range, the original stays the most stripped back, with a single wild, a single scatter and a bonus fixed at 3x.

Strengths and shortcomings

Strengths

• About as clear as a rule set gets: a doubling wild, a total-bet scatter and 15 spins at 3x
• Retriggers can stretch the round as far as 180 spins
• Small hits are common, since the top symbols start paying at two in a row
• A long-running design with history documented by IGT

Shortcomings

• The famous 10,000x is counted in line bets, so at 20 lines it is 500x the total stake
• At 95.02%, the most-listed RTP trails many newer games, and some versions show another figure
• Only one feature: the free spins round

Is Cleopatra a good fit?

• Yes, for classic line-slot fans. No collect mechanics, cascades or modifier draws.
• Yes, for paytable readers. The numbers fall into place once line bets are converted into total stake.
• Yes, for those who like a moderate swing rather than very rare, very large results.
• Less so for anyone after the largest possible multiples of the total stake, or newer mechanics like feature buys, multiplier ladders or growing reel sets.

Cleopatra questions and answers