Wild Scarabs Slot Review

Wild Scarabs is a video slot from Microgaming with 5 reels and 243 ways to win. That means, any three matching symbols that land on adjacent reels from left to right will yield a winning combination. You’ll be able to play Wild Scarabs at online casinos such as Guts, Mr Green or Casumo.

Theme and game basics

There are countless online slots featuring ancient Egypt, some do it better than others and we would consider Wild Scarab to be somewhere in the middle. The background landscape is actually beautifully done, showing us Ancient Egypt as it might have looked 3,500 years ago, when it was at its height. And yes, those white pyramids with the golden caps look like what Historians now believe the pyramids looked like.

Whilst the gems look a little generic on the reels, the amulets, scarabs and Anubis and Horus look quite beautiful. Among the regular symbols, Horus and Anubis are the highest paying symbols, giving us 15x and 12.5x our bet, respectively, for a 5-of-a-kind win. The Ankh and the Eye of Horus symbols yield 10x and 6.25x our bet.

The scarab is the wild (which is easily surmised by the title of the slot). It pays out 37.5x our bet in a 5-of-a-kind win. And five scatters (the Sun symbol) will pay out 100x your stake, if you get five of them on the reels.

Gameplay and features

Giving us 243 ways to win is somewhat of a speciality from Microgaming. When it comes to the bonus features in this game, they’re keeping it simple, which may be one reason they decided to give us 243 ways to win. It means, we get small wins frequently, though big wins are possible thanks to the bonus features.

In the base game, on a non-winning spin, a scarab wild landing on reel 3 will disperse between 2 and 4 further wild scarabs on the reels, pretty much guaranteeing a win. It won’t happen often, but it will look good when it does, and big wins are likely.

Collecting three or more scatters will trigger 10 free spins. During the free spins, any wild that is not part of a winning combination, will be collected. Once you have three, the three stashed wilds will be added to the reels and usually guarantee a winning combination as well. This will usually happen once but may happen twice during your 10 free spins. Indeed, you’re likely to hope wilds won’t be part of a winning spin because it will feel like a wasted opportunity when that happens. Stashed wilds are much more valuable and guarantee bigger wins than a single wild could.

Conclusion

The theoretical RTP (Return to Players) of Wild Scarab is 96.38%. That’s good value and since you will win frequently, albeit only small amounts, you won’t be digging into your funds dangerously when playing this slot.

The two wild bonus features can bring big wins to keep you going, but this slot won’t keep you interested for very long. It’s nice enough, pretty enough and overall fairly simple in gameplay. If you need more excitement, you will eventually move on. But if you need something easy on your budget and like the theme, Wild Scarab will hold your attention for a little while at least.