Le Pharaoh slot review
Released in September 2024, Le Pharaoh is Hacksaw Gaming’s follow-up slot to its immensely popular Le Bandit from a year prior. The medium-volatility game retains the 6×5 grid but drops the original’s cluster pays mechanic in favor of 19 paylines and Sticky Re-drops.
Le Pharaoh’s RTP clocks in at 96.18%, the max win gets bumped up to 15,000x, and the game introduces Bonus Choice for landing 3 or 4 FS scatters, which gives it a total of 5 bonus rounds. This Le Pharaoh slot review breaks it all down in more detail.
Highlights
RTP 96.18%
Volatility Medium
Stakes range 50
Max win 15000x
Number of reels 6
Number of rows 5-
Number of paylines 19 -
Jackpots No -
Slot type Slots -
Slot theme Egyptian -
Software provider Hacksaw Gaming -
Launch date 26/09/2024
81/ 100
79% Playscore based on 7 critics
Le Pharaoh slot review summary
Le Pharaoh is a familiar face in a new place, as the sequel to Le Bandit places the scheming Smokey the Raccoon in front of Egyptian pyramids. But don’t worry about him frying in the scorching sun; the beloved mascot is in the shade of palm trees and next to an oasis.
If you’re a fan of the original, you’ll be familiar with the 6×5 grid Smokey is standing next to. But there have been a few changes here besides the disguise, including 19 paylines and Sticky Re-drops instead of cluster pays.
That said, Golden Squares are still a thing. A Rainbow still activates them to reveal Coins worth 0.2x to 500x your stake, though Clover multipliers now go up to 20x and the new Golden Clovers apply to all Coins and Pots of Gold on the grid.
The 2 new bonuses are the cherry on top of the revamped setup. You can now choose between regular free spins modes and Hold and Win rounds with refilling lives whenever you land 3 or 4 FS scatters at the same time.
Pros
3 free spins rounds
2 Hold and Win bonuses
Golden Clovers and new 20x multipliers
Cons
3 lower-RTP versions
Non-purchasable hidden epic bonus
Low symbol values
Le Pharaoh comprehensive review
My in-depth Le Pharaoh slot review covers everything you need to know before playing the game. In this section, I delve into the RTP and volatility, break down the bonus features, explore the paytable, and show you how and where to play this Hacksaw Gaming slot.
RTP and volatility
The Le Pharaoh slot’s RTP sits at 96.18%, though there are 3 other lower-RTP versions: 94.33%, 92.26%, and 88.24%. Variance is rated 3/5, which places the game in the medium-volatility bucket.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| RTP | 96.18% |
| Maximum win | 15,000x |
| Number of paylines | 19 |
| Volatility | Medium |
It’s played on a 6×5 grid with 19 paylines.
With a 96.18% RTP, Le Pharaoh stays roughly in line with the industry average, even if it’s a slight decrease from Le Bandit’s 96.34%. Nonetheless, the difference between the default and the 88.24% RTP version is huge. And while that’s still better than, say, Wolf Blaze WowPot Megaways’ RTP of 86.93%, you should check what kind of damage you’re walking into beforehand.
Hacksaw Gaming labels Le Pharaoh as medium-volatility, and that felt true to my experience. I played 3 100-spin sessions on the default 96.18% version, and wins occurred fairly frequently across all 3, with a roughly equal number of small hits and decent payouts.
Bonus features
Le Pharaoh relies on a fairly complex setup with 3 main features: Sticky Re-drops, Golden Riches, and Bonus Choice.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Bonus features | Wilds, scatters, Sticky Re-drops, Golden Riches, 5 bonus rounds, Bonus Choice, and feature buys |
| Top features | Rainbow Over the Pyramids |
| Jackpot | N/A |
Sticky Re-drops
Form a winning combination with 3–6 matching symbols, and they’ll stick to the reels while the positions behind them turn into Golden Squares. This also triggers a re-drop, which makes all other squares except those with FS scatters and Rainbow symbols respin.
If a re-drop yields symbols that improve your win or create a new combo, you get another one, and the feature continues until no further wins can form or existing ones can be improved. Scatters and Rainbows also stick alongside winning symbols, but they don’t create Golden Squares.
Golden Riches
This feature triggers if a Rainbow is present at the end of a re-drop when Golden Squares are already on the grid. These positions then activate to reveal either:
- Bronze Coins worth 0.2x, 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, or 4x your bet
- Silver Coins worth 5x, 10x, 15x, or 20x your bet
- Gold Coins worth 25x, 50x, 100x, 250x, or 500x your bet
- Green Clovers, which multiply Coins and Pots of Gold on adjacent positions by 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, or 20x
- Gold Clovers, which multiply all Coins and Pots of Gold on the grid by 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, or 20x
- Pots of Gold, which collect and store the values of all Coins and other Pots of Gold and retrigger all Golden Squares to reveal new symbols
Free Spins
Landing 3–5 scatter symbols triggers one of the 3 free spins rounds. What you’re awarded depends on the number of scatters you hit at the same time:
- Luck of the Pharaoh (3 scatters, 10 free spins): The first bonus mode uses the base game’s Sticky Re-drops and Golden Riches mechanics and ensures all Golden Squares stay on the grid throughout the feature, even after being activated by a Rainbow.
- Super Luck of the Pharaoh (4 scatters, 12 free spins): Besides granting more spins, the super version of the bonus guarantees you’ll see a Clover whenever Golden Riches activates. It also boosts your odds of landing higher-value Coins and Pots of Gold.
- Rainbow Over the Pyramids (5 scatters, 12 free spins): The final bonus retains the same setup as Luck of the Pharaoh and builds on it with a guaranteed Rainbow symbol on every spin.
Additional scatters during the bonus also extend all 3 free spins modes. Hitting 2 of these symbols gets you 2 extra spins to work with, while landing 3 awards 4.
Bonus Choice
Besides the 3 regular free spins modes, Le Pharaoh also includes 2 additional bonus games, and they both come with 2 types of special Stone Tablet symbols:
- Adding Stone Tablets add values of 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x, 50x, 100x, 250x, or 500x to 1 random Coin on each respin.
- Multiplying Stone Tablets multiply the value of 1 random Coin per respin by 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, or 20x.
The 2 extra rounds are available through the Bonus Choice menu. Land 3 FS scatters and you can pick between Luck of the Pharaoh and Lost Treasures. Meanwhile, hitting 4 FS scatters gives you a choice between Super Luck of the Pharaoh and Super Lost Treasures.
- Lost Treasures: This round starts you off with 3 lives; each spin costs 1 life, and every Coin, Clover, Pot of Gold, or Stone Tablet resets the life meter to 3. Coins and Clovers stick to the grid until a Pot of Gold collects them, whereas Stone Tablets remain sticky until the feature ends after you get 3 spins with no special symbols in a row.
- Super Lost Treasures: The super variant builds on the previous round’s mechanics by starting you off with an Adding Stone Tablet on the first spin. You also get better odds of landing higher-value Coins and more Pot of Gold symbols.
Buy Bonus
There are 4 feature buys here:
- For 3x your stake, you can activate BonusHunt FeatureSpins, which give all spins a 5x higher chance of triggering a bonus.
- For 60x your stake, you can activate Rainbow FeatureSpins, where each spin with a winning combo will also have at least 1 Rainbow.
- For 100x your stake, you can choose between Luck of the Pharaoh with 10 free spins and Lost Treasures with 3 refilling lives.
- For 250x your stake, you can choose between Super Luck of the Pharaoh with 12 free spins and Super Lost Treasures with 3 refilling lives.
The final bonus round (Rainbow Over the Pyramids) can’t be purchased and has no equivalent with refilling lives.
Le Pharaoh may not reinvent the wheel, but unlike Le Football Fan, which is just a visual reskin of the original, this one brings quite a few upgrades and new features. For starters, there are now 20x multipliers and Golden Clovers that apply to all Coins and Pots of Gold on the grid.
Being able to choose between regular free spins modes and 2 other bonus games with refillable lives is also a nice extra. That said, the Hold and Win mechanics here didn’t feel as rewarding as I had hoped it would, and my wins didn’t amount to much the 2 times I chose Lost Treasures over Luck of the Pharaoh.
So, I’d argue that the 3 free spins rounds are still the highlight. And even if I don’t like Hacksaw Gaming teasing Rainbow Over the Pyramids as a feature you can’t buy your way into, 12 free spins with a guaranteed Rainbow on each have a lot of potential to turn into pretty hefty wins.
Symbols and paytable
Le Pharaoh’s paytable consists of 5 card royals and 5 Egyptian mythology-inspired icons for a total of 10 regular-paying symbols. Winning combinations require 3–6 matching symbols across the grid’s 19 paylines.
When it comes to the lower-paying group, there are no differences in terms of payouts for combinations of 3 and 4 symbols, which are 0.1x and 0.2x, respectively, for all 5 card ranks. However, bigger 5- and 6-symbol combos do differ:
- 10: Pays out 0.3x for 5 and 0.5x for 6 symbols
- J: Pays out 0.3x for 5 and 0.6x for 6 symbols
- Q: Pays out 0.4x for 5 and 0.6x for 6 symbols
- K: Pays out 0.4x for 5 and 0.7x for 6 symbols
- A: Pays out 0.5x for 5 and 0.7x for 6 symbols
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Theme | Ancient Egypt |
| Reel layout | 6×5 |
| Highest paying symbol | Scarab |
| Adjustable paylines | N/A |
| Visuals | Cartoonish |
| Sound | Mystical |
| Mobile quality | Good |
The higher-paying symbols are hourglass, crook & flail, eye of Horus, ankh, and scarab. Here’s what they’re worth across combinations of 3, 4, 5, and 6 symbols:
- Hourglass, crook & flail: 0.3x, 0.5x, 1x, and 1.5x
- Eye of Horus, ankh: 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x, and 2x
- Scarab: 1x, 1.5x, 2x, and 3x
Wilds are represented by scrolls depicting Smokey the Raccoon disguised as a pharaoh and substitute for all other regular paying symbols. They also pay out 3x if you line up 6 of them.
On their own, winning combinations in Le Pharaoh simply don’t cut it. Unless you’re consistently landing 5- and 6-symbol combos, which certainly wasn’t the case for me, these numbers are so low that they’re practically irrelevant.
The real wins here come almost exclusively from Sticky Re-drops and Golden Riches. I was lucky enough to connect upwards of 6 re-drops a few times, which would then activate 15+ Golden Squares with a Rainbow and make up for both dead spins and low-paying wins I had endured up until that point.
How to play Le Pharaoh
There are 27 total values between the game’s minimum bet of $0.10 and the maximum of $50, and you adjust your stake by clicking/tapping the up and down arrows. Right next to these is the spin button, but you can also enable autoplay to the right of it.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Min bet | $0.10 |
| Max bet | $50 |
| Autoplay | Available |
| Turbo mode | Available |
| Game history | N/A |
The autoplay menu lets you set up 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 500, or 1,000 hands-free spins, place loss and single-win limits, and configure autoplay to stop if you land a bonus.
The main menu sits on the left, with options to mute the music or all sounds, enable Turbo and Super Turbo across the base game, the bonus rounds, or both, and access the info page.
Lastly, there’s the Buy Bonus button to the left of it all. Click it, and you can control the bet size at the top, with the prices of the 4 feature buys immediately reflecting the stake you set.
Expert verdict
Hacksaw Gaming has done it again. While the original Le Bandit was a masterpiece, Le Pharaoh definitely takes it a step further. Sure, its theme has been done countless times, and the paytable is thin, but the changes in terms of mechanics make up for these drawbacks.
From the smaller additions like the 20x Clover multipliers and the new Gold Clovers to a decent bump in max win, which now sits at 15,000x from the original release’s 10,000x, Le Pharaoh offers quite a few upgrades that can be worth your while.
But what makes this sequel feel like a brand-new game is the revamp of the pay mechanic. In this iteration, cluster pays get replaced by 19 paylines, with Sticky Re-drops and Golden Riches capable of potentially building up to some pretty substantial payouts.
The 2 extra Hold and Win bonuses are the obvious cherry on top. While they’re a hit or miss depending on your luck, just having the ability to choose between traditional free spins modes and these new bonuses is worth an extra point.
FAQs
What is the RTP of Le Pharaoh?
Le Pharaoh’s RTP is 96.18% in the top configuration, though Hacksaw Gaming also offers 3 other versions with RTPs of 94.33%, 92.26%, and 88.24%.
What is the maximum win potential in Le Pharaoh?
The game’s max win is 15,000x your stake. This puts a potential $750,000 payout on the table if you spin at the $50 max bet.
How do I trigger free spins?
Le Pharaoh’s bonuses are triggered by 3–5 FS scatters. Land 3, and you can choose between 10 free spins for Luck of the Pharaoh or Lost Treasures with 3 refillable lives. With 4 scatters, your options are Super Luck of the Pharaoh with 12 free spins or Super Lost Treasures. Rainbow Over the Pyramids requires 5 FS scatters and also awards 12 free spins.
Is this a high-volatility slot?
No, Le Pharaoh is a medium-volatility game, with a provider’s rating of 3/5.
