Cleopatra pokies are the IGT Egyptian slot machine most players picture: five reels, 20 paylines, a Cleopatra wild that doubles wins and a Sphinx that opens 15 free spins with every win tripled, retriggering up to 180 spins. The Cleopatra slot returns 95.02% and has barely changed since going online in 2012. The free demo below is a similar Egyptian pokie, no download.
The original Cleopatra runs on a 5×3 grid with 20 lines you can switch on or off. The smallest spin is 20 cents with all lines active, and the top bet depends on the casino, with most online versions stopping somewhere between $200 and $600. The published return to player is 95.02%, a figure Wizard of Odds has confirmed from the reel strips at 95.025%, and the hit rate with 20 lines active is about 36% of spins. That is a mid-range profile: frequent small wins, a bonus that arrives roughly once every 138 spins, and a top line prize of 10,000 times the line bet.
Cleopatra Pokies Characteristics
Pick a line bet, set the number of lines and spin. Wins pay left to right on active lines, and only the highest win on each line counts. Two of the symbols behave differently from the rest. The Cleopatra symbol is wild: it stands in for every symbol except the Sphinx, and any line win it completes is paid double. The Sphinx is the scatter, paying on the total bet wherever it lands and opening the free spins when three or more appear.
There is no gamble feature, no bonus wheel and no jackpot in the base version. What you get is the one bonus round, and the reason the game has lasted is that the round is worth waiting for.
Line wins are listed below as multiples of the line bet, for two, three, four and five of a kind. With 20 lines active, divide by 20 to get the win as a multiple of your total spin.
The Sphinx pays on the total bet rather than the line bet: two anywhere return double your spin, three pay 5x, four pay 20x and five pay 100x. Because the Sphinx pays anywhere on the screen, it is the symbol that keeps the balance ticking over between bonuses.
Three, four or five Sphinx symbols anywhere on the reels award 15 free spins. Every win during the feature is tripled, with one exception: a line of five Cleopatras pays its 10,000x at face value rather than 30,000x. The Cleopatra wild still doubles the wins it completes inside the feature, so a wild-assisted line win is paid six times its base value.
Three or more Sphinxes during the free spins add another 15, up to a ceiling of 180 spins from one trigger. In practice the average bonus runs for about 17 spins, and reaching the cap is close to impossible. The free spins contribute roughly a quarter of the game’s total return, which is why a session without a bonus tends to drift downward and a session with two or three can finish well ahead.
A 95.02% return means that, over a very large number of spins, the game keeps about 5 cents of every dollar bet. Over a short session the result can sit anywhere around that average. The medium volatility rating fits the maths: the scatter pays often enough to slow the decline, and the tripled free spins give the game its upside without the long droughts of a high-volatility pokie.
At 20 cents a spin, $20 buys 100 spins, which is enough to see the bonus once on an average run but no guarantee of it. At $1 a spin, the same money lasts 20 spins. If you want to see the feature, a smaller line bet across all 20 lines gives you more spins, and the Sphinx counts wherever it lands, so there is no reason to switch lines off.
IGT has reused the name several times, and the sequels play differently enough to treat them as separate games.
If a casino lists “Cleopatra” without a suffix, it is normally the original 2012 online version described on this page.
Cleopatra looks its age. The symbols are flat drawings on a plain blue background, there is no background music, and the only sounds are a drum on each spin, a short tune on a win and Cleopatra’s voice during the feature. Plenty of players prefer it that way: the game loads quickly, the reels spin fast and nothing gets in the way of the paytable. It runs in HTML5, so phones and tablets get the same game as desktop, with the paytable and settings moved behind a menu button.
IGT supplies gaming machines to Australian clubs and casinos through IGT (Australia), and Cleopatra cabinets have been a fixture of land-based floors in the United States for two decades. Online, IGT distributes its games to regulated markets such as the United Kingdom and New Jersey, and Australian law doesn’t allow licensed online casinos at all. The offshore casinos we review for Australian players don’t carry IGT in their lobbies, so you won’t find Cleopatra at StayCasino, Spin Samurai or the others on our list. The closest Egyptian pokies they do carry are Sun of Egypt 3, which Wanted Win and Richard Casino use for their welcome spins, and Pragmatic Play’s Eye of Cleopatra. Both use a modern hold-and-win or expanding-symbol feature rather than Cleopatra’s plain tripled free spins.
Cleopatra is a simple, fair pokie with one strong feature and a return that is a little under the 96% most modern online games publish. It suits players who like 20-line play, want frequent scatter pays and are happy to wait for a bonus that can pay well when the wild shows up. If you want a bigger ceiling, Cleopatra II’s rising multiplier is the better pick; if you want to play for jackpots, the MegaJackpots version trades return for the chance at a progressive.
The original online Cleopatra returns 95.02%. Cleopatra II is around 95.9%, Cleopatra Plus 96.5% and the MegaJackpots version roughly 91% to 92.5%.
Land three or more Sphinx symbols anywhere on the five reels. You get 15 free spins with all wins tripled, and three more Sphinxes during the feature add another 15, up to 180.
Yes. Any line win that includes the Cleopatra symbol is doubled, except a line made only of Cleopatras. Inside the free spins the doubling stacks with the 3x multiplier.
Five Cleopatra symbols on a line pay 10,000 times the line bet, which is 500 times the total bet with 20 lines active. Each casino also sets its own cash cap per spin.
Demo versions exist on sites that serve regulated markets where IGT’s online games are licensed. We don’t host an IGT demo here, and the casinos we review for Australians don’t carry the game.
