Pompeii pokies are one of Aristocrat’s early Reel Power games, a fixture of Australian club floors since the mid-2000s. It plays 243 ways, and a volcano wild lands only on reels 2 and 4; in the free games those volcanoes multiply wins by 3x or 5x, or 15x when both join one win. The online return is 95.45%. The free demo below is a similar Roman pokie, with no download.
The game runs on five reels and three rows in Aristocrat’s Reel Power format: you buy reels rather than lines, and with all five bought every one of the 243 ways is live. On the club machine the options are 3, 9, 27, 81 or 243 ways for 1 to 25 credits; the online version simply charges 25 credits for all 243 ways and lets you multiply the bet by 1 to 5, so with coins from 1 cent to $1 a spin costs between 25 cents and $125. The online return to player is 95.45% by most published figures, with one database quoting 95.40%. Club and pub machines are set by the venue and are generally lower. Volatility is high: the wild is confined to two reels, the base game has no multipliers, and the value is concentrated in the free games, where the top pay of 2,500 credits per way for five amulets becomes 37,500 with the 15x wilds.
Pompeii Pokies Characteristics
Wins pay left to right on adjacent reels starting from reel 1, and because the game is all-ways, every combination of matching symbols on consecutive reels pays, with the results added together. Card symbols nine and ten pay from two of a kind; everything else needs three. The erupting volcano is the wild: it appears only on reels 2 and 4, substitutes for every symbol except the gold coin, and pays nothing of its own. The Caesar gold coin is the trigger symbol. It pays as a normal symbol on adjacent reels from the left, and three or more of them start the free games.
After any win you can take the gamble: red or black doubles the win, the suit quadruples it, and a wrong guess loses the amount staked. On the club machine you can gamble half or all of the win; the online version gambles the whole amount.
Prizes below are in credits per way at the 1x bet multiplier, which is the 25-credit spin. Multiply by your bet multiplier for the actual win.
Five amulets on one way pay 100 times the total bet at the 1x multiplier. Because the same symbol on consecutive reels can form several ways at once, a screen with amulets stacked on two or three reels pays that figure several times over, which is how the game produces its big base-game results without any multiplier.
Three, four or five gold coins on adjacent reels from the left award 10, 15 or 20 free games at the triggering bet. The free games are where the volcanoes earn their keep: a wild on reel 2 that completes a win triples it, a wild on reel 4 multiplies it by 5, and a win that runs through both volcanoes is multiplied by 15. The original machine’s help text applies the multipliers during the free games, and that is how the online version plays too.
Three or more coins during the feature retrigger it with another 10, 15 or 20 games, and no cap is published. A feature without a double-volcano win pays like a stretch of base game with a few 3x and 5x lines; a feature with a 15x amulet or helmet line is the result players talk about, and it is why the game is rated high volatility despite the modest paytable.
At 95.45% the online game keeps about 4.5 cents of every dollar over the long run, half a point or so under the modern norm and a point or two better than a typical venue setting. The variance is the thing to plan for. At 25 cents a spin, $25 buys 100 spins, which is a fair run at seeing the free games once; the reviewer tests we found measured a win on roughly one spin in four in the base game, so a session is quiet until the coins land. Reel Power’s buy-reels structure means a cheaper spin on the club machine also means fewer ways, so most regulars play all 243 at the lowest credit value, and the gamble is best left alone unless you want to turn a small win into a coin flip.
Pompeii Legends (2014) is a dual-game cabinet that pairs the unchanged original, sold as Pompeii Classic, with Pompeii Deluxe. The Deluxe version gives 15, 20 or 25 free games for three, four or five coins, adds a re-spin for each volcano that lands, keeps the 3x, 5x and 15x multipliers and retriggers more often. Pompeii is also one of the four base games in Aristocrat’s Wonder 4 cabinets alongside Buffalo, Wicked Winnings II and 5 Dragons, where the Super Free Games run up to six reel sets at once and the cabinet adds its own jackpots. In the Heart of Vegas social app you will find both the original and the Deluxe version. There is also a 20-line online Pompeii in some regulated US markets with a wheel bonus and a progressive, which is a different game that happens to share the name.
The setting is the Roman city under Mount Vesuvius: a gold and ruby snake amulet, a legionary’s helmet, sword and shield, a chariot and Caesar’s gold coin as the picture symbols, nines to aces for the low pays, and the erupting volcano as the wild. It is an early-2000s MK6 design, flat reels, simple animations and Roman trumpet stings, and the online port keeps that look rather than modernising it. The browser version runs on desktop and in landscape on phones and tablets.
Pompeii is an Australian-designed game and has been on club and pub floors here for about two decades, both as a stand-alone cabinet and inside Pompeii Legends and Wonder 4 machines. Online is the usual Aristocrat story: the company does not offer its real-money games to Australian players, and the offshore casinos we review for Australians do not carry Aristocrat in their lobbies. Free play is through Heart of Vegas or third-party demo sites, which embed a version of the online game. The closest real-money alternatives at the casinos on our list are the Roman and volcano-themed pokies from studios such as Pragmatic Play, and none of them uses Reel Power or the two-reel volcano multiplier.
Pompeii is a high-variance Aristocrat classic with one great idea: two wild reels whose multipliers combine. The base game is slow and the 95.45% return is slightly under the online norm, but the free games can pay 15 times a strong line, and the all-ways format means a good screen pays many times over. It suits players who know the Reel Power games and want the volcano feature specifically; if you want the same engine with more free games and re-spins, look for Pompeii Deluxe on a Legends cabinet or in Heart of Vegas.
95.45% for the online version by most published figures, with one database quoting 95.40%. Club and pub machines are set by the venue and are not published per game.
10 for three gold coins, 15 for four and 20 for five, on adjacent reels from the left. Three or more coins during the feature retrigger it.
They are wilds on reels 2 and 4 only. In the free games a reel 2 volcano triples a win, a reel 4 volcano multiplies it by 5, and both together multiply by 15.
Not in the original. The top fixed pay is 2,500 credits per way for five amulets, or 37,500 with the 15x wilds in the free games. Wonder 4 cabinets add jackpots at the cabinet level.
Aristocrat’s all-ways format. You buy reels instead of lines, and with all five bought every one of the 243 ways across the 5×3 grid can pay.
Not through Aristocrat, which restricts its online games to regulated markets. The game is widely available in Australian venues, and online play is free play only.
