Spartacus Gladiator of Rome is the WMS slot built around Colossal Reels: a normal 5×4 reel set and a giant 5×12 set spinning side by side across 100 lines, with whole reels of wilds jumping from the small set to the big one. WMS is now part of Light & Wonder, and the online version arrived in July 2013 with a 95.94% return and free spins. The free demo below is a similar gladiator pokie, with no download.
Spartacus runs two reel sets at once. The main set on the left has five reels and four rows, and the Colossal set beside it has five reels and twelve rows; a couple of listings show the main set as 5×3, but most give 5×4. There are 100 paylines, and wins pay left to right from the leftmost reel for three or more matching symbols. Published bet ranges agree on a $250 maximum per spin, while minimums are listed anywhere from 1 cent to 50 cents, and one database says all 100 lines are only active from 50 cents. Most sources give the return as 95.94%, with a couple listing 95.98%; WMS publishes no figure. Volatility ratings run from low to high, and no hit frequency has been published. Databases put the maximum win at 4,000x the stake.
Spartacus Pokies Characteristics
Both reel sets spin together on every bet; how the 100 lines are divided between them is not published. The Spartacus logo is the wild: it substitutes for every symbol except the Colosseum scatter and lands in stacks on all reels, so it can cover a whole reel of the main set. The Colosseum scatter lands only on reels 1, 3 and 5, on either reel set.
There is no progressive jackpot, bonus buy or gamble feature listed for the original, and autoplay is available. Everything that matters happens in two places: the wild transfer, which can turn a Colossal reel fully wild, and the free spins.
The figures below are multiples of the total stake for five of a kind; WMS publishes no paytable, and the two databases that print one agree only on these values.
The two published tables differ on every three and four of a kind, so those values are left out. One database lists the Colosseum as a scatter paying 2x, 5x or 20x the bet for three, four or five, while other sources treat the same figures as part of the free spins. The top line, five Spartacus, is worth 5x the total bet, or $1,250 at the $250 maximum, so anything near the 4,000x ceiling has to come from many lines paying together when wild reels fill the Colossal set.
The Colossal Reels mechanic is the reason to play Spartacus. When a full stack of wilds covers a reel of the main set, that reel is copied to the matching reel of the Colossal set, which turns completely wild: twelve wild positions instead of four. It needs no player action and works in the base game and the free spins.
A wild reel on the big set covers twelve positions at once, so two or three of them together is the combination the game is built around. One review site calls Spartacus one of the first WMS games built this way; the studio also used the layout for KISS, Giants Gold, Van Helsing, Forbidden Dragons and Red Riding Hood.
Three, four or five Colosseum scatters on reels 1, 3 and 5, counted across both reel sets, award 8, 12 or 20 free spins. More scatters during the feature retrigger it, and no source gives a cap. Stacked wilds keep landing on the main set and full wild reels still copy across, so the feature is the base game’s engine with more chances to run.
Each trigger also comes with a 2x, 5x or 20x award, and here the sources disagree. Some describe it as a multiplier on the free spins; others list it as a one-off scatter pay of 2x, 5x or 20x the bet, and one database prints it in the paytable as the Colosseum’s own pay. That points to a one-off pay, but WMS publishes nothing that settles it, so the game’s help screen is the place to check before counting on multiplied free-spin wins.
At 95.94% Spartacus keeps a little over 4 cents of every dollar bet over the long run. With no official volatility rating and published ratings from low to high, the better guide is the game’s shape: the top line pays only 5x the stake, so the base game returns mostly small amounts, while the 4,000x ceiling depends on several wild reels copying across at once. No source says how often the free spins arrive, so a budget should allow for long stretches without them.
At 50 cents a spin, the lowest stake one database says covers all 100 lines, $50 buys 100 spins, and the long-run cost of that turnover is about $2.03. At $2 a spin the same $50 lasts 25 spins: the cost per dollar is the same, but the wild transfer and the free spins get a quarter of the chances to appear.
WMS followed the original with Spartacus Call to Arms, dated April 2017 by one database: a 5×4 main set with a bonus reel on either side, where wilds on the bonus reels move onto the main reels and pay multipliers of up to 500x in the base game and 1,000x in free spins. Spartacus Megaways arrived in late 2020 with a listed 96.32% return and a 12,500x cap. Super Colossal Reels, published under SG Digital in February 2021, brought back the two-set layout with a double-size fifth reel on the Colossal set carrying multiplier wilds of 2x to 25x, and up to 100x in free spins.
Eye of Spartacus is not part of the family: it is a Pragmatic Play game from June 2025 with five reels and 15 lines that shares only the name. Super Colossal Reels also uses two reel sets, so the full title, Spartacus Gladiator of Rome, is what identifies the original reviewed here.
The setting is ancient Rome and the gladiator arena. Spartacus is the top symbol, with a female gladiator, a helmeted fighter, a lion, gold helmets and a sword and shield below him, card suits at the bottom and the Colosseum as the scatter. The look is defined by the layout rather than the art: a normal reel set on the left and a tower of twelve rows on the right, with whole wild reels jumping across. Card suits take the place of the usual ten to ace royals. Online the game runs on desktop and mobile.
We found no evidence of Spartacus on Australian club, pub or casino floors. WMS was active here, with Australian facilities and, from July 2009, eBet Gaming Systems as its exclusive distributor in New South Wales, but none of the ACT approval notices we checked contains a Spartacus game, and WMS’s line-up for the 2011 Australasian Gaming Expo did not include it; the ACT check covered a sample of notices, not the full register. Online, no source shows Light & Wonder offering Spartacus to Australian players, and Australian law does not allow online pokies to be offered to people in Australia, so availability varies and a lobby search for the title is the way to check. We found no official free demo from Light & Wonder or WMS; the free-play versions we found are on review sites.
Spartacus suits players who like a game with one clear idea and are happy to wait for it: the base game pays small amounts on 100 lines, and the session turns on full wild reels copying across to the Colossal set. It does not suit anyone who wants a published volatility rating, a jackpot or a bonus buy, and 95.94% is fair rather than generous. The one thing to check is the free-spins rules screen, because sources disagree on whether the 2x, 5x and 20x figures multiply the free spins or pay once.
Most databases list 95.94%, and a couple give 95.98%. WMS and Light & Wonder publish no official figure.
Land three, four or five Colosseum scatters on reels 1, 3 and 5, counted across both reel sets, for 8, 12 or 20 free spins. More scatters during the feature retrigger it.
Databases list 4,000x the stake, which would be $1,000,000 at the $250 maximum. WMS publishes no maximum, and the top single line pays 5x the total bet.
Two reel sets that spin together: a 5×4 main set and a 5×12 Colossal set. When a full stack of wilds covers a reel of the main set, the matching Colossal reel turns wild.
No Australian venue approval was found, and no source shows Light & Wonder offering it to Australian players online. Availability varies, so a lobby search for the title is the way to check.
No. Eye of Spartacus is a 2025 Pragmatic Play game with 15 lines. The WMS sequels are Call to Arms, Spartacus Megaways and Super Colossal Reels.
