Review

Lucky Pharaoh Slot Review: Two RTPs and One Catch

In short — our verdict: 6.6/10 — Lucky Pharaoh is a ten-line MERKUR slot that Blueprint Gaming runs online, and we score it 6.6/10. Its showcase 96.25% return only applies when a player stakes a win that could have been collected in full.

You get ten fixed lines, ten symbols and one optional feature, and the game prints its own return: 94%. We played 101 spins at 1.00 in Blueprint Gaming's demo and read every rule to see what that figure, and the bigger ones printed beside it, really cover.

By ✓ Fact-checkedWhy trust us: how we test

Published

6.6/ 10

  • Transparency of rules8.0
  • Paytable value5.5
  • Feature fairness5.0
  • Ceiling honesty7.5
  • Demo access7.0
Lucky Pharaoh demo at the start: balance 1,000.00, bet 1.00
Blueprint Gaming's demo on : 1,000.00 credits, a 1.00 bet and no currency named anywhere on screen. Source: our own screenshot.
Table of contents

Lucky Pharaoh Strengths and Weaknesses

Pros: What Works Well

  • Pro: The rules screen prints both return figures and the win limit, and the game server repeats those numbers when the client loads.
  • Pro: A line pays wherever the run sits: on spin 21, three rubies on the middle three reels paid 6.00.
  • Pro: Power Spins let a player set the price per spin; a 16.00 win offered 4.00, 8.00, 12.00 or 16.00.
  • Pro: The free demo opens with 1,000.00 credits and needs no stake.
  • Pro: Ten symbols and one feature fit on a single paytable page, so nothing is hidden behind menus.

Cons: What Holds It Back

  • Con: The base game returns 94%, and the rules never say whether that figure assumes collecting or taking Power Spins.
  • Con: The 96.25% Power Spins figure is the return on staking a win that the COLLECT button would bank whole.
  • Con: X5000 counts line bets, so the diamond full screen is worth 500x the bet, not 5,000x.
  • Con: Volatility and hit rate are not published on any screen.
  • Con: For a 4.00 Power Spin the offer panel prints 2,000.00 as the top prize and the server 500.00, and nothing explains the gap.
  • Con: Everything here comes from the free demo; no casino's real-money copy was opened or checked.
First-hand test: On 2 November 2026 we opened Blueprint Gaming's own demo client and stepped through all 14 bet levels. We read the paytable, then the rules screen at a 1.00 and a 100.00 bet. Then we played 101 paid spins at 1.00. The first 20 were a trial run whose server answers we did not save; the server's full answer is on file for spins 21 to 101 and for the Power Spin. The balance went from 1,000.00 to 929.00. Seven spins paid, and the best was a 16.00 hit on four sapphire lines. We took one Power Spins offer, putting 4.00 of a 6.00 win into a spin whose four reel sets paid nothing. One oddity: the server's start-up message gives a minimum stake of 0.10, but the client has no 0.10 button and its lowest is 0.20. A hundred spins say nothing about RTP or volatility, and we don't treat them as if they did.

Our 101-spin Demo Session

MeasureResult
Paid spins at a 1.00 bet101
Opening balance1,000.00
Closing balance929.00
Total staked101.00
Total won on spins34.00
Spent on one Power Spin4.00
Winning spins7 of 101
Biggest single win16.00, four sapphire lines
Server replies on filespins 21 to 101, plus the Power Spin

Read on ; a source can change without saying so.

What Lucky Pharaoh Actually Is

Lucky Pharaoh is a MERKUR slot from German arcades that Blueprint Gaming, a UK studio in the same MERKUR GROUP (formerly Gauselmann), runs online. The client we opened, version 1.6.0.0, shows five reels of three symbols on 10 fixed lines, and both edges of the paytable carry the words WINS PAY ADJACENT. A win is three or more matching symbols side by side anywhere on a line: from the left, from the right, or across the centre on reels 2 to 4.

Lucky Pharaoh paytable: diamond 500, full screen X5000
The first paytable page in the demo, : ten symbols, ten lines and WINS PAY ADJACENT on both edges. Source: our own screenshot.

Ten symbols make up the whole game. Five are card ranks (10, J, Q, K and A) and four are gems (emerald, sapphire, ruby and diamond). The tenth is the logo, a mystery symbol that pays nothing itself and settles as one of the others.

Catalogues that promise free spins are wrong about this build. This build has no wild, no scatter, no jackpot and no card gamble. Its one feature, Power Spins, only appears after a win of four times the bet or more. The anywhere-on-a-line rule showed up early in our session: spin 21 paid three rubies on reels 2, 3 and 4, a run that touches neither edge of the screen.

Two RTP Figures, One Catch

The rules screen prints a 94% return to player for the base game and a separate "Power Spins RTP=96.25%", and the game server sends the same pair when the client loads. Volatility is not published. The rules, the paytable and the server's start-up message carry no rating, and the catalogues that print one disagree with each other.

Lucky Pharaoh rules screen: RTP 94%, Power Spins 96.25%
Captured at a 1.00 bet: two return figures, two limits and the version number, all on one GAME RULES page. Source: our own screenshot.

The 96.25% looks like the better deal, and on a closer reading it isn't. A Power Spin is paid for out of a win the player already holds, while the other button on the same offer, COLLECT, keeps 100% of that win. Staking it at 96.25% hands back, on average, 3.75% less than walking away with it. So the "higher" return is the return on a second bet, placed with money the game has just paid out.

One question stays open, and we won't guess at it. The rules do not say whether the 94% assumes a player who collects every offer or one who takes Power Spins. On the printed base figure, 6% of every stake stays with the game over the long run.

The Win Limit Depends on the Bet

The ceiling is two limits at once, and the lower one applies. The rules screen reads "The maximum win from a single game is: 250,000.00 / x50,000 total bet", and the server sends maxWinnings 250000.00 with a multiplier of 50000. Both meet at a 5.00 bet, because 50,000 × 5.00 = 250,000.00; below that the multiplier binds, above it the money figure takes over.

Lucky Pharaoh rules at a 100.00 bet, limit line unchanged
At 100.00 the line bet reads 10.00, but the limit line is word for word what it was at 1.00. Source: our own screenshot.
BetWin cap in creditsCap as a multiple of the betLimit that binds
0.2010,000.0050,000xthe multiplier
1.0050,000.0050,000xthe multiplier
5.00250,000.0050,000xboth at once
50.00250,000.005,000xthe money figure
100.00250,000.002,500xthe money figure

We read the rules screen at 1.00 and again at 100.00. The line bet changed from 0.10 to 10.00; the limit line didn't change by a single character.

Catalogues don't agree with the game, or even with themselves. Slotstemple prints "Max-win 100,000x" and, lower down the same page, "x250,000". The rules screen and the game server, by contrast, corroborate each other on 250,000.00 and 50,000x. One gap remains even there: the demo carries no currency, so it never says 250,000.00 of what.

Why X5000 Is Not 5,000x the Bet

The X5000 on the paytable counts line bets, not whole spins. The rules say "Wins are multiplied by the current line bet". At a 1.00 bet the line bet is 0.10, so a full screen of diamonds pays 5,000 × 0.10 = 500.00, which is 500x the bet. The best single line, five diamonds, pays 500 line bets: 50.00, or 50x.

Lucky Pharaoh: three rubies on one line paying 6.00
Three rubies pay 60 line bets, which at a 0.10 line bet is 6.00; captured in our demo session. Source: our own screenshot.

The server backs the arithmetic up. Three rubies on one line came back as payout="60" and winnings="6.00" on our 1.00 bet, exactly 60 line bets of 0.10.

Symbol3 / 4 / 5 of a kind, in line betsFive on a line at a 1.00 bet
Diamond100 / 300 / 50050.00
Ruby60 / 200 / 40040.00
Sapphire, emerald40 / 100 / 30030.00
A, K20 / 40 / 20020.00
Q, J, 1010 / 20 / 10010.00
Full screen of diamonds5,000500.00

jokerstar.de, a German casino site, writes "5.000x Einsatz (Vollbild Diamanten)" for both games in a comparison table on its Lucky Pharaoh Wild page. For this game that is ten times the real figure. What the error hides matters more. Up to a 5.00 bet the 50,000x limit sits a hundred times above the biggest base-game result, 500x; even at 100.00, where the cap is 2,500x, it is five times higher. Either way only a chain of Power Spins could reach it, never one ordinary spin.

How Power Spins Price a Win

Power Spins turn a win into a stake, and the price per spin is the player's call. On our 1.00 bet a 16.00 win opened the offer below, read from the server's own list:

Lucky Pharaoh Power Spins offer: four spins at 4.00
After our 16.00 win the panel offered four Power Spins at 4.00, with the plus button lit for a dearer price. Source: our own screenshot.
Price per Power SpinSpins the 16.00 buysTop prize per spin, server figure
4.004500.00
8.0021,000.00
12.0011,500.00
16.0012,000.00

Each Power Spin turns four reel sets at once, and the server returns four results for it. The cheapest price, 4.00, equals four sets at the 1.00 bet and matches the 4x trigger exactly, though no document says that is the reason. Every top prize is 125 times its price. The help page fills in the rest: "SELECT THE COST OF EACH POWER SPIN. ANY WIN FROM POWER SPINS CAN BE USED TO BUY MORE. TOTAL WON IS COLLECTED AUTOMATICALLY AFTER 5 SETS OF POWER SPINS".

We can't resolve one mismatch. The offer screen shows a top of 2,000.00 for a 4.00 spin while the server lists 500.00. The two agree only if the screen counts all four reel sets together, and no document says it does. Catalogues also blur the naming. Power Spins are neither free spins nor a bonus buy: they are bought with a win, and the panel labels the price "GAMBLE PER SPIN".

Playing Lucky Pharaoh for Money: Local Law Decides

Whether Lucky Pharaoh may be played for money depends on the law where you live, and this review names no casino as a place to play it. Everything above comes from Blueprint Gaming's free demo, which takes no stake and resets with the session. What a casino's copy runs, and in which currency its 250,000.00 limit is counted, the demo cannot show.

A licence comes first. Look the casino up in its own regulator's register before anything else, and only then open the game's rules screen. A copy of version 1.6.0.0 ought to print RTP=94%, Power Spins RTP=96.25% and the 250,000.00 / x50,000 limit line; we have not checked any casino's copy, so treat that as a comparison to make, not a promise.

Free help is open to anyone, wherever they play. Gambling Therapy, run by Gordon Moody, offers advice and support online, Gamblers Anonymous has a meeting finder, and most places also have a local helpline.

Lucky Pharaoh Wild Is Another Game

Lucky Pharaoh Wild is a separate title, and MERKUR's own article draws the line. It calls the base game "almost identical in both versions" and puts the difference in one symbol. In Wild the Pharaoh substitutes on the reels, while "The classic Lucky Pharaoh does not feature this symbol". The same article gives arcade code 845 for Wild against 257 for the original. Online listings put Wild on a different client, from Merkur Gaming and edict.

The difference matters because about 4 in 10 of the search results for "lucky pharaoh" in our sample are about Wild. MERKUR's article says two things in one paragraph: readers can find where to play Wild "through our online offerings", and Wild "awaits you exclusively in the arcades". jokerstar.de lists it online with a release date of , and starcasino.be lists it as well. We did not open Lucky Pharaoh Wild, so none of its numbers appear in this review.

Who Licenses the Online Client

Blueprint Gaming Limited holds UK Gambling Commission account 6516, licence 006516-R-342989-001, with status Active. The register download we read on lists three remote activities. Gambling Software and Gaming Machine Technical Full both date from , and Game Host (Casino) from . The same file shows Edict eGaming GmbH, account 39835, as Active; edict is linked to the separate Lucky Pharaoh Wild client, not to this one.

Sweden's register adds a sister company, Blueprint Technologies (Malta) Ltd, with a game-software licence marked active from to . Neither entry is about players. A studio licence covers the company that builds the game and says nothing about any casino that might run a copy; only the casino's own regulator can answer that.

Three Power Spins Offers We Met

SpinWin on the tableOur choiceWhat came back
216.00, three rubies on one lineone Power Spin at 4.000.00 from four reel sets, plus the 2.00 left over
376.00, queens on six linesCOLLECT6.00 kept
10116.00, sapphires on four linesCOLLECT16.00 kept

Our Lucky Pharaoh Verdict and Rating

Verdict: Our score is 6.6/10. Lucky Pharaoh suits a player who wants a plain ten-line game with readable rules and treats Power Spins as an optional side bet rather than the game's better half. We'd collect most wins, because on the printed figures staking one at 96.25% returns 3.75% less on average than banking it. We do not recommend chasing the 50,000x line. The base game tops out at 500x, so getting there would take a run of Power Spins, each one staking at 96.25% a win that COLLECT would keep in full. Skip it if you want a volatility rating or a hit rate before you play, because the game publishes neither. Whether it may be played for money at all depends on the law where you live. Blueprint Gaming's free demo is the only version we describe, and the demo guide explains why we do not link it.

Key Terms Used on This Page

Line bet
The total bet divided by the ten fixed lines, so 0.10 at a 1.00 bet; every paytable figure is multiplied by it.
Power Spins
The optional feature opened by any win of 4x the bet or more, where part of that win buys spins that turn four reel sets at once.
COLLECT
The button on the Power Spins offer that banks the whole win, keeping 100% of it instead of staking it at 96.25%.
Mystery symbol
The LUCKY PHARAOH logo, one of ten symbols, with no payout of its own; in our one Power Spin three logos settled as three kings.
Win limit
The cap printed on the rules screen of version 1.6.0.0: 250,000.00 or 50,000 times the total bet, whichever is lower.

Not sure yet? The free demo runs on play money, with nothing at stake.

Try the free demo first →

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What Else Do Readers Ask?

Readers ask about the parts the paytable leaves vague: a gamble button, a jackpot, the release year and the demo's currency. Every answer comes from the client's own screens or the game server's replies in our session.

Does Lucky Pharaoh have a gamble feature?

No, this build has no card or ladder gamble. A win of 4x the bet or more offers COLLECT or Power Spins, priced as "GAMBLE PER SPIN".

Is there a jackpot in Lucky Pharaoh?

No, there is no progressive pool or jackpot counter, and the server lists none. One cap covers every win: 250,000.00 or 50,000x the bet, whichever is lower.

When was Lucky Pharaoh released?

The release date is not published. Blueprint Gaming has no page for the game, and client 1.6.0.0 prints a version but no date, so catalogue years stay unconfirmed.

Which currency does the free version use?

The free version uses none. The server sends an empty currency code and the balance simply starts at 1,000.00 credits, so the demo never names a currency.

How did we test Lucky Pharaoh?

Testing meant 101 paid spins at 1.00 on , server replies logged from spin 21, and the rules read at 1.00 and 100.00.