Book of Dead — the expanding symbol and what it decides
Updated: August 2026
Almost everything people remember about this Play'n GO release comes down to one moment: the card that is turned over before the free spins start. Book of Dead has been in circulation since 2016, it sits in the slot shelf of the Crownplay lobby, and its reputation rests on a bonus round that can end flat or explosive depending on a single random draw. The sections below start with that draw, then work outward to the maths, the stakes in Swiss francs and the regulatory situation.
The draw before the free spins
Three or more book symbols anywhere on the screen award ten free spins. Before the first of them runs, the game cycles through its own paytable and picks one symbol at random. That pick is the whole story of the round. When the chosen symbol appears during the free spins it expands to fill its reel and pays from any position, without needing neighbouring reels to line up. Draw a top-tier character and a single lucky screen can carry the entire round; draw a low card value and the same ten spins may barely cover the trigger. Three books landing again inside the round extends it, which is where the biggest results usually come from.
The book itself does double duty. It substitutes for other symbols as a wild on a line, and it counts as a scatter regardless of where it stops. That combination is the reason the title has been copied so often across the industry.
Reading the payout ratio correctly
The standard build is quoted at 96.21 per cent. Play'n GO, however, also distributes lower-paying configurations of the same game, and operators choose which one they load. Treat any figure on a review page — including this one — as a starting point and confirm it in the info panel of the game you actually opened. The panel sits behind the menu or rules icon and lists the payout ratio, the paytable and the line count in a couple of screens.
Volatility is high, and the ceiling is 5'000 times the stake. Those two facts belong together: a high cap only exists because ordinary spins pay back very little, so long quiet stretches are the price of the rare large hit rather than a sign that something is wrong.
Grid, lines and the gamble step
The layout is conventional on purpose — five reels, three rows and ten paylines, with the active line count adjustable from one to ten. Reducing lines lowers the cost per spin but also the number of ways a win can form, so it changes the shape of a session more than most players expect. After a paid win in the base game the optional gamble step appears, offering a guess on the colour or the suit of a card; a wrong call takes the whole win.
Stakes, limits and wagering in CHF
Stakes commonly run from 0.10 CHF to 100 CHF per spin, with the exact range decided by the operator. On the account side Crownplay quotes 20 CHF as the minimum deposit by card or e-wallet, 25 CHF by bank transfer and roughly 50 CHF in crypto, with withdrawals from 20 CHF and a release window of up to 24 hours — up to 48 hours for a first payout with identity checks. Deposit routes are listed under Payments and walked through step by step under How to deposit. If a bonus is running, slots normally contribute 100 per cent toward the usual 35x requirement, while the per-spin cap during wagering is typically 5 CHF; the fine print is under Wagering and Free spins.
The Swiss angle
Crownplay operates without a Swiss concession, and in Switzerland only licensed land-based casinos may extend their permit to online play. Everything else ends up on the blocking list maintained by the ESBK and Gespa, which Swiss internet providers enforce at DNS level, so access from a Swiss connection may simply stop working. The practical consequence is not moral but procedural: the national self-exclusion register covers Swiss casinos and large-scale games only, so it does not reach a foreign platform, and only the operator's own account limits remain — see Self-exclusion. Winnings from foreign online casinos also fall outside the tax exemption written for concession holders, a difference worth clarifying with an adviser rather than a forum. Play is restricted to adults; support material is collected under Responsible gambling.