Book Of Montezuma Slot Review
Golden light spills over stepped stone ruins, palm fronds hang across the carved frame, and the jungle floor glows amber at the bottom of the screen. Amatic have painted their Mesoamerican setting warm and lush rather than dark and treasure-hungry, and there’s an argument the build matches the mood: on a four-row grid with only ten lines, this is a Book slot where a spin can feel eventful long before the bonus fires, because one double-height Explorer already puts a third of its reel into play.
Book Of Montezuma runs on five reels and four rows across 10 paylines, with high volatility and an RTP of 97.13%, a figure well above the norm and the strongest single reason to look twice. If the studio’s joker titles are more your speed, Fortune Joker 10 and Mr Magic are covered elsewhere on the site.
The Reels and the Book
Wins pay leftmost to right on adjacent reels, and with only ten lines across a four-row grid, each one carries plenty of weight. Twenty symbol positions is a small board by five-reel standards, so every line runs through positions that a single tall tile can dominate.
The double-height Explorer and Pyramid tiles give the board real presence when they land, filling two rows at a time and cutting down the number of positions available to everything else. A single Explorer covers two of the four rows on its reel, so one symbol already puts half of that reel into play, and a pair of them on neighbouring reels can complete a line on their own.
The Book itself does double duty as wild and scatter: it substitutes for every other symbol and pays on any position, with the paytable printing 20 for three, 200 for four and 2,000 for five. It’s also the only symbol that doesn’t need to sit on a payline to pay.
Below the Book, the paying symbols step down through six tiers, with pay values as printed on the game’s information screen:
- Explorer: 10 for two, 100 for three, 750 for four, 5,000 for five
- Pyramid: 5 for two, 40 for three, 400 for four, 1,000 for five
- Teal Mask: 5 for two, 20 for three, 100 for four, 400 for five
- Golden Coin (Aztec Calendar): 5 for two, 20 for three, 100 for four, 400 for five
- A and K: 5 for three, 40 for four, 75 for five
- Q, J and 10: 5 for three, 25 for four, 50 for five
The gap between the top and bottom of that ladder is steep. Five Explorers pay a hundred times what five queens pay, and even three Explorers beat five royals, so the double-height tiles carry most of the base game’s weight.
The two masks and the calendar coin sit in the middle, matching each other exactly, which means the mid-tier wins are common enough in shape but never large. Two-of-a-kind pays are worth a note as well: only the Explorer, the Pyramid, the masks and the calendar coin start paying from two symbols.
The Explorer’s two-symbol pay of 10 is unusually generous for a minimum combination – most slots pay nothing at all there. On a ten-line game, those small two-symbol hits are what keep the balance ticking between the big tiles landing.
Bonusspins and Powerspins
Bonusspins
Landing three or more Book symbols anywhere on the grid starts the 10 Bonusspins. Before the first spin resolves, an expanding symbol is drawn at random, and it can be any symbol in the game except the Book.
Wherever the chosen symbol lands during the round, it stretches to fill its entire reel and pays on every active line it touches, with no requirement that the rest of the combination sit on consecutive reels. That non-consecutive rule is the whole engine of a Book bonus: three expanded Explorers scattered across reels one, three and five still pay the five-of-a-kind rate on every line they touch.
Which symbol gets drawn matters more than usual here. An expanded Explorer fills its reel with the game’s richest payer, while an expanded royal pays the bottom of the ladder on every line it covers, so two otherwise identical rounds can differ enormously in what they return.
Powerspins
Powerspins are the mode that makes this more than a standard Book clone, and they key off a Golden Book symbol. The trigger depends on what lands beside it:
- A Golden Book with two or more regular Books anywhere on the reels wins 10 Powerspins
- A Golden Book with fewer than two regular Books anywhere on the reels wins 5 Powerspins
- Three or more Book symbols during Powerspins win an additional 5 Powerspins
Each Powerspin adds a layer on top of the Bonusspins setup. Whenever at least one expanding symbol is on the reels, one or two extra expanders are dropped onto randomly chosen positions, so a single spin can carry several full reels of the chosen symbol at once.
That’s where the four-row, ten-line format starts to matter. A full grid of expanded top symbols covers every line at once, and because the expanded symbols pay regardless of position, a board stacked with them is the one scenario where all ten lines fire together.
The retrigger is a flat five spins, not a fresh round, so the mode extends rather than resets. Landing three Books mid-sequence keeps the existing expanding symbols in play and simply adds to the counter, which is what makes a long Powerspins run compound rather than start over.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7.8/10
Playing this is a slow walk through those sunlit ruins: long stretches of thin ten-line spins, then a bonus that expands, stacks and occasionally floods the board. The one reason to choose it over the hundred other Book slots on the shelf is Powerspins, because dropping extra expanding symbols onto a four-row grid and letting retriggers pile up five spins at a time is the only place this format genuinely grows.
The weakness is everything either side of that mode. Ten lines is spare by modern standards, the ladder is top-heavy enough that most spins resolve low, and the base game offers nothing the genre hasn’t already given you.
For players who like the classic Book format but want one extra gear and a very generous return, this is an easy pick; anyone after varied features or frequent small action will find it lean going. The ruins sit patiently in the amber light, and this is a game that rewards exactly that quality.
Book Of Montezuma FAQs
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What is the RTP of Book Of Montezuma?
The RTP is 97.13%, which is well above the industry average for an online slot. -
Is Book Of Montezuma high volatility?
Yes, it’s a high volatility slot, so wins tend to be less frequent but larger when they land. -
How do you trigger the Bonusspins in Book Of Montezuma?
The round begins when at least three Book scatter symbols appear anywhere on the reels, awarding 10 Bonusspins. A random expanding symbol is then chosen for the duration of the round, paying across all active lines even when the rest of the combination isn’t on consecutive reels. -
What are Powerspins in Book Of Montezuma?
A Golden Book symbol with two or more regular Books anywhere on the reels wins 10 Powerspins, while a Golden Book with fewer than two regular Books wins 5 Powerspins. During the round, one or two additional expanding symbols are placed on random reels whenever at least one expanding symbol appears. -
Can the Powerspins retrigger?
Yes. Three or more Book symbols anywhere on the reels during Powerspins award an additional 5 spins, with any expanding symbols already in play kept on the grid. -
What does the expanding symbol do in Book Of Montezuma?
One regular symbol is drawn at random when the Bonusspins begin, and it behaves differently from every other symbol for the rest of the round: wherever it appears it covers its whole reel, and it pays its paytable rate on each of the ten lines it occupies, no matter which reels the rest of the combination sits on. -
How many paylines does Book Of Montezuma have?
It has 10 paylines, with line wins paying leftmost to right on adjacent reels. -
When is Book Of Montezuma released?
Book Of Montezuma’s release date is 12 June 2023, and it’s made by Amatic.
