Desert Scarabs PrizeTower Slot Review
Dusk settles over an Egyptian temple terrace, pyramids hazy in the distance, fire licking up the corner of a gilded reel frame while a stone scarab spreads its wings beneath the grid. Desert Scarabs PrizeTower from Kalamba is at its best when the screen fills up: it pays more for a crowded board of small prizes than for one rare clean line, and that shapes everything a session here feels like.
It runs on a 5×4 grid with 40 paylines, at 94.03% RTP, with a top paytable tier of 1,000x the bet. Sister titles Age of Huracan and Caribbean Anne 2 cover similar ground, but the Cashpot ladder is this game’s own.
Base Game & Features
The base game is a 5-reel, 4-row slot with 40 fixed paylines. Wins pay left to right on adjacent reels, and only the highest combination per line counts. Wild symbols can stack to fill entire reels, which is where the bigger base-game wins come from.
The wild substitutes for every symbol except the Cashpot and Bonus symbols. That’s its whole job, and it’s a common enough arrangement, but with 40 lines and a 4-row grid, a full wild reel pulls a lot of combinations with it. When two wild reels land within reach of each other, the overlap can carry a win across a dozen lines at once.
Every spin works the same way. The reels stop, line wins are checked first, and Cashpot symbols are then assessed as a separate group wherever they’ve landed. A single spin can pay both: a line win through the wilds and a Cashpot collection from the scattered symbols.
The Paytable
Pays are multiples of the total bet, and the top of the table climbs steeply. At the quoted bet, the tiers run as follows:
- 18 symbols: 1,000x the total bet
- 16 symbols: 100x
- 14 symbols: 25x
- 12 symbols: 15x
- 11 symbols: 10x
- 10 symbols: 5x
- 8 symbols: 3x
- 6 symbols: 2x
The gaps between tiers are uneven. Below the top of the table the steps are small and steady, two symbols at a time through the middle of the range, while the upper rungs pull away sharply. With 20 symbol positions on the grid, filling nearly all of them with the same symbol is the only route to the biggest tier, and that’s not something a 4-row layout hands over often.
Cashpot Symbols
Cashpot symbols carry their own values, from a minimum of 0.1x the bet up to a maximum of 5x. Any combination of 6 or more of them, anywhere on the grid, awards the sum of the values shown. There’s no need for them to line up on a payline.
Eight Cashpot prizes are available, and they can be won in the base game and in the Free Spins Bonus alike. Six symbols at the 5x maximum would pay 30x the bet from a single drop, and more symbols than that only adds to it. A full screen of maximum-value Cashpots isn’t realistic, but even a mid-range collection of 10 symbols averaging 1x each returns 10 times the stake.
The individual values matter more than the count. A collection of minimum-value symbols pays a small fraction of what the same count at the top of the range returns, so two drops of identical size can be wildly different payouts depending on which values landed. The symbol count tells you a prize is coming; the values decide whether it’s worth having.
Because the trigger needs only 6 symbols and the grid holds 20 positions, roughly a third of the screen covered in Cashpots is enough to collect. They don’t compete with the paylines for space in the way scatters sometimes do, since a Cashpot in an otherwise losing line position still counts towards the group.
Desert Scarabs PrizeTower Free Spins & Cashpots
Three or more Bonus symbols in any position during the base game trigger the Free Spins Bonus. The symbols don’t need to sit on a payline either. More of them means a bigger starting round:
- 5 Bonus symbols: 20 free spins
- 4 Bonus symbols: 15 free spins
- 3 Bonus symbols: 10 free spins
Inside the round, every Bonus symbol that lands increments a counter. For every 3 collected, 3 additional spins are awarded, and there’s no stated limit on how many times that can happen. The Bonus symbol itself doesn’t pay during the feature, so it exists purely to keep the round alive.
The counter doesn’t reset when it pays out its spins. Each award of 3 extra spins comes off a running total, so a round that keeps landing Bonus symbols keeps extending itself indefinitely, and a cluster of them on a single spin can move the counter two-thirds of the way to the next award in one go.
The Cashpot ladder runs throughout. Six or more Cashpot symbols during free spins pay exactly as they do in the base game, summing their attached values, and the wilds still stack. The retrigger counter is what gives the round its legs: a steady drip of Bonus symbols turns 10 spins into 20 without much fuss.
The two systems feed each other. Free spins give more chances for a Cashpot collection without spending anything, and each retrigger extends the number of spins in which the ladder can pay. A long round with several retriggers is where the feature’s real potential sits, rather than in any single spin’s line wins.
RTP and BuyBonus
The standard RTP is 94.03%. That figure moves with the BuyBonus feature: 94.24% at Level 1, 94.33% at Level 2 and 94.40% at Level 3. It’s an unusual arrangement, with the buy-in buying a slightly better return as well as faster access to the round, though the gaps between the tiers are small. Each level steps the return up by less than a tenth of a percentage point, so the choice between them is more about cost and patience than about maths.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7/10
Playing this is a slow build with the temple fire crackling away underneath it. You pick a stake, watch the board fill, and collect in pieces: the reason to choose it over plainer five-reel Egypt slots is that almost nothing here waits for the bonus, because the prizes pay in both halves of the game.
The retrigger counter is the best thing in it. A round that keeps feeding itself Bonus symbols stops being a fixed ten spins and becomes something with genuine momentum, and the ladder running through the feature means every extension has somewhere to pay.
The ceiling is the problem. The big paytable tier needs 18 of 20 positions, the top Cashpot value is 5x the bet, and the RTP is a step below what most modern releases offer. Wins here arrive often but arrive small, and there’s no jackpot waiting at the end of the patience.
That’s the choice, plainly. Players who enjoy frequent collections and a round that grows on its own will get on with it; anyone chasing a headline single hit should look down Kalamba’s shelf instead. The scarabs, at least, keep the embers glowing.
Desert Scarabs PrizeTower FAQs
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What is the RTP of Desert Scarabs PrizeTower?
The RTP is 94.03% in standard play. Playing the BuyBonus changes it slightly, with each of the three levels carrying its own return. -
How do you trigger the Free Spins Bonus in Desert Scarabs PrizeTower?
Land 3 or more Bonus symbols anywhere on the reels in the base game. The more you land, the bigger the starting round: 5 symbols give 20 free spins, 4 give 15 and 3 give 10. -
How does the Cashpot feature work?
Cashpot symbols carry values between 0.1x and 5x the bet. Any combination of 6 or more of them, anywhere on the reels, awards the sum of the values shown, and this works in both the base game and the Free Spins Bonus. -
Can free spins retrigger in Desert Scarabs PrizeTower?
Yes. During the Free Spins Bonus, each Bonus symbol increments a counter, and for every 3 collected, 3 additional spins are awarded. -
How many paylines does Desert Scarabs PrizeTower have?
It has 40 fixed paylines across its 5 reels and 4 rows. -
What is the grid size of Desert Scarabs PrizeTower?
It’s a 5×4 grid, with 5 reels and 4 rows of symbols. -
What does the wild substitute for?
Wild symbols substitute for all symbols except the Cashpot and Bonus symbols, and they can stack to fill entire reels. -
Does the Bonus symbol pay during free spins?
No. During the Free Spins Bonus the Bonus symbol doesn’t pay anything itself; it only increments the counter that awards 3 additional spins for every 3 collected.
