The Golden Owl Of Athena Slot Review
A dusk sanctuary of marble columns, dark cypresses and a waterfall spilling down a cliff, all glowing under an orange and violet sky. Betsoft’s The Golden Owl Of Athena spends almost its entire design budget on one bird, and it’s a better game for it: the Golden Owl works as wild, scatter and bonus trigger at once, which means a single symbol decides nearly every spin. The rest is deliberately spare, a 5×3 grid, 10 paylines and a 95.05% RTP that sits just under the modern average.
It’s a close cousin, in spirit, to the studio’s other painted worlds: Take The Kingdom, Back To Venus and Wolf Moon Rising share its fondness for gold trim and warm light. Few of them bet so much on one symbol. The owl is the whole engine here, and the sunset around it never quite lets you forget that.
Base Game and Win Lines
Ten win lines, numbered one to ten, all paying left to right across the five reels. Every payout is multiplied by the line bet, and only the highest paying combination on a line counts. There’s no second way to win tucked underneath: no clusters, no cascades, nothing to learn before the first spin.
That leaves the Golden Owl to carry the base game, and it carries it in three directions at once. As the wild it stands in for every other symbol on the board. As the scatter it pays its own wins wherever it lands. And as the trigger it opens the free spins when three or more arrive. The one thing it won’t do is pay as a line symbol on its own; its value comes from the scatter awards and from the combinations it completes for everyone else.
One symbol holding down three jobs keeps the paytable tidy, and it means the owl matters on every spin rather than only when a bonus is close. A single owl on reel five is a wild; a pair is half a scatter pay; a third anywhere unlocks the round. Nothing else in the base game asks for your attention.
The owl’s scatter pays work differently from everything else on the board, and it’s worth being clear about how. Line symbols pay multiples of the line bet, but the owl’s scatter awards are calculated against the total bet across all ten lines, so the same headline number is worth ten times more in real terms. Wherever the owls land, they count: positions on the win lines aren’t part of the deal.
Symbol values are multiples of the total bet. The paytable reads:
- Athena (woman portrait): 1x for two, 10x for three, 100x for four, 500x for five
- Temple (Parthenon) and silver tree: 0.5x for two, 4x for three, 40x for four, 200x for five
- Corinthian helmet, spear and vase (amphora): 0.5x for two, 3x for three, 10x for four, 75x for five
- Golden Owl (wild and scatter): 2x for three, 20x for four, 200x for five
Athena herself is the prize, at 500x the total bet for a full line of five. The owl’s scatter ceiling of 200x isn’t far behind her, which tells you where the game wants your attention.
Two features of the ladder are worth a second look. Every symbol on the paytable pays from two of a kind, but Athena’s 1x for a pair is the most a partial appearance rewards. And the owl’s scatter pays are the one place where a symbol’s value doesn’t depend on landing on a win line at all, since three owls pay 2x the total bet wherever they sit.
Free Spins
Three or more Golden Owls anywhere on the reels trigger the free spins. Scatter pays land alongside the round, so the trigger itself already returns 2x the total bet at the entry tier. The spin awards step up with the owl count:
- 8 free spins for three owls
- 12 for four
- 20 for five
The Free Spins Bonus Symbol
Once the round starts, a single symbol is chosen at random. Land enough of that symbol during the spins and every instance of it expands, awarding bonus wins on top of the standard line pays. That’s the round’s entire payload, and everything about the free spins is angled towards it.
The choice is random each time, and it changes what a round is worth more than the spin count does. Athena expanding across a five-reel board pays at 500x a line; a helmet expanding pays at 75x. Eight spins with the top symbol selected and twenty spins with a low symbol are entirely different propositions, and there’s no way to influence which one you get.
Buy Feature
A Buy Feature sits to the left of the reels, letting you purchase the free spins round outright rather than waiting for the owls to arrive on their own. It’s a straightforward shortcut to the expanding-symbol round, and it suits anyone who’d rather skip the base game’s quieter stretches entirely.
What the buy awards follows the standard trigger path: the round you purchase plays out with the same random bonus symbol selection as one you’d landed organically. The button doesn’t change what the free spins do, only how quickly you get there.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7/10
This is ten quiet lines under a painted sunset, and the one reason to pick it up is the owl itself: because it’s wild, scatter and trigger in a single symbol, no spin is ever entirely empty, even when it pays nothing. Playing it is a patient, low-fuss affair, closer to an old ten-liner than to anything modern and layered.
The strength is the free spins, where a random expanding symbol turns every trigger into its own small lottery, and Athena expanding across all five reels is the outcome the whole paytable is built around. The weakness sits between triggers. Outside the owl there is genuinely nothing else happening, and the game makes no secret of it.
It suits players who like a simple, well-dressed build with one strong bonus and no filler, and it will lose anyone who wants mechanics stacked three deep. For a patient ten-line session in the evening light, the owl still keeps its wisdom.
The Golden Owl Of Athena FAQs
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What is the RTP of The Golden Owl Of Athena?
The RTP is 95.05%, which sits slightly below the average for modern online slots. -
How do you trigger the free spins in The Golden Owl Of Athena?
Land three or more Golden Owl symbols anywhere on the reels. Three owls award 8 free spins, four award 12, and five award 20. -
What does the Golden Owl symbol do?
It holds down three roles at once: it stands in for every other symbol as the wild, pays its own scatter wins wherever it lands, and opens the free spins round when three or more arrive. It never pays as a line symbol on its own. -
How does the Free Spins Bonus Symbol work?
One symbol is picked at random once the round begins. If enough copies of it land during the spins, every one of them expands across the reels and pays bonus wins in addition to the regular line pays. -
Can you buy the bonus on The Golden Owl Of Athena?
Yes. A Buy Feature button sits to the left of the reels, letting you purchase the free spins round directly instead of waiting for the owls to land naturally. -
How are the Golden Owl’s scatter pays calculated?
The owl’s scatter awards are multiples of the total bet rather than the line bet, and they count wherever the owls land, not just on active win lines. Three owls pay 2x, four pay 20x and five pay 200x the total bet. -
When is The Golden Owl Of Athena released?
The Golden Owl Of Athena’s release date is 22 June 2018. -
Who makes The Golden Owl Of Athena?
The Golden Owl Of Athena is made by Betsoft.
