John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen Demo & review

Every scarab in John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen carries a cash value, but it only pays when a Collect symbol lands on reel 5, and the game has five different Collects that each pay in their own way. Pragmatic Play released this 25-line Egyptian adventure in September 2019 as part of its John Hunter series. It suits players who want a cash feature that can fire on any base spin, not only inside free spins.

The base game before our first spin, with the 10,500x banner above the reels. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

How John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen works

Line wins pay on 25 fixed lines, starting from the leftmost reel, and a line pays its highest combination only. The Scarab Queen is the wild. Reels 2 to 5 carry her, and she replaces anything but the scatter, the money scarab and the Collects. John Hunter tops the paytable, yet even five of him pay far less than a good scarab board, so the lines are there to keep the balance ticking over.

What feeds what:

1. Money scarabs land on reels 1 to 4 on any spin, each showing its own cash value.
2. A Collect on reel 5 in the same spin pays every scarab on screen, and its type decides how.
3. Three scatters across the middle three reels start the free spins, where scarabs and Collects keep working.
4. In free spins every scarab value also goes into a bonus pot, paid on a last respin if a Collect lands.

Rules page 1 of 7: line pays at $1, the wild and the scatter. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

How the Money Collect works

A scarab on its own pays nothing. It needs a Collect symbol on reel 5 in the same spin, and each scarab's value is drawn at random from thirteen steps every time it lands. In the base game nothing is held from one spin to the next, so scarabs that arrive without a Collect are gone on the following spin. Which Collect lands decides the size of the payout:

Two of the five change the size of a round. The Expanding Collect turns one scarab into a full reel of three, and the Multiplier Collect scales the whole board at once. The basic Collect, the Extra Credit Collect and the Respin Collect pay closer to what is already showing. For us the Expanding Collect is the one worth waiting for, because a single scarab on each reel is enough to set it off.

Our spin 33 shows it working. Scarabs on reels 2 and 4 met an Expanding Collect on reel 5, and both reels filled with three scarabs each. The Collect then paid all six values for $26.00, the best spin of our session.

Spin 33: an Expanding Collect filled reels 2 and 4 with scarabs and paid $26.00. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

Rules page 2 of 7: scarab values and the five Collect types. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

Free spins: how they trigger and what the bonus pot adds

Free spins need three scatters, one each on reels 2, 3 and 4. They award 8 spins and pay once the bet on their own. Three more during the round add another 8, with no limit on how often that can happen. The round runs on special reels, and the scarabs and all five Collects work as they do in the base game.

The bonus pot is what makes the round different. Every scarab value that lands during the free spins is added to the pot, whether a Collect paid it at the time or not. When the last free spin ends, the pot returns as one giant money symbol across reels 1 to 4, and the game plays one final respin. The pot is paid only if a Collect lands on reel 5 in that respin, so the last spin decides whether everything the pot gathered is paid.

Rules page 3 of 7: the last two Collects and the bonus pot in free spins. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

RTP, volatility and max win

The demo's rules give one RTP, 96.5%, and Pragmatic Play's game page lists the same figure. Casinos choose which version they run, so a lower number in a casino's information panel means a smaller long-run return on the same mechanics. Pragmatic labels the game medium volatility on the intro screen and in the rules. One review site calls it low, but the game's own label is medium.

The ceiling is 10,500x the bet, shown on the banner above the reels, and the rules set no other cap. The intro screen shows how that figure is built. By the rules, twelve scarabs at their top value of 35x fill reels 1 to 4 for 420x. A Multiplier Collect at its top step of 25x turns that board into the full ceiling.

Our John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen demo test

Small line hits kept the session close to level. Nearly every other spin paid something, but 31 of the 47 wins came in under $1. Three spins with several winning lines paid over $8 each, and the scarabs supplied the best spin. Collects paid three times: the Expanding Collect on spin 33 and two later collects that each cashed $4.00 of scarabs. Scarabs landed often, yet a Collect on reel 5 at the same moment was rare. The free spins and their bonus pot never triggered, so that part of the page is described from the rules. One session this short says nothing reliable about the game's return.

Is John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen worth playing?

For a base-game player who likes cash symbols, yes. For someone who only spins for free spins, no. The Collect on reel 5 can fire on any spin, so scarabs give ordinary spins something to land, and the five Collect types make every hit a small draw. The bonus pot is the bigger idea on paper, since each scarab in the round builds toward one last respin, but that respin still needs a Collect to pay.

Pick Big Bass Bonanza if you want the cash collect saved for free spins on a low-volatility game. Choose the John Hunter game when you would rather see the collect work in the base game too, with five different ways for it to pay.

In the demo, watch reel 5 and note which Collect type lands each time before you judge the game on its line wins.