Rise of Merlin

Rise of Merlin is Play'n GO's June 2019 trip to Arthurian legend: a 5x3 slot with up to 10 lines and the book-style free spins of the Dead games. Merlin's magical orb is wild and scatter, and three or more bring 8 free spins with a randomly drawn expanding symbol, plus 8 spins and another expander per retrigger, up to nine. Our Rise of Merlin slot demo test ran 100 spins at $1.

What is the Rise of Merlin slot?

The reels sit in a gold frame under a silver Rise of Merlin crest, inside a hall of blue and violet pillars with specks of light drifting past the arches. A silver-haired Merlin heads the paytable beside the orb, then come a red dragon, a white dragon with gold horns and an owl, with the card ranks A to 10 below them.

The help text describes a 5-reel game with up to 10 numbered lines, switched on in order. Line wins run left to right from the first reel, and only the best one on each line counts.

Pays are listed per coin and multiplied by the bet on each line. At our $1, five coins of 0.02 on every line, one unit is worth 10 cents: five Merlins or five orbs on a line pay $500, four pay $100 and two pay $1. The red dragon pays $160 for five, the white dragon and the owl $60 each.

The card ranks need three of a kind. A and K pay $12 for five, Q, J and 10 pay $8, and three of any rank pay 50 cents. Every picture symbol pays from two, at least 50 cents.

Coin values run from 0.01 to 2.00 in 14 steps, with one to five coins a line and one to ten lines, so a spin costs anything from $0.01 to $100. After a main-game win the panel offers GAMBLE next to COLLECT.

Base spin 7 of 100 at $1, before collect: 400 coins on line 6, $8.00, the best base-game win of our session. FluxPlays demo test, 19 October 2026.

Rise of Merlin bonus features

The magical orb, wild and scatter

The orb is a crystal ball on a gold stand. It stands in for every other symbol and pays on lines in its own right, as much as Merlin. As a scatter, three, four or five anywhere pay 2x, 20x or 200x the total bet, added to any line wins, and three or more start the free spins.

Eight free spins and the expanding symbol

Three or more orbs award 8 free spins at the bet and lines of the spin that triggered them. Before the first one, the game draws one regular symbol at random as the special expanding symbol; the orb is never drawn. A bar above the reels shows the nine candidates, Merlin down to the 10, and lights the one in play.

When the chosen symbol lands in enough places to pay, it grows to fill every position on its reels. It then pays on all active lines with gaps allowed, from any reel, as extra wins on top of the spin's normal pays. A picture symbol needs only two reels for this and a card rank three.

By the paytable, three expanded 10s at $1 pay 50 cents on each of the 10 lines, $5 in all. Five expanded Merlins would cover the screen and pay 5,000 per coin on every line, which is the 250,000-coin cap exactly.

Paytable page 1 in our demo session: the orb as scatter and wild, retriggers for up to 9 expanding symbols and the cap in coins. FluxPlays demo test, 19 October 2026.

Retriggers stack up to nine expanders

Three or more orbs during the round award another 8 free spins and draw a further expanding symbol at random, and the earlier ones keep working. The paytable promises up to 9 of them, so a long enough round can turn every regular symbol in the game into an expander.

The card gamble

After any main-game win you can stake it on a face-down card. Calling its colour, a 1 in 2 chance, doubles the win; calling its suit, a 1 in 4 chance, quadruples it. You can go again up to five times in a row, with no coin limit in the help text. It is off in Auto Play and, by the rules, leaves the RTP unchanged.

Max win, RTP and volatility

The cap is stated in coins: up to 250,000, which at 0.02 a coin is $5,000, or 5,000x a $1 bet.

Neither the help text, the paytable nor the official page gives an RTP. Review sites list 96.58% as the top version, and casinos can run lower ones; the demo does not show which it uses. Two of those sites call the volatility high and two very high, while the game gives no rating. There is no bonus buy, ante or other paid mode.

Our Rise of Merlin demo test

The practice demo shows no currency, so we count one credit as one dollar. It opened on 25,000.00 at exactly 1.00 a spin, 0.02 a coin with five coins on all 10 lines, for all 100 spins, in one session with no reload. A script pressed the spin button each time, without Auto Play, and we turned down every gamble offer.

The server log agrees with the screen to the cent: $100.00 staked, $48.50 returned and a closing balance of 24,948.50. A base-game win stayed outside the balance until the next spin or a press of COLLECT took it in.

Wins were small and far apart. Of 25 winning spins, 14 paid 50 cents, and 89 of the 100 spins returned less than their $1 cost. The best base win came early, on spin 7: 400 coins on line 6, $8.00.

Spin 30 brought three orbs. The award scroll drew the 10, the lowest symbol, as the expanding symbol, and showed 125 coins, $2.50, already won on the trigger spin.

Base spin 30 of 100 at $1: 8 free spins with the 10 as the special expanding symbol, 125 coins won on the trigger spin. FluxPlays demo test, 19 October 2026.

The 10 kept turning up. On free spin 7 it covered reels 1 and 3 while the counter was still running.

Free spin 7 of 8 after base spin 30 at $1: the 10 has expanded over reels 1 and 3, with the win counter still running. FluxPlays demo test, 19 October 2026.

No retrigger came, and the eight spins ended on 925 coins with the trigger spin counted: $18.50, or 18.5x the bet. The game then offered the gamble on the whole round, with GAMBLE beside COLLECT. We collected, and the balance rose to 25,003.50, its high for the session.

The end of the free spins from base spin 30 at $1: 925 coins, $18.50, with GAMBLE offered beside COLLECT. We collected. FluxPlays demo test, 19 October 2026.

That round is a single result. The other 99 spins returned $30.00 from 24 wins, and the 70 spins after the bonus returned $15.00 from 16, with the longest dry run, 10 spins from 70 to 79, among them. The balance finished on its low point, 24,948.50, after spin 100.

We never saw a retrigger, so only one expanding symbol was ever in play, and nothing came near the cap. With one bonus in 100 spins, this session cannot tell you the RTP or the volatility.

Is Rise of Merlin worth trying?

The retrigger rule is the draw. Each new set of orbs inside the round brings 8 spins and another expander while the earlier ones stay, so one long round can grow from a single symbol filling reels to nine of them. The orb earns its keep in the base game too, paying on lines as well as scattering.

The start is the weak side. Eight spins with one random symbol decide most rounds, and a card rank as the draw needs three reels before it pays. Outside free spins there are line wins, orb scatter pays and the card gamble, and nothing to buy.

Rule by rule, Legacy of Dead is the same design in an Egyptian tomb: identical pays for every symbol, 8 free spins, a new expander per retrigger up to nine and the same 250,000-coin cap. Its gamble names a 2,500-coin limit, and in our test it collected its free spins without a gamble offer.

Book of Dead also runs on 5x3 with 10 lines and the same cap, but opens with 10 free spins, keeps one expander for the whole round and pays its Tomb only as a scatter.

Our three sessions each saw one bonus: $18.50 here, $54.50 in Legacy of Dead and $35.00 in Book of Dead, single rounds that show the range rather than which game pays more.