Eye of Horus started life as a land-based machine, which is why it still looks like something you’d find in an arcade rather than a casino lobby. Reel Time Gaming built the original for land-based casinos, and Blueprint Gaming brought the online version to market in 2016. It has looked slightly old-fashioned ever since, and that is rather the point.
Horus was the falcon-headed god, and his eye stood for protection, power and health. The game takes that and does very little with it, which suits a slot whose appeal was never the story.
Eye of Horus Slot: the Basics
Five reels, three rows and 10 fixed paylines, so every spin covers all ten and there is nothing to adjust except the stake. That makes it one of the plainest 5 reel slots still in wide circulation. Wins pay left to right.
The symbols are the usual playing card ranks at the bottom and a ladder of hieroglyphs above them: ankhs, scarabs, a bird, Anubis, and at the top the Eye of Horus itself. The Tomb is the scatter. Horus is the wild, and when he lands he expands to cover his whole reel, in the base game as well as the bonus.
For UK players the stake starts at 10p and stops at £5 a spin, or £2 if you are 18 to 24. Those are the Gambling Commission’s limits on online slots, in force since 9 April and 21 May 2025 respectively. Older reviews still quote maximums of £100, which is not a stake you can place on a slot in Britain any more.
Free spins and the symbol upgrades
Three or more Tomb scatters award 12 free spins, and this is where the game earns its reputation. Every time an expanding Horus wild lands during the round, it upgrades one of the hieroglyph symbols to the next one up, and the upgrade lasts for the rest of the feature.
So the flowers turn into ankhs, then the ankhs into scarabs, and on up the chain through the bird and Anubis until the hieroglyphs are all Eye of Horus symbols. The card ranks are left alone. A round that lands its wilds early is playing on a richer reel set for longer, and you can see it happening, which is more than most bonus rounds offer.
The wilds also add spins: one Horus on a spin gives you one more, two give three more, and three give five. That is the clever bit of the design, because the thing that improves the reels is the same thing that keeps the round going. Of course, a round with no wilds stays on the cheap symbols to the end, and plenty of them do.
Eye of Horus RTP: check the version
The figure you will see on most UK review sites is 96.31%. That is the top configuration. The UK casino 32Red notes that it comes in five RTP versions, ranging from 90.25% to 96.31%, and as with almost every modern slot the casino chooses which one you get.
So the useful advice is the same as for any game: open the paytable or game information screen at your casino before you play and read the return to player stated there. If it says 96.31%, you have the top build. If it says something lower, you are paying for the same reels at a worse price.
Volatility ratings vary from medium to high depending on who you ask, which in practice means quiet base game, most of the return in the free spins. RTP is a long-run average across an enormous number of spins. It tells you nothing about how your next twenty minutes will go.
Eye of Horus free play
You cannot play it on this page; we do not host demos. Free play is available at UKGC-licensed casinos, and you will find they ask you to verify your age before opening even the demo version. That has been a Gambling Commission requirement since May 2019, and it is a sensible one: a free version of a gambling game is still a gambling game.
If you like the expanding symbol idea but want it in a different shape, Book of Dead is the obvious comparison, ten lines and an Egyptian tomb, but with one randomly chosen symbol doing the expanding rather than a ladder of upgrades. And if Reel Time’s land-based style is what appeals, Fishin Frenzy comes from the same stable.
Conclusion
Eye of Horus is a simple game that does one interesting thing, and the interesting thing is good enough to have kept it in lobbies for a decade. The upgrade ladder gives the free spins a sense of progress that most ten-line slots never manage.
Play it for that, at stakes you are comfortable losing, and check the RTP on the information screen first. That number belongs to the casino, not to the game.
18+. Gambling should be entertainment, not income. Long term the house wins. Free and confidential help is at BeGambleAware.org.
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