Book of Bonanza

Book of Bonanza Overview

Book of Bonanza is a six-reel, four-row slot from SmartSoft Gaming, released on 15 October 2024. It takes the familiar book mechanic – one symbol that acts as both wild and scatter, and a free spins round built around a single expanding symbol – and moves it from the usual Egyptian tomb to an East Asian temple.

Bets run from 0.50 up to 100 per spin. SmartSoft has not published an RTP, a volatility rating or a maximum win for this title, and none of the catalogues we checked list those figures either, so we have left them out rather than guess.

All the amounts below were read from demo play at a 100 stake, with a stretch of free spins played at 80. The demo counts in its own play-money unit, shown as DMO on screen.

A Temple Between Night and Day

The reels sit inside a red lacquered temple frame, topped by a green tiled pagoda roof with two golden dragons coiled at its corners. Behind them the backdrop shows a cliff-side monastery, a waterfall and a blossoming tree.

In the base game the scene is set at night: dark blue sky, the buildings in silhouette, lanterns just visible on the far rock. When the free spins begin, the same landscape switches to full daylight, with pale mountains, a bright sky and the pink tree in sharp colour. It is a simple change, but it tells you at a glance which mode you are in.

The symbols follow the theme closely. The premium set includes a stern emperor in a golden helmet, a coiled dragon, a red torii gate, a pink lotus flower and a round golden gong. The low-paying royals – 10, J, Q, K and A – are drawn as bamboo-style characters in gold and pale blue, so even the filler symbols look like part of the temple.

Lines, Not Ways

Slot catalogues list Book of Bonanza with 4,096 ways to win, which is the figure you would expect from a six-by-four grid. The game’s own rules tell a different story. They describe wins “on a line, except for scatters”, state that only the highest win on each line is paid, and show a full diagram of fixed payline patterns across the grid.

Our screenshots agree with the rules. Winning combinations are traced with drawn lines across the reels, exactly as in a classic payline slot. If you are used to ways games, where any adjacent symbol counts, expect fewer wins from scattered symbols here.

Scatter wins and line wins are added together, and the paytable always shows prizes for the bet that is currently selected, which makes the figures easy to check.

The Paytable

At a 100 stake the emperor is the top regular symbol. Six of him on a line pay 8,000, or 80x the bet, and five pay 4,000, or 40x.

The gap to the royals is wide. Six A or K pay 600, and six of the 10, J or Q pay 400. Everything between those two levels belongs to the dragon and the three temple objects.

A sixth reel makes a real difference to the top line. Most book games stop at five of a kind, and here the step from five to six emperors doubles the prize.

The Book Symbol

The red and gold book is the only special symbol. It plays as a wild, standing in for any paying symbol, and at the same time as a scatter.

The trigger is stricter than in many book slots. You need four or more books anywhere on the screen to start the bonus. Three are not enough, although that is balanced by the extra reel.

Free Spins and the Expanding Symbol

Four books award 10 free spins. Before they start, the book opens and a special symbol is picked for the whole round. The game confirms it on a parchment page: “You won 10 free spins” on one side, the chosen symbol on the other.

During the free spins the special symbol expands to fill its entire reel whenever enough of it lands to form a win. In our round the chosen symbol filled both the first and the sixth reel on the eighth spin, turning an ordinary board into a win of 280 at an 80 stake.

The fifth spin of the same round paid 240 from two ordinary line hits. The free spins counter sits in the lower-left corner, in place of the buy button, so you always know how many spins are left.

Buying the Bonus – With a Discount

The buy button in the lower left offers the free spins directly. At a 100 stake the full price is 8,000, which is 80x the bet.

Book of Bonanza also discounts that price. A percentage bar runs under the reels and fills as you play, and the buy button shows a SALE tag that matches the bar. With the bar at 18%, the price dropped to 6,560, exactly 18% off. At 22% it was 6,240, again exactly 22% off.

So the longer you play before buying, the cheaper the bonus becomes. We have not seen this in other book slots, and it is worth watching the bar before you decide to buy.

Risk Spin and the Other Buttons

Next to the bar is a Bonus button, and the game also offers a risk spin. A dragon curls around a red and green wheel, and the screen states the chance of winning. When our bar stood at 22%, the risk spin also showed a 22% chance, with a 100 stake on the wheel.

On the right of the screen are a Hold & Spin button for continuous play, a turbo toggle, a bet button and a B+ button, which catalogues describe as a bonus bet. We did not test the bonus bet, so we cannot say how much it costs or how much it improves the odds of landing books.

What the Session Showed

Most of our base game wins were small: 160 and 480 at a 100 stake, or 1.6x and 4.8x. The best base game spin paid 2,080, or 20.8x, from lotus flowers and royals across several lines, with an emperor and a book sitting on the right-hand reels.

That is a fair picture of a line-based game of this kind. Frequent small wins come from the royals, and the real value lies in the expanding symbol during free spins.

Who Should Play It

Book of Bonanza suits players who like the book format but want something a little different. The sixth reel, the four-book trigger and the day-and-night switch all set it apart from the many Egyptian copies.

The buy discount is the most original feature. It rewards patience with a cheaper bonus, and it is clearly shown on screen.

The main reservation is the missing information. With no published RTP, volatility or maximum win, you are playing without the figures most players use to compare slots. The ways count listed in catalogues also does not match how the game actually pays.

Where to Play Book of Bonanza

You can try this game on AztecParadise Online Casino. There’s a unique casino bonus offer of 300% up to £2000 for a limited time.

When we checked on 23 September 2026, Book of Bonanza was not listed in any of our six partner casino libraries, and none of them carried SmartSoft Gaming titles at that time. Casino catalogues change often, so it is worth searching for the game by name before you deposit.