Gates of Olympus 1000

The mechanic first

A counting grid pays by total rather than by position, and Gates of Olympus 1000 runs the idea on the widest stage in this catalogue. 8 matching symbols anywhere on the 6×5 grid form a win. The winners burst, new symbols fall, and the refill chain continues in the manner described under Tumble & Cascading Reels. The mechanic underneath is Pay Anywhere, and the official page states it plainly, with symbols that “pay anywhere on the screen”.

Onto that engine the game loads its signature, the multiplier orbs. An orb lands carrying a value from 2x up to 1,000x in this edition. At the end of a tumble sequence, every landed value is added into one figure and applied to the sequence win. The title is the cap of the orb, not of the game, and a player misreading that difference would overvalue the sheet by a wide margin. The stated maximum win is 15,000x the stake.

What the disclosures say

The game was released on 14 December 2023 by Pragmatic Play, as the studio’s announcement of that date records. The official page lists an RTP of 96.50%. The studio’s demo configuration confirms the same value for the standard mode, with the ante mode at 96.50% and the purchased entry at 96.49%. The three routes into the game are priced within 0.01 of a point of each other. The studio’s announcement promises “wins up to 15,000x the player’s bet”, and the configuration prices those odds at 1 in 2,749,771 spins.

Alternative operator versions are not published anywhere official, and that gap repeats across the studio’s whole catalogue. The stake in the demo configuration runs from 0.20 to 240.00 credits. The game’s own information pages put the volatility word at high, in the same terms the studio prints across its list. Players wanting the opposite trade have payline and cluster stablemates in the same catalogue, and several of them are reviewed on this site.

The base game as shipped

Base game orbs settle per tumble sequence, and between paid spins nothing carries over. The demo, opened for this catalogue’s artwork, fronts the game with the claim of wins up to 15,000x on its loading screen. The claim matches the press figure exactly, which is worth a tick in the margin, because loading screens and rule books do not always agree. The demo opens straight onto the familiar temple scene, with Zeus at the right of the grid and the orb values drawn as glowing stones. Nothing in the base presentation hides the arithmetic, and the paytable states the symbol values for the 8 to 9, 10 to 11 and 12 plus count bands. The band structure is standard for counting grids, and a reader who wants the general rules will find them under the mechanics pages linked above.

The bonus and the running total

4 scatters or more award 15 free spins, and the round changes one rule, which changes everything. Inside the bonus the orb values feed a running total. The total multiplier applies to every following tumble win rather than resetting between spins, which is the persistent variant described under Increasing Multipliers. It is why the round carries most of the game’s value, and why the base game reads as an anteroom. A retrigger of 5 further spins arrives on 3 or more scatters, in the manner covered under Free Spins Retrigger.

Entry can be bought outright or merely hurried. The feature purchase is priced at 100x the stake on the official page. Where a player prefers the ante option instead, the stake rises in exchange for improved trigger odds. The rules restate the maximum as 12,000x against the raised stake, with both figures printed, and the two routes exclude each other in writing. For the record, their published returns differ by 0.01 of a point, which is to say not meaningfully, so the choice between them is a choice about pace rather than price.

What it costs to play

$100 staked at $1 a spin comes back as $96.50 on average over the long run, and the $3.50 gap is the price of the game. Entry bought at 100x prices one bonus at $100 for the same stake, and the purchased route’s published return of 96.49% says the price buys speed rather than value. Unless a player specifically wants volume of bonuses, the sums argue for patience. The argument is printed in the studio’s own figures, which is the way pricing arguments should arrive.

Against the 2021 game

The first Gates of Olympus, announced by the studio in February 2021, capped its orbs at 500x. This edition doubles the orb cap to 1,000x and restates the maximum at 15,000x, whilst holding the published return at the series standard. Players who know the first game will recognise everything here, because the changes are of scale rather than of kind. The honest description is an orb game with a longer tail, and the rules of both editions print the numbers a player needs to choose between them.

Disclosure grade and score

Disclosure lands at a B, on the same reasoning as the rest of the studio’s list. Everything about the shipped configuration is published, from mode returns to the odds of the maximum. The existence and values of reduced versions stay unpublished. The game itself scores 7 of 10. The running total round is the best expression of the orb idea, and the figures are honest. The reservation is how much of the game’s worth is deferred into one feature that arrives on its own schedule.

One check before you play

1. Find the RTP line in the paytable of the lobby offering the game, and treat any figure under 96.50% as a reduced version priced against the player.
2. Read the orb rule for the mode being played, because the running total applies inside the bonus only, and base game orbs settle per sequence.

Sources

Where the raw records live is set out below.

• Official game page (RTP, features)
• Release announcement, 14 December 2023

The way figures are confirmed here is described in the Review Method.