Play Demo
Le Pharaoh does something most slots never bother with, it lets you pick your own bonus round. Land three or four scatters in this Egyptian adventure, and a pair of scrolls unfurls across a starry night sky, asking you to choose the feature you actually want: a free-spins trip or a lives-based treasure hunt. That choice is the game’s signature, sitting on top of the familiar Le-series setup of sticky wins and rainbow-triggered coins. Smokey the raccoon oversees it all from beside the reels, dressed in pharaoh stripes and, between spins, scratching an itch with his golden cane. Pyramids rise behind him, a palm-fringed pool glints to one side, and it all looks the part.
Every win here tries to grow itself. When a combination lands, those symbols stick and the reels re-drop around them; any new or extended win sticks too and triggers another re-drop, the chain running until nothing more connects. Each sticky paying symbol leaves a Golden Square behind in its position, and those squares are the seed of the Golden Riches feature that comes next.
The board lights up clearly as wins build, which makes the re-drops easy to follow.
The Golden Squares only pay off if a Rainbow is on the grid when the re-drops finish. When one is, the squares burst open as coins, Bronze, Silver or Gold, worth anything from a fifth of your bet up to 500x on a single Gold coin. Special symbols can appear among them, Clovers that multiply the coins, Green ones boosting their neighbours and Golden ones lifting every coin on the grid by up to 20x, and Pots of Gold that sweep up every coin value into one running total. Once everything is collected, the squares can reveal again, and the final tally is multiplied by your stake.
Three or four scatters don’t just start free spins, they open a choice.
Wins land the old way on the six-reel grid, three or more matching symbols along one of the 19 fixed lines from the left, but they rarely stop there. A win sticks and re-drops, building toward the Golden Squares and the rainbow that turns them to coins, so a single spin can unfold into a long sequence before it pays.
This is a medium-volatility game, three of five on Hacksaw’s own scale, so the smaller wins arrive at a fair clip while the bigger flood of coins waits on the Golden Riches feature firing. The default return to player is 96.18% if you favour the free-spins bonuses and 96.21% if you lean on the treasure hunts, an unusual split that follows from letting you choose, with leaner operator builds down to 94.33%.
Bets sit anywhere between €0.10 and €50 a spin, and feature buys can climb past that limit. The buy menu offers four routes, a 3x FeatureSpins that just shortens the odds, a 60x Rainbow option that guarantees a winning rainbow each spin, and two Bonus Choice buys, 100x to pick between the standard bonuses and 250x for the Super pair. The top win is 15,000x the bet, within reach in every mode.
| Symbol | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scarab | 1.00x | 1.50x | 2.00x | 3.00x |
| Eye of Horus | 0.50x | 1.00x | 1.50x | 2.00x |
| Ankh | 0.50x | 1.00x | 1.50x | 2.00x |
| Sweet | 0.30x | 0.50x | 1.00x | 1.50x |
| Hourglass | 0.30x | 0.50x | 1.00x | 1.50x |
| A | 0.10x | 0.20x | 0.50x | 0.70x |
| K | 0.10x | 0.20x | 0.40x | 0.70x |
| Q | 0.10x | 0.20x | 0.40x | 0.60x |
| J | 0.10x | 0.20x | 0.30x | 0.60x |
| 10 | 0.10x | 0.20x | 0.30x | 0.50x |
| Wild (scroll) | Substitutes for all paying symbols; 3.00x for six | |||
Line wins pay left to right on 19 lines, three or more from reel one, shown as multiples of the bet. The scroll Wild stands in for every paying symbol.
| Reveal | Values (x bet) |
|---|---|
| Bronze Coin | 0.2x, 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x |
| Silver Coin | 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x |
| Gold Coin | 25x, 50x, 100x, 250x, 500x |
| Green Clover | x2 to x20 on adjacent coins and pots |
| Golden Clover | x2 to x20 on every coin and pot |
Coins, clovers and pots only land once a rainbow fires the Golden Riches feature; their combined total is multiplied by your stake.
One of the first things you notice about Le Pharaoh is the soundtrack, and not in a good way; the snake-charmer loop is short and busy and quick to grate, and since sound is a single on-or-off switch, you cannot mute it without losing the reel effects too. Stay with it, though, and the game underneath earns its place. The Golden Riches reveals are the high point, a rainbow landing and the coins and clovers cascading into a real payout, and the bigger draw is the choice it hands you, a free-spins bonus or a hold-and-win hunt, picked by you, not the game. It runs at a moderate volatility, the smaller wins arriving steadily while the big ones wait on a well-timed rainbow, so the demo is a good place to learn its rhythm.
The bonus choice is the headline, and it is a real one; being handed a free-spins round or a hold-and-win hunt and picking the one you fancy is a freedom most slots never offer, and the two play nothing alike. The main game backs it up, with sticky re-drops that build wins clearly on the grid and Golden Riches reveals that turn a well-timed rainbow into a screen of coins, clovers and collected pots. Smokey is good company throughout, scratching, sighing at a near-miss and generally emoting more than most slot mascots bother to.
The music is the obvious one, a snake-charmer loop that repeats long past welcome and is made worse by an all-or-nothing sound toggle, so muting it strips the satisfying reel effects as well. The variance can still sting; both of our 250x Super buys came in well under their cost, a reminder that the big Golden Riches screens stay rare even when the smaller wins keep ticking over. And for all the choice on offer, regular play can feel thin while you wait for a rainbow to make the Golden Squares matter.
Le Pharaoh made a strong first impression during our demo play. By our fourth spin, a rainbow had dropped at the end of a sticky re-drop, the Golden Squares burst into a spread of coins topped by an x3 clover, and a €32.70 win landed with Smokey wide-eyed and open-jawed beside the reels. That is the base game at its best, the sticky re-drops stacking a win and the Golden Riches reveal cashing it in, and it gives the early going a real lift. The clarity helps; every sticky symbol marks its Golden Square plainly, so you can watch a good spin building before the rainbow decides whether it pays.
The presentation is mostly a joy, in the way Hacksaw’s games tend to be. Smokey is endearingly fidgety, scratching his backside with that golden cane between spins and, when we landed two scatters and the grid darkened in hope of a third, letting out an exasperated sigh when it did not come. The Egyptian dressing is well-crafted with the pyramids and palm-lined pool warm and detailed.
What lifts Le Pharaoh above a straight coin-collector is the decision it makes you take. Land three or four scatters and you are not dropped into a fixed bonus; you are shown two scrolls on a starry sky and asked to choose. Luck of the Pharaoh is the free-spins route, ten or twelve spins that keep the sticky re-drops and Golden Riches running with the Golden Squares held all round. Lost Treasures is a different beast entirely, a hold-and-win hunt played on three refilling lives, where coins and stone tablets stick and adding or multiplying tablets pump value into them spin by spin. One is a familiar free-spins build; the other is a nervy lives-based grind for the grid.
We bought both Super versions at 250x for this review to feel the difference, and they could hardly have played less alike. Super Luck of the Pharaoh was a slow burn, almost empty until a final-spin rainbow revealed three bronze, two silver and a x4 clover for a €24.30 finish. Super Lost Treasures ran across four respins with a single adding tablet feeding random coins, climbing to €122 before our lives ran out. Neither broke even on the 250x outlay, which a bonus buy can always do, but together they made the point, two completely different ways to chase the same coins, and the freedom to back the one you prefer.
That freedom is the reason to spend time with Le Pharaoh, and the demo is the place to use it; buy both bonuses in free play and you will quickly learn which suits you, or whether you would happily rotate between them when they trigger naturally. It is the entry in the Le series built most openly around player choice. The music will test your patience and the bigger wins keep you waiting, but the idea at its heart is a good one, well made, and worth a look for anyone who likes a say in how their bonus plays out.
