Gates of Olympus: an in-depth slot review

Game passport

We checked the RTP, multipliers and bonus terms against the game page on the Pragmatic Play site. The release date, volatility and win cap come from public reviews: the provider does not state them on its page, so the rules inside the slot itself remain the final source.

The bonus frequency and maximum win probability come from the Bigwinboard review; the bet limits and release date come from slot catalogues. Links to the British and Gibraltar regulators appear in the footer of the Pragmatic Play site, which also reports certification or licences in more than 30 jurisdictions. Operators in Uzbekistan are licensed by the National Agency for Perspective Projects.

Where the popularity came from

To understand Gates of Olympus it helps to recall what came before it. In 2019 Pragmatic Play released Sweet Bonanza, a candy-themed slot in which, for the first time from this provider, symbols paid by count rather than along lines. The idea worked: players no longer had to study line diagrams, they only had to see a lot of matching icons on screen. Sweet Bonanza had one clear weakness, though. Multipliers appeared only in the bonus round, and between bonuses the game felt monotonous.

Gates of Olympus, released in early 2021, took the same foundation and fixed exactly that. Multipliers were allowed to land on any spin, and their upper limit was raised to 500×. An ordinary spin stopped being a wait: at any moment an orb could drop onto the grid and turn a modest win into a noticeable one. The theme changed too. Sweets gave way to Olympus, Zeus and gold, which appealed to an audience that found the candy look unserious.

Then came the effect familiar from any hit. Streamers showed big rounds, operators put the slot at the top of their catalogues, and other studios began releasing games with similar mechanics. The provider did not stop either and turned the name into a series. Several games now carry it, and each is covered on our page about all Gates of Olympus versions.

Theme and presentation

The action takes place at the entrance to the home of the gods. Behind the reels you see marble columns, clouds and golden temple ornaments, and Zeus himself stands to the right of the grid. He is more than decoration: when a multiplier lands, it is Zeus who raises his hand and sends a bolt of lightning, so the important events of the game are easy to catch out of the corner of your eye.

The symbols fall into two clear groups. The valuable ones are golden objects: a crown, an hourglass, a ring and a chalice. The cheap ones are cut gems in five colours. This split serves usability. In a slot where the win depends on quantity, the player has to tell one icon from another instantly, and here that works even on a small phone screen.

The music and effects are solemn in tone and do not get in the way of a long session. As in any slot, though, sound is not only about atmosphere: the fanfare for a win smaller than the bet sounds almost as joyful as the one for a real profit. It is worth keeping that in mind, and the sound can be switched off in the settings.

The mechanics in two minutes

In a classic slot a combination has to line up from left to right. Here there are no lines. When the reels stop, the game counts how many times each symbol appears on the grid. If any symbol has reached eight or more, it pays. Position is irrelevant: the symbols may sit together or be scattered across all six reels.

Then the tumble kicks in. The symbols that paid disappear, the rest drop down, and the empty cells fill with new icons from above. The game counts again. If eight of a kind have formed once more, that payout is added to the previous one and the cycle repeats. The spin ends only when a recount finds nothing.

The third element is the multipliers, which get their own section below. A step-by-step explanation with examples and the full paytable is on the page how to play Gates of Olympus.

Symbols and what they are worth

The gap between the groups is huge, and an important conclusion follows from it. Eight blue gems return only a quarter of the bet, so a spin with that kind of “win” actually loses money. For the base game to turn a profit without multipliers you need either high symbols or a very large number of low ones, and that does not happen often. This is why the balance usually drifts down during ordinary spins, and it is best to expect that from the start.

Multipliers: the heart of the game

An orb with a number can appear on any reel at any moment, including in the middle of a tumble. The numbers range from 2× to 500× and are unevenly distributed: small values land constantly, large ones remain a rare event. An orb does not vanish with the winning symbols; it stays on the grid until the spin ends.

When the tumbles are over, the game adds up the values of all the orbs and multiplies the total win of the spin by that sum. The word “adds” matters. Orbs of 5× and 10× give 15×, not 50×, and it is worth understanding this so as not to expect the impossible. The second condition matters too: a multiplier applies to a win. If the spin produced no combinations, the orbs give nothing, however large the number on them.

It is this combination that makes the slot so nerve-racking. Players regularly see a big multiplier on an empty grid, or a good combination without a single orb. The two coincide rarely, but when they do the result far exceeds anything the base game pays without multipliers.

The bonus round

Four or more Zeus symbols landing on one spin start 15 free spins. The number of scatters affects the one-off payout before the round, but not the number of spins: four symbols and six symbols both award the same fifteen.

The rules in the bonus are the same with one exception. Multipliers stop expiring after each spin. An orb that lands on a winning spin is added to a running total, and the total is kept until the round ends. Say it has reached 12× by the fifth spin. On the sixth a win lands with an 8× orb: the total becomes 20×, and the win is multiplied by twenty. The earlier the total starts to grow, the more each remaining spin is worth.

The round can be extended. Three or more scatters during the bonus add five spins, and the total is not reset. On the other hand, nobody promises that the bonus will pay for itself. Orbs that land on losing spins do not go into the total, and rounds in which all fifteen spins bring fewer than twenty bets are common. A detailed breakdown of every mechanic is on the slot features page.

The maths, without illusions

The stated return is 96.50%. That means that over a very long run the slot gives back ninety-six and a half units out of every hundred staked and keeps three and a half. It is a good figure by online slot standards, but it has two limitations that are rarely mentioned.

First, it describes millions of spins by all players together, not your evening. Over two hundred spins the result can be anything, and most often it will be worse than average, because the average is pulled up by rare big rounds that few people get. Second, 96.50% is the base setting. The provider also supplies the slot with a reduced return, and the operator decides which version to run. How to check this is explained on the page about RTP and volatility.

High volatility completes the picture. The slot does not spread wins evenly; it saves them up for rare events. In practice this looks like long stretches where the balance falls and short bursts that sometimes recover the losses and sometimes do not.

Strengths and weaknesses

Who this slot is for

Gates of Olympus suits people who treat play as a show with an unpredictable ending and are comfortable with the idea that a paid-for evening may end with nothing. It gives such players what they come for: rare but vivid moments, which are the whole point of high volatility.

Anyone who wants a deposit to last should look for a game with a narrow spread. Here a small amount can be gone in a few minutes, especially in turbo mode. Nor should you open this slot with the aim of earning money: the maths is built so that the casino wins over time, and no style of play changes that.

The original next to its sequels

The first game's success was followed by Gates of Olympus 1000 with multipliers up to 1,000×, the festive Gates of Olympus Xmas 1000, Gates of Olympus Dice with dice in place of the usual symbols, and Gates of Olympus Super Scatter with instant prizes of up to 50,000 bets. Against them the original looks the most restrained: it has the lowest cap, but its behaviour is a little steadier too. It is the most sensible place to start with the series. A comparison table and a demo of each game are on the all versions page.

Similar slots

Gates of Olympus has close relatives from the same developer. Sweet Bonanza came out earlier and is gentler: its multipliers arrive only during the bonus, so ordinary spins run more evenly. Starlight Princess uses the same construction with multipliers of up to 500× in an anime setting, and anyone who cares only about mechanics will hardly notice the difference.

Sugar Rush is built differently. It has a 7×7 grid and pays for groups of adjacent symbols, while multipliers are tied to cells and grow with repeated hits. It is the option for those who prefer gradual build-up to a sudden 100× orb. All three are highly volatile.

Review verdict

Gates of Olympus did not become the model for its genre by accident. It removed everything in a slot that needed explaining and kept a simple rule, spectacular tumbles and multipliers that can fire at any second. The price of that simplicity and spectacle is sharp swings in the balance, and there is nothing hidden about it: that is how the game is built.

Our advice is predictable but no less true for that. Open the demo first and make a couple of hundred spins to see the slot's real rhythm. Only then decide whether you want to pay real money for this entertainment.