Bao Shi Slot Review

Bao Shi: Slot Overview

Bao Shi from Play'n GO drops you into a mystical world of Chinese dragons, koi fish, and gold treasures, watched over by Lioras, the Lion God of Prosperity. The backstory about a greedy warlord casting a dark spell gives the slot more flavour than the usual Asian themed fare, and those two eyes staring over the 5x4 reel grid add a bit of pressure every time I hit spin on this high variance game.

The layout offers 1,024 ways to win with combinations paying left to right from the first reel. Volatility is on the higher side, rated seven out of ten, and the top RTP configuration runs at 96.2%, with several lower setups also around. Stakes range from 0.10 to 100 per spin, and with a stated max win of x15000, Bao Shi clearly targets players comfortable with swingy sessions and long waits for a serious payout.

Bao Shi Symbols and Paytable

Bao Shi sticks to familiar iconography, with 10–A royals on the low end and lanterns, coins, fish, and sycees as mid-tier symbols. Five of a kind pays from about 0.3x up to 2x the bet for these, while the stone Lioras premium reaches 4x for a full way. During key features, that symbol upgrades to Golden Lioras, and then five of a kind jumps to 6x, which is where the slot’s payways can really show some teeth.

Symbols and Paytable

Symbol	Quantity	Payout
	5	x6
	4	x3
	3	x2
	2	x1
	5	x3
	4	x1.5
	3	x0.7
	5	x2
	4	x1
	3	x0.5
	5	x1
	4	x0.6
	3	x0.4
	5	x1
	4	x0.6
	3	x0.4
	5	x0.7
	4	x0.5
	3	x0.3
	5	x0.5
	4	x0.3
	3	x0.2
	5	x0.5
	4	x0.3
	3	x0.2
	5	x0.3
	4	x0.2
	3	x0.1
	Scatter
	Wild

Bao Shi: Slot Features

The Lioras Blessings feature keeps the base game from feeling entirely static. Lioras above the reels collects Drum symbols whenever they land, and when a Drum is taken, blessings can randomly trigger, dropping two or three Gold Coins on the three middle reels. Coins cannot land over scatters, Drums, or Golden Lioras symbols. In the base game, each Coin may reveal an x2 or x3 multiplier, which gets added together and applied to all wins on that spin.

Whenever blessings hit, all standard Lioras symbols on the reels upgrade to Golden Lioras, so you get both higher symbol values and stacked multipliers at once. Free spins come from landing three, four, or five scatters for eight, twelve, or fifteen spins. In the bonus round, Lioras symbols start already upgraded to Golden Lioras, and blessings arrive in a stronger form, adding three to five Gold Coins that can reveal x2, x3, x4, or x5 multipliers, again summed and applied to the total win.

Any scatter during free spins adds one extra spin, and the round can stretch all the way up to one hundred spins, at least in theory. In practice, I found the base game can drag, as Bao Shi does not pack a lot of different features, and with no feature buy you are just grinding for those scatters. Still, a screen laced with Golden Lioras and a pile of multipliers dangling off the Coins is where that 15,000x figure suddenly feels less like pure fantasy.

Bao Shi Demo Version

Trying the Bao Shi demo version first is an excellent starting point. I like using free play to familiarise myself with the timing of Lioras Blessings, see how often Drums and scatters appear, and get a feel for the high variance without any risk. The demo mirrors the real-money mechanics, so you can test different bet levels, study the paytable, and decide whether the long, sometimes monotonous stretches between features fit your bankroll and patience.

Bao Shi: Slot Verdict

With the large number of Asian themed slots floating around, many of them quite similar looking, I did not expect much from Bao Shi at first. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Play'n GO built the scene quite well with that stone lion backstory, and Lioras intensely staring over the grid actually gave me a wee jolt when the game first loaded. In some ways it is full of traditional iconography, yet the charismatic Lion Guardian helps it stand out a bit.

From a gameplay point of view, Lioras is not just a pretty face. Feeding him a Drum can trigger blessings that add Gold Coin wilds and multipliers, or they can just happen during free spins. That is basically the entire feature set though, so after the initial positive reaction to the big golden lion wore off, so did my desire to stick around long term. Bao Shi dangles big potential rewards, but hitting that kind of payout felt distant over the course of my sessions.

Screenshots