Day of Dead Slot Review

Day of Dead Slot Overview

I first met Day of Dead as another Día de los Muertos slot from Pragmatic Play and it felt familiar straight away. The action runs on a 5x4 grid with 20 fixed paylines, set in a candlelit graveyard with jazzy mariachi backing. The atmosphere does its job, though it leans on stock imagery, so I never quite felt the urge to chase it over more characterful games.

I treat Day of Dead as a straightforward high variance option. The theoretical RTP sits around 96.49 to 96.50 percent, matching other Pragmatic releases, and the maximum win is capped at 4,500 times your stake. Bets range from 0.20 to 100 per spin, so it caters for casual spins and higher rollers, though the game’s rather plain personality means I mostly use it when I fancy testing walking wild runs.

Day of Dead Slot Information

I play Day of Dead on a standard layout of 5 reels and 4 rows, with wins paid on 20 fixed lines from left to right. You need at least three matching symbols or wilds on a line starting from reel one. Most icons are regular pays, backed up by a green wild and a tombstone expanding wild, plus the painted skull scatter and a special collectable tombstone that comes into play during the main bonus.

Visually I get a slightly spooky mix of sugar skulls, candles and marigolds, lifted by a jazzy mariachi soundtrack that keeps things light. The base game can feel rather static once you have seen a few hundred spins, but when the walking wilds kick off the screen suddenly feels far more alive. On mobile the interface holds up well; I have played comfortably on phones and tablets without any awkward layout issues.

Day of Dead Slot Features

In Day of Dead the whole game leans on its wild symbols. The green wild is a standard substitute that pays like the top premium when you land it in five of a kind. The tombstone wild is where things get interesting; whenever it hits, it expands to cover the reel, pays any wins, then triggers a respin while acting as a walking wild that shifts one reel left on each spin until it drops off.

The dedicated Free Respin feature starts when I land three skull scatters on reels one, three and five. You do not get a fixed number of free spins. Instead, the round lasts as long as walking wild reels stay on screen or in the escrow above the grid. It begins with two stored wild reels; one or both drop to start the procession, and more collectable tombstones can land, refill the meter and extend the bonus with a climbing multiplier.

During the Free Respins I have seen rounds where extra wild reels chain together for long stretches, though single walking wilds often die quickly. A Bonus Buy option is available in some markets at 100 times stake, dropping you straight into the respin feature with the RTP nudged to about 96.5 percent, but that shortcut is not offered on UK regulated sites, so here I grind the base game instead.

Day of Dead Symbols and Paytable

The paytable in Day of Dead keeps things simple. At the bottom you have the four card suits, paying roughly 2 to 2.5 times your bet for a five symbol line. Maracas, drum and guitar sit in the middle tier, worth around 3.5 to 5 times stake for five of a kind. I see these medium symbols a lot, so they do much of the work topping up the balance between dry spells.

The premium picture symbols are the dog and three skeletal characters, paying from 6 up to 15 times stake for five of a kind. The regular green wild shares the top value and can award strong line hits when it clusters. The tombstone expanding wild handles feature triggers rather than big direct payouts, while the skull scatter and the extra collectable tombstones are there purely to feed the Free Respin round and its walking wild reels.

Symbols and Paytable

Symbol	Quantity	Payout
	Scatter, Wild
	5	x15
	4	x0.75
	3	x0.25
	5	x15
	4	x4.5
	3	x1.5
	5	x10
	4	x3
	3	x1
	5	x7.5
	4	x2.25
	3	x0.75
	5	x6
	4	x1.75
	3	x0.6
	5	x5
	4	x1.5
	3	x0.5
	5	x4
	4	x1.25
	3	x0.4
	5	x3.5
	4	x1
	3	x0.35
	5	x2.5
	4	x0.75
	3	x0.25
	5	x2.5
	4	x0.75
	3	x0.25
	5	x2
	4	x0.6
	3	x0.2
	5	x2
	4	x0.6
	3	x0.2
	Wild, Respin
	Scatter
	Wild

Day of Dead Slot Maximum Wins, Volatility, & Average Returns

In practice Day of Dead behaves like a typical high volatility Pragmatic slot. The theoretical RTP is listed at 96.49 to 96.50 percent, while long simulations of millions of spins have shown returns around 96.20 percent, which is close enough for me. The hit rate sits near one in four spins, but the top prizes are rare, with the largest recorded wins a little over 2,500 times stake against a 4,500x cap.

Our Day of Dead Slot Verdict

For me Day of Dead feels like Pragmatic Play on autopilot. The walking wild respins and Free Respins do the heavy lifting, and they can throw out exciting chains when the grid lines up, but the whole package is strangely sterile, like a supermarket own brand take on a lively Mexican festival. I still spin it now and then when I fancy straightforward walking wild action without much extra baggage.

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