Elephant King Slot Review: The Complete IGT Family

The studio behind it is IGT, one of the oldest names in the business and the maker of Cleopatra, Wheel of Fortune and Wolf Run. IGT built Elephant King as an HTML5 video slot and distributes it to the regulated US market through its PlayDigital arm, which is why it turns up in the same legal lobbies that carry the rest of the IGT catalog. There is no African-plains theme page on this site, so the safari framing stays in the prose, but the mechanics are what set Elephant King apart from IGT’s older line-pay classics.

The hook that made the game popular is the Prize Disk, a horizontal strip of prize containers that sits above the five reels and slides one space to the left on every spin. When an elephant Bonus scatter lands on the reel beneath a container, you collect whatever that container shows, which can be an instant cash amount, a batch of free spins or, on the jackpot versions, a shot at a progressive. That single mechanic replaces the tired pick-a-box bonus with something that builds anticipation spin after spin, and it is the reason the family has spawned multiple jackpot reskins rather than fading out.

Quick-view table

These headline numbers describe the original Elephant King, the flagship title and the base engine every later version is built on. Where the family diverges, the details are broken out in the version-by-version section below. If a value is not published by IGT, it is marked that way rather than guessed. To understand why the return figure matters before you deposit, our RTP explainer is a useful companion.

Version comparison table

This is the map of the whole family. Read it first, because the single most useful thing to know about Elephant King is which editions you can deposit against online in the legal US market and how their jackpots differ. Where IGT does not publish a number, the cell says so rather than inventing one.

What Elephant King is and how it plays

IGT released the original Elephant King on October 15, 2017 as a 5-reel, 3-row video slot with 40 fixed paylines, a 96.02 percent RTP and medium volatility. The theme is the African savanna, and the reels are stocked with big-game animals rather than the card-rank filler that dominates older IGT titles. The bet range runs from about 0.75 up to 1,500 per spin, though the exact minimum and maximum depend on the limits each casino sets, and the maximum win on the base game is 533x the stake. That is a modest ceiling by modern standards, which tells you the original was designed for steady, medium-variance play rather than one giant hit, with the excitement front-loaded into the Prize Disk rather than a runaway multiplier.

Play runs left to right across the 40 lines in the usual way, but the game’s identity lives above the reels. The Prize Disk is a row of prize containers, one sitting over each of the five reels, and it shifts one position to the left on every single spin. Each container displays what it will award if you unlock it: a cash multiple of your bet, an Extra Spins symbol, a free-spins entry or, on the jackpot editions, a jackpot pick. Because the strip is always sliding, the value hovering over any given reel changes constantly, so you are watching two things at once, the line pays on the reels and the prize creeping toward the reels that can trigger it. If the collection mechanic is new to you, our how to play guide walks through how scatter-driven bonuses differ from line wins.

Medium volatility means the base game feeds you frequent small line wins to keep a session breathing, while the memorable money comes from the Prize Disk and the free spins. Because the original caps at 533x, it behaves more like a grind than a gamble, which is exactly why IGT later bolted progressive jackpots onto the same engine to raise the top-end reward. For real money play in the legal states, the plain original is usually offered only in free-play or demo form, and the versions you actually deposit against are the jackpot editions covered below. To see which operators serve your state for real money, our real money slots hub lists them by jurisdiction.

Symbols

The pay table is shared, with small art changes, across the whole family, so learning it once carries you through every version. The symbols split into animal high-pays, card and gem low-pays, and the two special symbols that drive the bonus.

High-pay symbols

• Elephant: the title animal and the top regular symbol, and also the emblem used on the Bonus scatter that unlocks the Prize Disk.
• Rhino, zebra and gazelle: the mid-to-upper animal symbols that fill out the premium pays. During free spins, every high symbol pays double, which is what turns a hot free-spins run into the round’s biggest payouts.

Low-pay symbols

• The four card suits, hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades, styled to fit the safari art, pay the smallest line amounts.
• A blue sapphire gem sits just above the card suits as the lowest of the higher tier, bridging the animal pays and the card ranks.

Wild and scatter

• Wild: a stacked shield symbol that lands on reels 2, 3 and 4 and substitutes for every symbol except the elephant Bonus scatter. Because it arrives in stacks, it can cover a full reel and complete several lines at once.
• Elephant Bonus scatter: the trigger symbol. In the base game it appears on reels 1, 3 and 5, and during free spins it can land on all five reels. It does not pay a line prize on its own; its whole job is to reach up and collect the container sitting above its reel.

Bonus-symbol cross-check

Because players often assume every Elephant King plays the same way, here is the important consistency check. Across the entire family, the symbol that triggers the bonus is the same in every version: the elephant Bonus scatter, which collects the prize shown in the Prize Disk container above its reel, and the wild is the stacked shield in every version. That part is genuinely shared, so if you can trigger the original, you can trigger the jackpot editions. Where the versions differ is not the trigger symbol but what the Prize Disk containers can hold. On the original, the containers show only cash values, Extra Spins symbols and the free-spins entry. On MegaJackpots Elephant King and Elephant King Jackpots, the same elephant scatter can instead reveal a jackpot container, feeding the wide-area progressive on the 2021 edition or the three local tiers on the 2024 edition. So the answer to “do all versions use the same bonus symbol” is yes for the trigger, the elephant scatter and the shield wild are constant, but the jackpot versions add jackpot values into the Prize Disk that the base game does not carry.

How to trigger the bonus

The trigger is the one rule worth memorizing, and it is nearly identical across the family. Land one or more elephant Bonus scatters on the reels and each one collects the prize in the container directly above it. In the base game the scatter can appear only on reels 1, 3 and 5, so up to three collections are possible on a single spin, and because the Prize Disk slides left every spin you can watch a valuable container drift toward a reel that can hit it. There is no minimum of three scatters as on a classic free-spins slot; a single elephant scatter is enough to collect whatever sits above it, which is why the bonus fires far more often than a traditional trigger. If a container shows a free-spins award, collecting it launches the free-spins round.

The free spins themselves are also reached through the Prize Disk rather than a fixed scatter count. When the container an elephant scatter collects is the free-spins entry, you are awarded 10 free spins. During that round the elephant scatter can land on all five reels rather than just reels 1, 3 and 5, and each Extra Spins symbol you collect adds two more spins to the tally, letting a strong round stretch well beyond the opening 10 and, on the standard engine, up to a maximum of 250 total spins. If a container shows a jackpot on the jackpot editions, collecting it awards or triggers the progressive instead of cash.

How the bonus works

Once triggered, the round is where each version shows its personality, so it is worth walking through what actually happens on the screen. On the original Elephant King, collecting a free-spins container drops you into 10 free spins played on the same 40-line grid. The single change that matters is that every high animal symbol, the elephant, rhino, zebra and gazelle, pays double for the whole round, so the same winning lines that paid modestly in the base game now pay twice as much. The elephant scatter opens up to all five reels during the round, which means more collections from the Prize Disk are possible, and every Extra Spins symbol you gather adds two spins. There is no wheel and no pick screen: the round is a straight run of doubled spins with the Prize Disk still sliding overhead, and the volatility comes from whether the stacked shield wilds line up with the doubled animals.

The jackpot editions keep that free-spins structure but change what the Prize Disk can pay. On MegaJackpots Elephant King, the containers can reveal IGT’s wide-area MegaJackpots progressive, a single pooled prize that grows across every linked machine and casino until someone wins it, seeded at 500,000. The free spins still run 10 at a time with doubled high symbols, but the headline event is a jackpot pick that can hit through the Prize Disk, and because a slice of every bet feeds that pool the base return is lower than the original. On Elephant King Jackpots, the 2024 release, the Prize Disk instead holds three local progressive tiers, Mini, Major and Mega, that reset and climb on that game rather than across the whole network. Collecting a jackpot container there awards one of the three tiers directly. So while the free-spins mechanic and the collection trigger are shared, the bonus outcome ranges from the original’s clean doubled spins to a shot at a six-figure progressive on the jackpot editions.

Version by version

This is the section that matters most, because a player who loves the original can sit down at a game labeled “Elephant King” and find a very different top-end. Each version below gets its release history, what changed from the version before it, how the bonus plays, its published specs and, crucially for a US player, whether it is offered online in the legal market or restricted to demo play. If you are weighing which one to play, our guide to choosing a slot pairs well with these breakdowns.

Elephant King

The original Elephant King launched on October 15, 2017 as a 5-reel, 3-row IGT video slot with 40 fixed paylines, and it is the foundation the whole family is built on. Its published RTP is 96.02 percent, its volatility is medium, the bet range runs from roughly 0.75 up to 1,500 per spin depending on the operator, and the maximum win is 533x the stake. The mechanics are the ones described above: stacked shield wilds on reels 2, 3 and 4, an elephant Bonus scatter that collects from the moving Prize Disk on reels 1, 3 and 5, and a free-spins round of 10 spins in which every high animal symbol pays double and Extra Spins symbols keep the round alive toward a 250-spin ceiling. There is no bonus buy on any version, so the free spins and Prize Disk rewards can only be reached through natural play.

In the regulated US online market, the plain non-jackpot original is most often offered as a free demo rather than a real-money game, because the versions operators load for deposits are the jackpot editions that raise the top-end reward. That makes the original the benchmark to understand the family rather than the version you will usually bet on: clean, medium-variance, and defined entirely by how often the Prize Disk lines a valuable container up with an elephant scatter. If you want to try the base math with no money at risk, the demo is the place to learn the collection rhythm before you move to a jackpot edition. To understand why the medium-variance label matters for bankroll, see our guide to volatility.

Elephant King Jackpots

Elephant King Jackpots is the newest member of the family, released on December 13, 2024, and it is a jackpot-driven reinvention of the same safari engine. It keeps the 5-reel grid, the stacked shield wild, the elephant Bonus scatter and the sliding Prize Disk, but it layers on three progressive jackpot prizes that live on the game itself: a Mini tier starting at 500x the stake, a Major tier starting at 5,000x, and a Mega tier starting at 250,000x, each of which climbs as players keep spinning until it is won. The Prize Disk containers that an elephant scatter collects can now reveal one of those jackpot tiers alongside the familiar cash amounts, Extra Spins and 10 free spins, so the bonus experience gains a genuine six-figure top-end that the original’s 533x ceiling never offered.

IGT has not published a headline RTP, volatility rating or payline count for the 2024 Elephant King Jackpots, so none is quoted here rather than invented; where the studio stays silent, the honest answer is that the figure is not published. What is clear is the structural change from the original: the top prize is no longer a fixed 533x but a climbing Mega jackpot seeded at 250,000x the stake, which makes this edition swing harder and reward a smaller, more patient bet than the base game. Because the jackpots are local to the title rather than shared across a whole network, the tiers reset and rebuild on that specific game. Elephant King Jackpots is built for online distribution to regulated markets, so it appears in legal US lobbies where operators have loaded it, and it is not a land-based-only product. As with any specific title, confirm the exact game in your casino’s live lobby before you assume it is stocked, since operators rotate their catalogs.

MegaJackpots Elephant King

MegaJackpots Elephant King is the edition most US online players are actually playing when they open an Elephant King game for real money, and it predates the 2024 Jackpots release. IGT adapted it for online play around October 2021, taking the original’s 5-reel, 3-row, 40-line frame and its 10-free-spins round and attaching the company’s wide-area MegaJackpots progressive, a single prize pool that grows across every linked machine and every linked casino until someone wins it, seeded at 500,000. The elephant scatter still collects from the Prize Disk, but now one of the things a container can reveal is a shot at that networked jackpot, which is why this version carries a life-changing top prize that the base game does not.

The trade-off for the networked jackpot is a lower base return. The published base RTP is 88.99 percent, well under the original’s 96.02 percent, because a slice of every bet is diverted into the shared pool, and the effective return rises to about 92.49 percent once the jackpot contribution is counted in. Volatility is medium, the bet range again runs up to 1,500 per spin, and the fixed maximum outside the jackpot is 500x the stake, with the real top prize being whatever the progressive has climbed to. This is the version to play if you want the wide-area jackpot chase, and it is the most widely available Elephant King for real money in the legal market, offered online at BetMGM across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and West Virginia, at DraftKings, and at Mohegan Sun.

MegaJackpots Elephant King specs

Max win and RTP across the family

Maximum win is the spec players most often quote wrong on Elephant King, so here is the honest breakdown. The original caps at 533x the bet, a deliberately modest ceiling that suits its medium-variance, Prize-Disk-driven design. MegaJackpots Elephant King caps its non-jackpot pays at 500x but replaces the fixed ceiling with a wide-area progressive that has no upper limit until it is won and starts at 500,000. Elephant King Jackpots swaps in three local tiers instead, with the Mega jackpot seeded at 250,000x the stake and climbing from there, so its true top prize is a progressive rather than a fixed multiple. In every version, the top of the range is a rare Prize Disk or jackpot event, not a base-game line win.

Return figures also span a wide band, which is why reading the posted number matters. The original sits at a healthy 96.02 percent, comfortably in the medium range. MegaJackpots Elephant King runs the lowest base return in the family at 88.99 percent, a direct consequence of diverting part of every bet into the shared jackpot, though the effective return climbs to roughly 92.49 percent once the jackpot contribution is counted. IGT does not publish an RTP for the 2024 Elephant King Jackpots, so no figure is quoted for it here. The pattern is consistent across IGT’s catalog: the more a version leans on a networked or tiered progressive, the lower its base return tends to be, because that pooled prize has to be funded somewhere.

Betting, bankroll and the Prize Disk rhythm

Bet ranges are broadly similar across the family, running from about 0.75 up to 1,500 per spin depending on the operator, and none of the versions offers a bonus buy, so every bonus has to be earned through natural play. That matters more here than on a typical slot because the Prize Disk rewards patience in a specific way: the strip slides one container to the left every spin, so a large cash or jackpot container that is three reels away will only become collectible in three more spins, and only if an elephant scatter then lands beneath it. Watching that drift is part of the strategy, since a player who sees a big container approaching reel 5 has a concrete reason to keep spinning at a steady stake rather than chasing.

Because the original is medium volatility with a 533x ceiling, a bet you can comfortably ride through 50 to 100 spins is a sensible unit, giving the Prize Disk time to cycle valuable containers over the trigger reels. The jackpot editions justify a smaller unit, because their base return is lower and their variance is higher: you are funding a progressive with every spin, so the individual line pays run leaner and the payoff is concentrated in a rare jackpot collection. If your goal is the Mega tier on Elephant King Jackpots or the wide-area pool on MegaJackpots Elephant King, size the bet so you can sustain a long session, since the jackpot containers appear on the Prize Disk infrequently and there is no way to buy your way into them.

Mobile play

Every online Elephant King version runs in the browser on iOS and Android without a separate download, because IGT built the family in HTML5 for phones and tablets from the start. The 40-line grid scales cleanly to a portrait screen, the sliding Prize Disk stays legible above the reels, and the elephant scatter collections and doubled free spins play identically to desktop, with touch controls covering bet selection, spin and autoplay. The jackpot editions show their Mini, Major and Mega meters or the wide-area MegaJackpots total across the top of the screen so you can track the progressive on a phone the same way you would on a monitor. For a broader look at how IGT titles handle small screens, see our mobile slots guide.

Where to play

Because IGT distributes Elephant King state by state, the fastest way to find a live version is to start from the regulated operators serving your state rather than the game itself. Our legal sites directory lists the licensed real money casinos by jurisdiction, so you can see which lobby carries MegaJackpots Elephant King or the newer Elephant King Jackpots. Confirm the specific version in the lobby before depositing, since availability shifts as operators rotate their catalogs and the plain original is often stocked only as a free demo.

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