Golden Caravan slot review
- RTP96.19%
- VolatilityHigh
- Reels5 × 3
- Paylines10
- Max Win5,000×
A caravan is a slow way of getting rich: the camels walk, the merchant counts the days to the next oasis, and the treasure chest tied to the saddle is worth something only at the end of the road. Golden Caravan, a video slot that Play'n GO released on 20 April 2016, borrows that patience and its images (the camel, the chest, the tent under the stars). We played it in "demo" mode (free play, with credits that are not money) before writing these lines, as we do with every slot on this site.
This page carries no rating, because the slot was tried for the pleasure of describing it. The figures below (ten paylines, an RTP of 96.19 per cent, high volatility, a ceiling of 5,000 times the "line bet") are those printed by the game. A player should read them again in the "information panel" of the casino where he or she plays, since the version installed there is the one that pays.
Screenshots of Golden Caravan
Pros and cons
Pros
- A Silk Road theme drawn with care, on a clear paytable
- Free spins with a multiplier that rises at every restart
- Published RTP of 96.19 per cent, with a ceiling of 5,000 times the line bet
Cons
- Only ten paylines, and a poor base game
- No progressive jackpot
- A release of 2016 with simple mechanics, and high volatility for small budgets
The Silk Road on ten lines
The reels stand in a desert at night, with dunes that turn violet under the moon, and the symbols are the people and the goods of the Silk Road. The Caravan Master in his red turban, a woman of the caravan with her jewels, a falcon, an oasis of palms and, below them, the playing-card values from ten to ace, drawn in the lettering of a bazaar, fill the five reels. The chest on the camel's back is the logo, not a symbol.
Play'n GO, a Swedish studio of 2005 that had become known a few months earlier with Book of Dead (January 2016), was already fond of ten-line slots in which the "high" symbols pay heavily and the "low" ones pay little, a design that gives the caravan its rhythm. Long stretches of sand, then an oasis; the screenshots above show the "paytable" and the free spins as the game presents them.
Reels, paylines, RTP and volatility
The grid is five reels by three rows with ten fixed paylines, read from left to right. The Caravan Master is at the same time the "wild" (the joker that replaces every symbol except the scatter) and the symbol that pays most, five of him on a line being worth 5,000 times the line bet (500 for a line bet of 0.10). The merchant woman pays 2,000, the falcon 750 and the oasis 500 for five.
The theoretical return ("RTP", the share of the stakes that the game gives back over millions of spins) is 96.19 per cent, slightly above the 96 that the trade treats as ordinary, and the volatility is high, which means that the 96.19 come back in few and large payments rather than in many small ones.
A player who sits down with a modest budget should expect the sand before the oasis, and the "hit frequency" (the share of spins that pay something) is low, as the demo shows within a quarter of an hour. There is no progressive jackpot.
The camels and the free spins
The camel is the "scatter" (the symbol that pays wherever it lands), and it appears only on the first, the third and the fifth reel, so that three camels in view start ten "free spins" with a multiplier that begins at two. Each time three camels land again during the free spins, the counter of ten restarts and the multiplier rises by one (a "retrigger", in the jargon of the trade), while the camel itself becomes a wild for the rest of the round.
The arithmetic is worth one example: a player who stakes 1.00 per spin (0.10 per line) and finds five Caravan Masters on a line collects 500 in the "base game" (the ordinary spins), but the same line under a multiplier of four, after two restarts of the free spins, pays 2,000! That is the whole design of the game, and it is why the base game feels poor: the oasis is kept for the free spins, which arrive rarely.
The gamble feature
After a win in the base game a "gamble" button offers to double the sum on the colour of a hidden card or to multiply it by four on its suit, up to five times in a row, and a wrong guess loses the win.
It is a fair bet (one chance in two for the colour, one in four for the suit) with no "house edge" (the casino's margin), which is rare in a casino. A losing streak of five can still empty a good win in thirty seconds, and we would advise you to leave the button alone after the second guess!
Where to play it, and the demo
Play'n GO's games are in the catalogue of most of the casinos licensed in Malta and in the United Kingdom, among them 888 Casino. The cards below show the offers published by the operators that carry the studio, offers that can change and whose current terms on the casino's own page prevail. The world list of no-deposit bonuses gives the wider choice, with the warnings that an offshore licence deserves.
The demo, reached after registration in most houses (and without registration on the studio's own site), runs the same mathematics as the real game with play credits, which is how we tried it.
A "free spin" received as a welcome gift is the other way to see the desert without paying for it with your own money, provided that its "wagering" (the number of times the winnings must be bet) and its "max cashout" (the ceiling on what can be withdrawn) are read first, as our page on free spins explains.
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Where to play Golden Caravan
Our opinion, without a rating
Golden Caravan is a slot of 2016 that shows its age in the best sense, since it asks nothing of the player but patience. It gives in return a clear paytable, a published RTP above the average and a free spins round in which the multiplier can grow without a ceiling other than the stubbornness of the camels, which is, in our view, the best idea of the game. It is not a game for an evening of small, frequent wins.
For a player who likes the desert and accepts that the oasis comes late, it is in our view a sound choice among the ten-line slots of Play'n GO, to be tried in demo first, as we did, with a budget that survives a hundred empty spins. A player who prefers the frequent small win will find games of lower volatility on our hub of slot and game reviews, and the About page tells how these pages are made (18+).
Frequently asked questions
The game publishes a theoretical return of 96.19 per cent and a high volatility, that is few and large payments rather than many small ones; the figure in use at your casino is printed in the information panel of the game, and we would look at it before the first spin.
Three camels, which appear only on the first, the third and the fifth reel, start ten free spins with a multiplier of two; each time three camels land again during the round, the counter restarts and the multiplier rises by one, while the camel acts as a wild until the spins are over.
No: the ceiling is 5,000 times the line bet for five Caravan Masters on a payline, multiplied by the counter of the free spins when the win happens there, and there is no "progressive" jackpot (a network prize) of the kind that Mega Moolah offers at the casinos of Games Global.
Yes, in demo mode with play credits, on the studio's own site without registration and at most casinos after you register, and the demo runs the same mathematics as the real game; a no-deposit free spin, described on our free spins page, is the other way to try it without depositing.
By the Online-Casinos.ws editorial team · Online since 2002 · Last updated: 9 October 2026