It’s a Mystery!

A Closer Look at the Detective

It’s a Mystery! is set in a private detective's office, venetian blinds and cigarette smoke, and the art commits to it hard enough that the tile in our lobby is recognisable at thumbnail size. Top of the paytable and top of the artwork, the same motif: a detective in a hat holding a magnifying glass. In It’s a Mystery! that motif holds both together.

The rest of the premium symbols are a magnifying glass, a fingerprint, a desk telephone and a case file; the low-value positions are card ranks. Colour does a lot of the work here: sepia, tobacco smoke and night blue, held consistently across symbols, background and bonus screens.

The soundtrack is widescreen, and it is worth leaving on — the feature trigger is easier to catch by ear than by eye. On a phone held upright the grid keeps the same proportions and the sepia survives the shrink, which is not true of every title in the lobby — some lose their backgrounds entirely at that width.

It’s a Mystery! identifies itself quickly, which counts for more in a lobby of this size than it would in a small one.

Reading a Winning Spin in It’s a Mystery!

Strip the art away and It’s a Mystery! is 5 reels, 3 rows and 25 paylines. Wins are read left to right from the first reel, and only the highest combination on each line counts, so a second detective further along the same line adds nothing. The paytable is top-heavy. The detective carries the headline number, a magnifying glass the next one, and everything below is filler.

It’s a Mystery! skips the standard wild entirely and puts its variance into the bonus rounds. The It’s a Mystery! ceiling is 2,500× the line bet, which is a feature number, not a base-game one.

The trigger to watch is Mystery Symbol — a covered symbol turns over as the same symbol in every position — and it is the only event on the grid that changes what the next spin is worth. So the honest way to read It’s a Mystery! is as two games stacked: the base grid, which ticks over, and the feature, which does not.

What a Spin Actually Costs

It’s a Mystery! is staked per line: pick a line bet, multiply by 25, and that is what a spin costs; every It’s a Mystery! payout is quoted against that same line bet. Note that 2,500× the line bet is a multiplier, not a rand figure. It holds at every stake, which is what makes It’s a Mystery! comparable with the games either side of it in the lobby.

Treat It’s a Mystery! as a medium-volatility game — it sits in the middle of the catalogue, neither a grinder nor a long-shot. There is no such thing as the RTP of It’s a Mystery!. RTG supplies a configurable return and each operator picks a setting, which makes cross-site comparisons of this number meaningless — check the info panel inside It’s a Mystery! rather than a table on someone else's site.

There is no reason to ladder the stake on It’s a Mystery!: each spin stands alone, and its paytable scales linearly with whatever you set. Autoplay handles the base grid of It’s a Mystery! perfectly well. Set it to stop on Mystery Symbol and you get the pace without losing the event.

Mystery Symbol and the Rest of the Toolkit

The feature set on It’s a Mystery! runs to three rounds, and it repays reading the paytable once before you spin.

Mystery Symbol. The paytable entry reads: a covered symbol turns over as the same symbol in every position. Watch for the Mystery Symbol trigger rather than the reels — on It’s a Mystery! it is easier to miss than you would expect.

Free Games. The paytable entry reads: up to twenty free spins, with detective still the symbol you want them to land on. Watch for the Free Games trigger rather than the reels — on It’s a Mystery! it is easier to miss than you would expect.

Case Bonus — you work through the evidence for a multiplier. Case Bonus does not fire often on It’s a Mystery!, and the game is built on the assumption that you are waiting for it.

Taken together the set is what separates It’s a Mystery! from the rest of its shelf. The base grid is common enough across the catalogue; Mystery Symbol is not, and it is the reason the game has its own page here.

Getting the Most From Each Spin

Size the stake on It’s a Mystery! so the balance covers a few hundred spins — that is roughly the window in which the game shows you what it does. A limit set before It’s a Mystery! loads is worth more than one set at the end of a losing run; the tools for it are in your account.

Bonus play on It’s a Mystery! is straightforward: slots clear wagering at 100%, and the detail is on the bonus page. Before staking It’s a Mystery!, run it in practice mode until Mystery Symbol has landed at least once — that wait tells you more about It’s a Mystery! than the paytable does.

One thing not to do with It’s a Mystery! is chase Mystery Symbol by raising the stake after a dry run: its trigger frequency does not change with bet size, only the cost of waiting does. Our responsible gaming page has the limits, the self-exclusion options and the contacts for independent help — none of it requires talking to support about It’s a Mystery! or anything else first.

Try It’s a Mystery!, Then Try London Inspector

In short: It’s a Mystery! is for a game that pays often enough to stay interesting without flattening out. The natural companion in our lobby is London Inspector; the corner of the catalogue is close, the feel is not.

Try It’s a Mystery! and London Inspector side by side in practice mode before committing a stake to either. Start with It’s a Mystery! if you want a game that keeps showing you something. Full specifications for It’s a Mystery! — the 5 reels, 3 rows and 25 paylines, volatility, the top end (2,500× the line bet), the feature list and the release year — are in the table at the top of this page.

London Inspector