It’s a Mystery! slot by Realtime Gaming (RTG)

Learning how to play It’s a Mystery! takes about a minute: choose a stake, start the spin and read what the reels leave behind. The stake can be changed between spins at any point, and every It’s a Mystery! payout moves with it.

A win in It’s a Mystery! is a run of matching symbols on one of its 25 lines, counted from the leftmost reel rightwards; a combination that starts anywhere else does not pay. Only the highest win on each line is paid, so two hits on the same line do not add up.

The full table of payouts sits in the It’s a Mystery! menu, and it is worth opening before the first round rather than after a result that looks wrong: it lists every symbol, the entry for Mystery Symbol, and the conditions each one needs.

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.

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.

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.

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. What to watch in It’s a Mystery! is Mystery Symbol: how often it arrives sets the pace of a session more than any other number.

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.

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.

Put It’s a Mystery! beside London Inspector and the shared parts fall away quickly. 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