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Greentube is Novomatic's online arm, the studio behind Book of Ra and the "Book of" slot genre it created. Its catalogue of classic, high-variance games carries the famous Novomatic feel, though returns sit low by modern standards at around 95%.
Few slots have shaped the modern game the way Book of Ra has. The Egyptian adventure with its expanding special symbol did not merely become a hit, it turned the "Book of" slot into a whole genre that hundreds of studios have copied since.
The studio behind it is Greentube, the online and mobile arm of Novomatic. While the Austrian parent is famous for the cabinets that fill casino floors across Europe, Greentube is the side that builds the digital games and carries those land-based legends online.
This review covers where it sits inside Novomatic, the classics that made its name, the jackpot systems behind its newer work, and what its returns are honestly worth.
Book of Ra is the game most worth understanding here, because so much of what followed in the slot world traces back to it. A five-reel Egyptian slot fronted by an Indiana Jones-style explorer, its trick is the book symbol, which acts as both scatter and wild and triggers ten free spins.
Before those spins begin, one ordinary symbol is chosen at random to become a special expanding symbol, and whenever it lands during the bonus it stretches to fill its whole reel and pays across the board. That single idea, the randomly chosen expanding symbol in a free-spins round, is the template that Book of Dead and a hundred other "Book of" slots have run with ever since.
Greentube got there first and still owns the original, with Book of Ra Deluxe the definitive online version. It is worth being honest about how it plays, though.
This is a high-variance game where the base spins can run cold for a long stretch, and almost everything rides on the free spins and which symbol you draw to expand. That tension is exactly its appeal, and exactly why it can be brutal.
To place Greentube properly you have to start with its parent. Novomatic, founded in Austria in 1980, is one of the largest land-based gaming companies in the world, a maker of cabinets and floor machines with a presence in around fifty countries.
Greentube, founded in 1998 and absorbed into the group in 2010, is the piece of that empire built for screens rather than casino floors. Its brief is a simple one: carry Novomatic's proven games and house style into the browser. So a Greentube slot keeps things clean and classic.
It skips the heavy feature-stacking of newer studios. Everything runs in HTML5 across desktop and mobile, with no download needed.
If that heritage sounds familiar, our Amusnet review covers another studio built the same way, as the online face of a land-based manufacturer, and the contrast between the two is a useful one.
Greentube's catalogue splits cleanly into the old and the new. The old guard is its stable of Novomatic classics, Book of Ra Deluxe, Lucky Lady's Charm, Sizzling Hot, Lord of the Ocean, Dolphin's Pearl, Mega Joker and Reel King among them, spanning Egyptian, fruit, ocean and fairytale themes with the plain, high-contrast look Novomatic players know at a glance.
The new guard is where the studio answers modern tastes. The Diamond Link series builds hold-and-win rounds around a four-tier jackpot ladder, while Diamond Mystery layers mystery jackpots over its reels, and both exist to give classic-minded players a shot at a linked prize.
Newer hold-and-win lines like Cash Connection and the Piggy Prizes series show a studio willing to chase current trends. The latest of them, Piggy Prizes Wish of Riches 2, is a good example.
A run of titles now also offers a buy feature that drops you straight into the bonus round, which our bonus buy guide walks through. The identity still rests on the classics, but the newer lines prove Greentube is not frozen in 2005.
The returns are where Greentube shows its age. Its famous classics were built before the 96% return became a benchmark, and it shows.
Book of Ra Deluxe pays back around 95%, and several of the old favourites sit in the 94% to 95% band, a touch below what modern players tend to expect. You are trading a little long-run value for the originals and the nostalgia.
Two habits are worth keeping as a result. First, weigh the return figure alongside the swing, because these are high-variance games.
A low RTP paired with high variance can empty a bankroll faster than the number alone suggests. Our volatility guide explains why.
Second, like other Novomatic content, the same game is sometimes issued at more than one return, so a casino can run a leaner one without flagging it. Check the live rate the game itself displays before you stake, and our RTP guide covers what that percentage really means for your money.
Greentube's regulatory standing is as solid as its pedigree suggests. It holds licences from the UK Gambling Commission and the Malta Gaming Authority, the two most demanding tickets in European iGaming.
Our UKGC licence review and MGA guide explain what each of those requires. The games are checked for fair, random outcomes by independent labs, and behind all of it sits Novomatic, one of the oldest and most heavily audited names in the business.
For you, that means a Greentube game you meet at a regulated casino is a known quantity, answerable to serious regulators and backed by a group with decades of scrutiny behind it. None of it changes what happens on any given spin, so decide a budget before you play and stop once it is gone.
With Greentube, free play is more useful than usual, because the thing you most need to feel is the variance. You can load any Greentube slot in free demo here on Vistagamble, on the same maths as the paid game.
Load Book of Ra in demo and let it run, and you will see for yourself how dry the base game can go before the free spins arrive, which tells you fast whether the high-variance ride suits you. Try a Diamond Link title for the jackpot side and a Piggy Prizes game for the studio's newer style.
When a title is worth a real deposit, you will find the operators in our network that run it on our Popular Casinos page.
Greentube is the keeper of the Novomatic flame, and it plays to that strength rather than fighting it. Here is the reckoning.
Greentube is a studio to take for what it is, the home of the icons rather than a chaser of trends. Book of Ra and its stablemates are the real thing, and the classic Novomatic feel is unmatched by the imitators.
The licensing and pedigree behind them are about as reassuring as the industry gets. If you love the "Book of" template at its source and the old-school, high-stakes swing, this is where it lives.
What you will not get is a generous return or a shelf of modern mechanics, and the variance demands a cool head and a set budget. Take Greentube for the legend it keeps, play the classics with your eyes open to the swings and the rate, and few studios offer a purer hit of what made slots popular in the first place.
Greentube is Novomatic's digital arm rather than a separate company. Novomatic makes the land-based machines, while Greentube produces the online versions and its own newer digital titles.
Yes. Book of Ra is a Novomatic and Greentube title, and its randomly chosen expanding symbol in the free spins is the template that later "Book of" slots across the industry were built on.
Deluxe is the updated version, with sharper visuals, ten paylines rather than nine and a smoother online build. The core expanding-symbol free spins are the same in both.
Most were designed before 96% became the industry norm, so titles like Book of Ra Deluxe sit around 95%. Newer Greentube games tend to run closer to modern rates.
Many of the classics are, meaning long dry spells in the base game and larger, rarer wins in the bonus. It is worth playing them with a budget that can ride out the cold streaks.
They are Greentube's jackpot systems. Diamond Link pairs a hold-and-win round with a laddered jackpot, and Diamond Mystery drops mystery jackpots into its games.
Yes. You can play its slots in free demo on our pages, the smartest way to feel the variance before risking real money.
Yes, it is licensed in the UK and Malta, and independent labs verify that its games run fair and random.