Wild Rubies Christmas Edition Slot – Free Demo

Every job on these reels belongs to the Ruby

In Wild Rubies Christmas Edition the Ruby is the wild, it substitutes for every other symbol, and it lands stacked; there is nothing else on the reels to trigger. There is a strong likelihood you will stumble upon Gamomat's Wild Rubies Christmas Edition slot if you devote any stretch of time enjoying slots online, and indeed, players are practically certain to encounter it sooner or later. The stake in my run was 3.00, which the panel builds from 10 lines at 0.30 each. The gem packed, holiday-themed slot turns up in plenty of operator lobbies. It occupies centre stage in innumerable online lobbies, it's likewise a fixture in its own right, and it has aged well.

Wild Rubies Christmas Edition stays something of a puzzle, because how can such a modest, comparatively low potential slot keep its spot at all? There is no bonus round sitting behind it, so the base game carries the whole of the return.

The 5 of a kind banner covers its own win line

Virtually from the instant it was launched, Wild Rubies Christmas Edition was a smash, and part of the explanation is the first sensory impact. The graphics are agreeably plain, like the gameplay. A softly shining winter scene glimmers faintly in the backdrop, and audio touches are equally calming with a festive track layered over by bursts of noise whenever something thrilling occurs such as landing a winner. When five of a kind completes, the game throws its own "5 of a kind" banner across the grid, so the winning line stays hidden behind it until the banner clears.

The whole presentation is humble. Curiously, it is entirely sufficient for the job at hand, and it still appears fairly handsome a few years down the track, in spite of the technological progress that has occurred. My own 370 spins all ran at that 3.00 total bet with the full 10 lines paid. Fine, you can see it's not an ultra-current slot, but even so, Wild Rubies Christmas Edition's retro flourish has the power to stir surges of nostalgia for physical gaming that persists today.

What the Lines controls change

The action unfolds on a 5 reel, 3 row grid, and there are 10 adjustable paylines to land winners on. The number of lines played comes down with the Lines controls, and the total bet comes down with it. The stated RTP is 96.16%.

Volatility is listed at 2 out of 5. The balance never travelled far in my run, peaking at 5,007.80 on spin 67 and bottoming out at 4,636.70. In my 370 spin trial run the hit rate was 38%. That amounts to marginally more than one hit in 3 spins on average, though 90 of those 141 paying spins returned worth less than the stake. The longest stretch without a win was 8 spins, ending on spin 80.

Four fruits, two Bars, a Bell and a 7

Symbols are another element in Wild Rubies Christmas Edition's appeal, and they comprise fruit as well as traditional symbols. The Ruby sits outside that set as the wild. The low pay symbols are the four fruits, with Watermelon and Grapes a notch above them. Those four are Cherry, Lemon, Orange and Plum. The premiums are a gleaming '7', a Bar Bar, a Bell and a lone Bar.

Three or more of the identical symbol on a payline yields a prize. Wins only count on the lines you have paid for. Wins pay left to right from the leftmost reel, only the biggest win per line counts, though wins on separate lines are summed together. The matching symbols have to sit on adjacent reels, starting from reel one. Values aren't poor. Wild Rubies Christmas Edition isn't precisely famed for being a huge paying slot, but Rubies are finest, paying out 200 times the total stake for five of a kind, which at my 3.00 bet amounted to 600.00. The Ruby is both the substitute and the top paying symbol, so a full line of wilds is what pays that. Sevens and Bar Bar are next at 50 times the stake.

One optional risk ladder, no bonus round

If there is one thing you will not discover plenty of in Wild Rubies Christmas Edition, it is features, and the sole thing interrupting the flow of play is the Ruby Wild. This symbol stands in for all others. Because it arrives in stacks, one reel can carry the whole substitution, and a five of a kind will complete with Rubies standing in across the middle reels. It lands stacked on the reels, and there is no scatter, no free spins and no bonus round. It is the Christmas re-skin of Gamomat's 2014 Wild Rubies, which runs the same 10 lines and the same 96.16% RTP, while the 2018 Wild Rubies Golden Nights Bonus adds a bonus round on top.

The one further option is the Gamble on an interim win. Taking the win instead books it straight to the credit. You can take the Card Gamble, a plain red or black guess at 50% to double or forfeit. Where the operator caps the gamble is not printed in the help screens. Alternatively there is the Ladder Gamble, climbing up or down a risk ladder, with Split offered for a partial collect and Take Win for a complete one, though Gamble is unavailable in autoplay and for large wins. The ladder's maximum follows from the interim win it was started with, and dropping to the lowest level loses that win entirely.

Minty’s Expert Conclusion: Ninety of the 141 paying spins in my run came back worth less than the 3.00 that bought them, and at worst the reels went eight blank spins in a row. With no bonus round behind the reels, the Ruby stacking into a payline is the only event the game has.

Where 370 spins left the balance

When they built Wild Rubies Christmas Edition, Gamomat achieved a modest balance, and this is uncomplicated gaming. The help screens run to a grid, a paytable and a Gamble, and that is the lot. It is a solid favourite with an enormous number of players. The Gamble is the only decision the game ever asks for. The ingredients are basic - low volatility, stacked wilds, calming graphics, and respectable payouts (for what it is).

On paper, Wild Rubies Christmas Edition might not seem super stimulating, since there are so few features to accompany the modest potential, and it definitely isn't a slot you play for elaborate gameplay or life-altering heaps of coins. My own 370 spins confirmed that. There was 1,110.00 wagered against 936.90 returned, an 84.4% session return, with the balance drifting from 5,000.00 to 4,826.90, and only one spin, number 309, ever paid decently at 303.00 or 101 times the stake. Nothing else came near it: the next two were 63.00 on spin 130 and 42.00 on spin 67.

Wild Rubies Christmas Edition has matured well in spite of the enormous number of innovations which have arrived since its launch, and it stays a solid favourite for new as well as seasoned gamblers.

Whilst it's alluring to yield and grant Wild Rubies Christmas Edition a generous rating just for the fact that it's so broadly played, the truth is that it's a rather middling slot, and the popularity is probably more tied to the fact that it's the sort of basic, festive slot most players are acquainted with early on. They thus form a bit of an emotional bond.