ELK Studios Slots
Elks are among the biggest land mammals in North America and East Asia. They don’t, though, stalk the meadows, moors, woodlands, and tundra of Sweden, where the moose is the nearest relative in aesthetic terms.
Their biggest hit in the UK is Tahiti Gold, part of an exploration series that provides the bulk of the company’s big titles. Their most recent release, in May 2021, was Nitropolis 2.
The company operate around the world from Australia to Vietnam and have major footprints in the UK, Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, the Russian Federation, and Sweden. In all of these countries, the company’s games are available at around 100 casino sites.
We like ELK Studios games. The company is legal and legitimate and provides good quality titles. In this guide, we’ll tell you more about the company, its biggest hits, and why you can play them with confidence.
ELK Studios: a Quick Guide
ELK was founded in September 2013 in Engelbrektsgatan, an area of Stockholm, Sweden. In October the company released their first game, The Lab.
The company was very small and didn’t appoint its 10th employee until 2015, by which time they had a new HQ and three-game titles on the market. By 2017 they had moved to another new building, had more employees and more games on the market.
In 2017, their game, Wild Toro, won the Game of the Year award at the EGR Operators ceremony. Ecuador Gold, the first of the Gold series, was released in 2019.
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Licensing and Regulation
ELK is, like a lot of companies in the gambling industries (and in all other industries to be honest), is not a single entity. The company’s full family include ELKAB Studios AB and ELK Studios Malta. The company has more than one licence.
In the UK they are regulated by the UK Gambling Commission, where they are account number 40844. This account gives us:
"Remote licence:
Licence number: 040844-R-320591-011
A remote licence is required for any gambling provided to players online or by other remote means. This licence is also required if any gambling equipment is based in Great Britain.
Licensed for
Gambling Software from 19 Mar 2015
Game Host (Casino) from 12 Feb 2018”
The company, as ELK Studios Malta Limited, are also licensed, in this case by the Malta Gaming Authority, where they are licensed with a business-to-business critical supply licence for the software, and also as a gaming services company with a casino licence.
The company is also licensed in Italy.
ELK Studios Slots Promotions
ELK Studios run a couple of non-slot operations that complement their games.
As one of them, X-iter, uses paid-for bonuses, which aren’t legal in the UK, it may not be available everywhere.
The other is aimed at casino sites rather than game players. This is the ELK Compete programme, and it allows casino sites to operate tournaments and challenges using ELK games.
This is a gamification tool. Gamification aims to encourage people to complete tasks by making them like a game. This can be used for good things, like helping teenagers to do their homework, say, or it can be used to pile up great piles of profits.
Here it is the latter; a marketing style, that uses milestones, league tables, and rewards to encourage players to play ELK games more often.
At the moment, the company offers a number of seasonal campaigns around
- Easter
- Christmas
- Halloween
- Oktoberfest
What ELK Studios Say
We’re an independent review site, in so far as any industry press is truly independent, but it’s only fair to let ELK have their own say here.
The company, naturally, like all companies, says it is great!
The key to ELK’s appeal, they say is three-fold:
- Concept, which they describe as a “strong game model and an inspiring theme that fits well together”.
- “Beautiful artwork” is the next plank of their self-declared skill-set, with “crisp art” with “defined sound, flowing animations and astonishing graphics”.
- Finally, the company says that it has a “strong math model”. The company says it uses statistical modelling, cloud computing and big data analysis to design the games’ mathematics.
It is where slots companies talk about their products to their immediate customers that they are most revealing. Slots designers have two sets of customers: you, who plays slots, and the casino companies who put the slots in front of you.
You may not have the same priorities.
Slots players want a fun experience, and most of them want to win. Slots companies want lots of players spending lots of time and money on their sites, and they want the games to deliver a profit. So, when slots companies sing the praises of their game presentation systems and promotions they are telling casino companies that these systems will deliver more players playing for a longer time.
It’s important that players know what they’re doing around slots and that they know what slots and slots operators would like them to do. To insert the safety message we put into every article we write at this point. You should be aware that the reality of online gambling for most players is that they will lose money if they play slots for any length of time. This is simply the truth of how the games are set up.
Play if it is fun for you to play. Stop if it is not fun for you to play. Learn to spot dangerous behaviours. Learn to use tools that slots and casino sites have to offer to keep you safe. And do some more serious research on safe gambling than we can provide you with here.
ELK Studios Biggest Games
So we think ELK Studios are a legitimate, safe site and we think they’re good quality. Here are some of the titles that ELK Studios fans have played into the highest rankings among UK casino sites.
These count down in popularity from the top title, which is:
Tahiti Gold
The Gold series is without doubt the biggest set of games from ELK Studios. This iteration of the series, as you’ve guessed, has a beautiful tropical setting in the Pacific. Again, Kane the Adventurer has been unleashed on the world. This game was released in June 2019 and features some of the series’ typical features, like multiple ways to win and giant symbols, it has wilds, sticky wilds, and changing reel sets but respins – in the form of avalanches – stand in for free spins in this game. There’s a nice soundtrack and some lovely graphics in this top-100 title.
Ecuador Gold
The 96.1% RTP is very typical, but the high volatility is less so, in this version of the Gold series that takes Kane to South America on his journeys, this time excavating after a Temple of Luck – wouldn’t we all love to find that. High volatility usually means big prizes and you can walk away with 250,000 coins from this title. A lot of the features are typical to the series, with the graphics and sound carrying most of the work of making this March 2020 release.
Kathmandu Gold
Kane can’t stay at home, can he?! This time he’s off to Kathmandu, in the Himalayas to do… more of the same sort of stuff and with much the same game set-up and mathematics; I mean why change an overwhelmingly successful formula? The 10,000-times stake top prize really stands out in this leg of Kane’s journeys released in December 2020.
Nitropolis 2
This one looks very much like the Gold series too, with its square reel sets set between what look like big metal framing bars. It’s a follow-up game with a sort-of futuristic city of animals – like most future cities, it's a dystopia (what happened to optimism, Mr Designer?!) of crime and violence. The game was released in May 2021 and it has mathematics that is very comparable with the Gold series, which means masses of win ways (4,096) on a 6 by 4 grid, with betting from 20p to £100 and a 10,000-times stake top prize. It looks great and it has been a big hit since it was released. Extras like sticky wilds, swaps and splitting symbols add plenty of game-play interest.
Cygnus
This game came out in December 2019 and is a medium-to-high variance game with a 96.1% theoretical return to the player. Although it’s not obvious from the name this is an Egyptian game, with a sort of futuristic feel that buys into all the conspiracy theories (look them up, they’re garbage) about alien cultures making the pyramids. It’s a really fun game and it looks and sounds extremely good. The top prize is just a 5,000-times stake, which is about average rather than really good, and the game has the set-up that is a signature for ELK, with avalanches of symbols and many many ways to win.
Black River Gold
In 2020 ELK studios were bombarding the world with Gold titles. This one came out in May of that year. It’s a historical addition to the series, set in the Gold Rush age of the American West. Other than that time frame it really fits very neatly into the family of Gold games. The RTP is 96.1%, the variance is high, the top prize is 5,000-times stake, it has the same reel sets, the same ways to win, and really only the symbols and theming are really different.
Voodoo Gold
In 2019 Voodoo joined the Gold family. It is another title in a very familiar style. The mathematics and game setup are really identical to the rest of the series. As the game is really most distinguished from the rest of the series then we’ll focus on that here. The aesthetic is about the so-called “voodoo” of Louisiana and New Orleans, complete with bluesy, fuzzy guitar soundtracks and misty, moody swampy backdrops.
Vegas Diamonds
This game is a little older, with a 2018 release date. It’s also a different look for ELK – a classic slot. That means a smaller reel grid, here we get a classic three by three to get us started, and much simpler gameplay set up. Not to say that there are no bonuses in this game, which gives us a major league free spins game. And it all builds up to what players most are often looking for with classic games – a very big prize. Here it’s a 200,000 coins top prize with betting that goes up to £100. Simple, but devilishly effective, it’s no surprise that Vegas Diamond has proved to be one of ELK’s top games outside its Gold series.
Win Win
Again, we find ourselves back in 2019, and again we have a slightly different set-up from the Gold series of games. This is another classic game, and like Vegas Diamond, it features everything you’d expect to find in that genre: massive prize (500,000), volatility (medium to high), a simple set-up (17 pay lines only), and not that much in the way of game extras (no free spins here). The game also features the classic set of symbols – largely fruits. We have a theory that these games have really taken off in the past couple of years because more players are using mobiles with smaller screens.
Knockout Diamonds
And another! This game has slightly eccentric theming, in that it’s in effect a boxing game crossed with a classic slot game. And when we say classic we mean really classic with an actual single row reel set of three rows and just a single pay line. Although this game was released in 2020 you might have seen something very like it in any pub in the UK back in 1980 to 90 or thereabouts. The set-up is simple, but it’s a gamblers game, with a 2,500-top prize from high volatility play, and a classic bonus set-up for this style of game. Stake up to £100 and play safely!
ELK games are widely available and you should find them at most sites. For example, in the UK, you can find ELK games at around 500 of the over 700 casino sites that players can use. If you need to find ELK games then you might need to go via a review site that reports where you can find the games, or use the ELK sits to check them out.
ELK Studios games can be played for real money only on licensed and legal sites. Make sure that you check out the legal situation of any site that you play at and that you are playing games legally.
You can play most slots for free at the company’s own website. You can also play them at review sites, though you may be required to prove your age – by ticking a box. Most casino sites also allow you to play games for free on demo mode.
Playing to win is a misnomer when it comes to slots or any game of chance. If you’re ever offered a toss of coins and you start to think about strategies then you’re fooling yourself – and the same applies to slot games, because although they’re much more sophisticated than a simple coin toss they are still a randomly determined event. So forget playing to win and learn to play safely.
It is safe to play ELK Studios slots fi you follow our advice and play them at legal and licensed sites that you are legally entitled to play at. There is another level to safe slots play and that is your own personal safety. That is a big complicated subject area but it’s one that you should study – at least a little – before you play any slots at all. Learn a little about gambling addiction before you play any online gambling games.
That’s not for us to say, but it is for you to find out! We can tell you that the company’s Gold series has been consistently the company’s most popular title and that has come on the back of some great reviews too. However, the company produces a broad slate of games and they keep releasing new titles. All are decent quality and all are safe to play, so if you like a particular genre or style of game than you should look for that style first and then find the ELK Studios games. The company is due to release Tropi Cool and Dream Diver in 2021 and has recently released Nitropolis 2, a sci fi game. There are also several classic slots from ELK Studios.
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