Microgaming ( 3)
A frontrunner in the industry, Microgaming was established back in 1994. Their list of prestigious awards is truly impressive, and they have apparently left their mark on every aspect of the gambling field. The Microgaming’s talented developers have produced over 1200 slots, including 40+ fabulous progressive slots. Some of their products and achievements have entered the Guinness Book of Records such as the largest online bingo jackpot of over £5.88 million at a £0.3 stake.
Recognizing their universal interests in the online casino industry, we have to acknowledge they are not pacemakers in live dealer games. Microgaming came to live gaming in 2006, introducing a few baccarat tables. In 2013, they were marked with the EGR Live casino supplier of the year award, for excellence and innovations in the field. Their live dealer platform is robust and user-friendly but it lacks diversity, as opposed, for example, to Evolution Gaming or Extreme Gaming.
The company is licensed and regulated by Malta Gaming Authority, UK Gambling Commission and Isle of Man GSC. Besides, Microgaming is a founding member of eCOGRA, an internationally approved certification entity.
Range of live dealer games
At present, Microgaming offers European and French roulette, classic blackjack, baccarat, Sic Bo and Casino Hold’em. The developer has entered into contract with Playboy, and now some tables are run by beautiful dealers who wear fabulous bunny uniforms. Their live casino lobby is very informative, providing much detail about all available tables such as current stats, dealer’s photo and bet limits.
Key features of the Microgaming platform
- live games are streamed from a Canada-based studio. The video is of high-definition quality and has many adjustable settings. A player may choose a low, medium or high quality of the video streaming, change a camera view and switch to a full-screen mode. Choosing the Auto option makes the software optimize the stream automatically
- the Microgaming platform enables a multigame mode. This means that a user may add a new table to a currently active table and play two or more games at the same time. Not a pioneering feature but a very useful one
- blackjack tables have a Bet Behind feature. The Bet Behind wager is about 50% lower than a seated bet
- the block of in-game statistics is great. In roulette, the stats include hot and cold numbers based on the outcome of 100 last spins, the percentage of Red/Black, Even/Odd, Low/High occurrences and the last 10 winning numbers. In blackjack, you can view the dealer’s hand values for the last 5 rounds and hot streaks. In baccarat, there are four types of roadmaps showing game history
- Bonus Baccarat features 14 different bet types
- any bet placed on the table in roulette, blackjack and baccarat needs to be confirmed by clicking the Confirm Bet button. This may be not convenient in some situations; however, all the tables support the Auto Confirm Bets feature
- a chat window for communications with the dealer and other active users
- all the games feature access to the Help Center that opens in a new browser tab and shows a detailed guide to its live dealer games
Drawbacks in the platform
- dealers speak English only
- user interface is in English only. Choosing any other language at the casino (if any) does not change the game language
- players residing in the USA are not accepted
Mobile compatibility
The games are perfectly compatible with “thousands of mobile devices”, as is stated on the Microgaming’s official site. Regretfully, the live dealer platform, in fact, supports only PC, laptops and Mac, as of today.
