Received a note from the team at Bodog88 today giving the heads up on a soon to be released new feature in their Bodog Grand Casino.

Bodog Grand is one of 2 live casino versions available at Bodog88 and is developed and managed in-house…which I guess gives them more freedom to tinker with the product than if it were 3rd party licensed.

They certainly seem to exercise that freedom because ever since launch mid-last year Bodog Grand has constantly evolved with new games, new features and a continually expanding dealer team.

I think you’ll like the new feature that’s on its way (ETA some time in February…yes, this February).

In their words…

“Can’t get enough of our Live Dealers? Coming in February, you’ll see your favorite Live Dealer in a larger resolution at Bodog Grand Casino. You can now enjoy your gaming with a more up-close and personal experience. “

Who couldn’t be happy with that!

For a reminder of which dealers you’ll likely be seeing up close and personal, check out this Bodog Girls video.

bet365 began its life as a single portable (trailer for you US folk) situated in a car park, occupied by a handful of techies in the year 2000.

According to their latest  annual report they now employ over 1,700 staff, having put on almost 400 in the 12 months to March 2011!  I wonder how many portables they have now?

According to founder Denise Coates, “we continue to invest heavily in the business to keep growing. If we are successful in doing this, we will continue to recruit.” 

Since inception the company has invested heavily on developing technology and development capabilities in-house rather than licensing from third parties and Coates says this strategy has been crucial to her business’ success and continued growth.

And growing it certainly is. The other glaring number coming out of the report was £8.54 billion - the value of total customer wagers which was up  58% on the previous year’s £5.4 billion. Quite a staggering increase given the current economic climate. Customer registrations grew by 34% to just under 6 million.

Based in Stoke-on-Trent (in proper offices not a stack of portables) bet365 is one of the areas largest private sector employers and one of the UK’s largest private companies.

Back in September last year (2011) Unibet joined the ranks of operators who had secured a license from Italy’s online gambling regulator and launched their Italian online casino at Unibet.it.

We lamented back then the fact that it was missing live dealers.

Well, lament no more you hot blooded Italian blackjack, baccarat and roulette players, because now you can play with a beautiful live dealer rather than just simulated computer games.

At the end of last year their Evolution Gaming powered live casino was made available at Unibet.it and it comes with all the Italy-centric bells and whistles that helped Evolution Gaming get their platform AAMS certified…like Italian speaking dealers.

Unibet’s Daniel Eskola said in a release that Unibet were, “very excited about offering an enhanced local service for our Italian customers through www.unibet.it”.

Not as excited as Silvio Berlusconi, who now has another online casino with gorgeous dealers to play at.

Related pages at livedealer.org:

Unibet.it now live for Italians

888 live casino now open to Italian players

Live dealer casinos for Italian players

Il miglior Casinò con live dealer per i giocatori italiani

Bwin.Party announced the launch of a bunch of AAMS licensed online gambling brands back in July and among them was Gioco Digitale.it.

I figured back then it was only a matter of time before they added live dealers, and now they have.

You only had to join the dots…

• Bwin.Party already has a live dealer casino powered by Evolution Gaming (at Party Casino);
• Evolution Gaming secured AAMS certification for their live casino platform back in May;
• Evolution Gaming have also tailored live games to the Italian playing market, adding Venezia Roulette and Italian speaking dealers; and most telling of all
• Italian men can’t resist the belle donne!

It’s a match made in heaven.  I can just see Silvio Berlusconi banging away on his laptop in between court appearances and time spent planning his triumphant return to politics; head over heals in love with those Latvian beauties dealing up storm.  What’s the bet a few dealers would get an invitation to visit his Sardinian party villa!  Or maybe he’d just drop them a line from one of his soon to be released love songs (not a joke…reported by La Stampa )…

“Listen to them when you have a thirst for caresses, sing them when you are hungry for tenderness.”

Yep, if their former Prime Minister is ANY indication, Italians will go wild for live dealers!

I suspect Evolution Gaming’s Italian CEO, Gionata La Torre agrees with this sentiment, although he expressed it very differently in a company press release, saying, “Italian customers are going to be very excited by the arrival of the Gioco Digitale Live Casino”.

Gioco Digitale won’t be Italy’s first taste of locally licensed live online gaming.  888.it’s live casino (also Evolution Gaming powered) has been up and running for a couple of months now.

Related pages:

• Live casinos for Italian players
• 888 live casino now open to Italian players

From the end of December, Victor Chandler is to become BETVICTOR.

Same company, same online offering (well kind of – apparently a new look site is also due for release to coincide with the name change), all presented worldwide under a new brand.

I received the following message from their management today:

“We would like to take this opportunity to advise you that Victor Chandler will be rebranding at the end of this month to BETVICTOR.”

Apparently the change will give more uniformity and better brand recognition across all markets rather than the current situation, where brands differ by product and location.  In the UK punters are familiar with Victor Chandler, in Israel it’s Victor Bet, Greek players play at Bet Beast, while other European gamblers already bet with Bet Victor.  Then there’s the ‘VC’ thing…VC Poker, VC Bet and VC Live as their live casino’s been known as for the last couple of years.

As much as their marketing agency will argue otherwise, this isn’t a change of substance.  For live casino players, the games, dealers, playing experience, etc. will remain as it was before the re-brand.  The one exception will be a ‘BETVictor’ logo on the felt of their dedicated live blackjack table where it used to read ‘Victor Chandler’ (maybe).

Roxy Palace are one of the older Microgaming casinos, taking their first online bet back in 2002.  But they are new to live dealers having only recently added then to their site…and they’ve done a good job of it too by the looks.

The Roxy Palace live casino has been given prominence on the website along with a juicy bonus offer for first time players.  The games (and indeed registration, banking, help etc) are all easily accessible without any software download needed and they come with all the bells and whistles of Microgaming’s live platform, including the ability to play multiple games concurrently, highly customizable video feeds, table bet action displays and the ability to bet behind in blackjack.

The guys at Roxy tell me that long time customers (plenty of Canadians and Australians apparently) are loving the new addition to their casino; ditching the RNG games and opting to play live dealers instead.

Why wouldn’t they? If you were happy playing ‘pretend’ blackjack online the introduction of real cards and a beautiful dealer can only be better can’t it? If you were happy trusting a computer generated ball drop in roulette, then you certainly aren’t going to mind a real ball dropping into a pocket in real time and in high resolution video.

We’ve completed our Roxy review and added them to our live casino list.

Give ‘em a go and let’s hear your thoughts.

888 put out a release today telling the world they’ve launched a new instant casino with (in their words), “smooth transitions, amazing graphics and sleek new games”.

Happy for them, but I wasn’t overly excited by the news until skim reading further into the piece and seeing that they are giving their live games more prominence:

“Highlights include Live Casino tab in the lobby providing easier access to registration and the Live Casino arena”

Now you’re talking. Faster, easier access to real dealers is always a plus in my book.

Related pages: 888 live casino review

Genting, the company behind Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa, have unveiled plans to build the world’s largest casino in Miami.

Current Florida law only permits casinos to operate within Native American tribal lands – making the Seminole Indians the state’s monopoly operator. But a bill  being considered by the legislature will change this, allowing for the development of three casino resorts outside of tribal lands provided they each cost more than $2 billion to build.

Genting will be lobbying hard to get this bill over the line, particularly as they’ve already forked out $500 million for 13 acres of Biscayne Bay real estate where they plan to build their casino.

How big?

Resorts World Miami would become the world’s largest casino by some way.  It’s 800,000 square foot gaming floor easily surpasses the 546,000 sq ft of current heavy weight champ Venetian Macao and is also bigger than the combined gaming areas of Las Vegas’ Mirage, Venetian, MGM Grand, Bellagio, Wynn and Caesars Palace.

Also planned are 4 hotels with 5,200 rooms, 1000 residential apartments, 50 restaurants and bars and a lagoon 12 times the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

How likely?

The ball’s in the politician’s court which means the only certainty is uncertainty!

The Seminole Indian tribe are lobbying hard to protect their monopoly and have support from some existing Miami leisure businesses who are worried they’ll lose customers if new casino resorts are built.

Genting are dangling the carrot of 5.4 million additional tourists to Miami, and $600 million in tax revenue.  Pretty attractive carrots to a state government currently running a $1.5 billion budget deficit,  and Genting come with a proven track record in boosting tourism numbers and government revenues.

Their investment to this point also suggests that they clearly mean business!

If you’re a regular player at any of the live casinos powered by Evolution Gaming (Unibet, Betsson, 888, William Hill, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Party Casino, Victor Chandler ….) and blackjack’s your game, then you would have noticed a significant change in the last few days.

More tables!  Not just a one or two more.  Many more.

Evolution Gaming has almost doubled the number of available tables and dealers available for live blackjack and it’s a very welcome increase, because it was getting difficult to get a seat during busy times. Before the increase, 6 – 8 tables were on offer at most casinos depending on the number of dedicated tables they licensed.  Now players will have up to 15 tables/dealers to choose from – the largest live blackjack table range currently offered.

While roulette and baccarat can be provided as a ‘one to many’ games (ie a single table/dealer can theoretically serve a limitless number of players), a 7 seat live blackjack table can only serve a maximum of 7 players. Variations to the traditional 7-seat format have been devised by some operators to try and get around this issue…eg Playtech’s unlimited live blackjack, and Smart Live Casino’s ‘one to many’ version on the game.

But for good old fashioned 7 seat blackjack (which some would say is way the game should be played!) … if you want to serve more players you need more tables and dealers.

Well done Evolution Gaming!

New tables galore at Unibet, William Hill and Paddy Power, and plenty of spare seats!

Back in May this year, Casino Gran Madrid became the first recipient of a Spanish remote gambling license from the autonomous region of Madrid. Now they’ve become one of the first companies to launch an online casino licensed in Spain.

The online casino is accessible from the Casino Gran Madrid website at casinogranmadrid.es and offers only a handful of games presently, including RNG roulette, blackjack and a dozen or so slot games.  The casino is powered by Playtech so hopefully Spanish players will be treated to a nice selection of Playtech’s live dealer games before too long…we’ll keep you posted on any developments here!

Meanwhile, in other news coming out of Spain, eCogra have announced their approval as a testing agency by the Spanish Gambling Authority, Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego. They are now approved to test and certify both i-gaming software and information systems security for the Spanish market.

Earlier in the year they received testing accreditation from Italy’s AAMS.