It is correct that Microgaming have released a updated live dealer software version, however the games that I played at Royal Vegas, (and the screenshots included in the post) were not the new Diamond Edition. Thanks to the Microgaming Live Games team member who was kind enough to politely inform me of the mistake and point me in the right direction to give the new games a whirl.

Must admit, yesterday I did wonder what the fuss was about. Having now played the actual Diamond Edition games, I do see that the fuss is entirely justified. Below are the correct screen grabs.

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Live baccarat…

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Live roulette…

Two things were readily apparent playing these games.

The first was a marked increase in video quality.  Interestingly, the video displays in quite low resolution initially on game load and then after a 10 or 15 seconds it snaps to HD. I’m guessing here, but suspect this could have something to do with the software’s automated video quality system that sets the quality depending on your connection speed; so it must first detect your bandwidth before setting to the optimal stream quality. Whatever’s going on under the hood…the result is something that you’re going to like because you almost feel as though you can reach out an touch the dealers (in a non-sexual way of course).

The second thing that hits you, and this is most notable playing live roulette, is the other players’ chips being placed on the large virtual table in real time.

The good news is that Microgaming have definitely taken another large step closer to replicating the traditional table gaming experience.

The bad news is that I’ve got more work to do updating all the M’gaming game details across the site!

That’s odd, I thought when first greeted by Lubova during a game of blackjack at Party Casino. That accent doesn’t sound Latvian.

Nor Russian for that matter as she kept merrily chatting away to other players at her full table. Pretty tough to place to place really. London born and bred wouldn’t have been a bad guess.

But then why guess when you can ask? So I did….where are you from, that is.  Her answer was gold.

“I live in Latvia,  I was born in Moldova. But I just sound British.
Nothing special really”

Au contraire Lubova.  You are definitely something special! For a start, I’ve never seen such an animated set of eyebrows on a beautiful woman before.  Quite mesmerizing really.

Then there’s the ability to hold a fluid conversation with 7 guys at once (with eyebrows still dancing all over the place).

And the deal?

Didn’t miss a beat.

According to the folk at Microgaming, players love their multi-player games, especially those that allow them to see bets placed by other players.  Apparently there’s been ‘a surge’ in the number of players wanting to play these types of games so with this in mind they’ve tweaked their live games software to include this functionality.

They’re calling this upgrade to their live dealer games the ‘Diamond Edition’ and it allows you to see others’ bets being placed on the table in real time. Pretty standard for live blackjack and live baccarat (most platforms show other seated players’ wagered chips on the table) but where you really notice this new feature is playing live roulette.

The below screen grabs are from a session of the new Diamond Edition live roulette played at Royal Vegas’ live casino where it is now available.

Both game views show you seated player chip stacks and table action up to the point where bets close.

Not a first – the ‘for television’ games like Smart Live been doing this for a while now, but it is a nice feature that certainly adds, rather than detracts from the game.

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Related pages at livedealer.org: Live Roulette | Microgaming live roulette

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.

Speaking of prosperous, you would have thought the beginning of the Chinese new year would have brought with it a bunch of generous live casino promotions to mark the occasion.  Not so unfortunately.  But we did manage to find a couple.

At Paddy Power, you can catch the (dragon) tail end of their £/€15,000 Chinese New Year Race to Win.

It’s a straight wager race with 1 point for every £/€1 staked on live blackjack, 2 points for every £/€1 bet on their live roulette tables. It runs until 23:59 (GMT) on Tuesday the 24^th. Prizes are as follows:

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At Bodog88, they’re getting into the spirit of things by offering 6 special dragon prizes.   Now we’re talking!

This promotion runs from January 19^th to February  12^th, is open to players living in China, Malaysia and Thailand only and includes 6 different competition categories and prizes:

Unibet are running an 18 person blackjack tournament that will take place over the weekend of 17^th to 19^th February in Prague. The winner walks away with €8000, 2^nd place gets €5000, 3^rd €4000, 4^th €3000, 5^th €2000 and 6^th gets €1000.

It’s an invitational and getting there is part of the prize.  You book your seat by placing in the top 6 in any one of a series of tournaments being run on Unibet’s live blackjack tables, and round one is on right now!  As well as a seat at the tournament final table you get:

• 2 nights accom. at the Hilton Prague
• Spending money towards travel expenses – €300
• 2 breakfasts, 2 dinners + party on Saturday 18^th of February

Here’s how the qualifying tournaments work.

Once you’ve opted in, you earn points equal to your best single day net win playing Unibet’s live blackjack. Win €10 on a given day (00.01.-23.59 CET) and you’ve got 10 points and you’re on the leader board.  If you win €75 the next day, your point score becomes 75 (not 85 as points don’t accumulate).  And yes, a net loss on a given day doesn’t help your cause at all, but neither does it reduce your current point tally.

The current qualifier (6 places up for grabs)  is running until the end of this Sunday 22^nd.

They’ll be running 2 more of these qualifiers (after this one) before the final table tourney in Prague on Feb 17^th , so like I said above, keep an eye on what’s going on at Unibet over the nest couple of weeks.

To visit Unibet, click here.

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In-play bets are those offered on events within events allowing punters to place multiple bets during the course of a given game…next goal in football, outcome of next ball in cricket etc.   It’s a high frequency bet option that is the biggest current driver of betting turnover growth because the punters love it.  It’s also criticized by the anti-gambling fraternity as one of the more addictive forms of gambling which is an understandable concern but perhaps an issue for another post.

Back to the study.

The number of in-play bets offered by each Europe’s biggest sports betting operators over a 14 day period was assessed.  Leading the charge are a couple 0f our favourite live casino operators…bet365 and William Hill.   Seems real dealers isn’t their only focus

Bet365 had the largest coverage of events in which in-play bets were offered – 20 sports and 534 events, ahead of Sportingbet (358 events), Bwin (317 events), Ladbrokes (313 events) and William Hill (297 events).  But in terms of bets per event, William Hill came up trumps with an average of 53, compared with 30 for Ladbrokes, 25 for Sportingbet, 24 for bet365 and 23 for Bwin.

Victor Chandler gave us the heads-up on their name-change to BETVICTOR late last year.

They haven’t wasted any time with transformation – their new look, newly branded website has already gone live! We received Betvictor’s notification of the new site on Friday.

“The change of name is also supported by our fantastic new look website. The site has been designed to deliver a cleaner and more engaging betting experience for your players and it places ease of navigation and enhanced functionality at the heart of its development.”

It’s largely a cosmetic change. Under the hood they offer the same betting products that were available before the re-brand. This is certainly the case for their live casino page, which still lets players choose between the Evolution Gaming powered “VC Grand” and Chartwell/HoGaming powered “Victor’s Palace”.

You can check out our review of the Betvictor live casino here.

How substantial?

The first was €100.000 (one hundred thousand Euros) that came from 13 spins and less than 20 minutes at a live roulette table in September last year! This was then followed two days later by a 29 round/spin session that resulted in a win of €80.000. The streak didn’t stop there because he was back in November to take another €100.000 from the casino.

Bet24 only added live casino games (powered by Evolution Gaming) in April 2011 and this is the biggest win in their live casino so far. Manager Kim Larsen has publicly offered his congratulations to the player who hails from the UK but I bet privately he’s hoping the lucky streak has come to an end.

“We of course congratulate this lucky man and wish him all the best of luck in the future,”  said Kim.