Bodog88 announced the game’s launch in a release a couple of days ago and MD Robert Gustafsson had this to say about the new addition:

“Carving out something unique in the cluttered world of online casino is very difficult but with our new live dealer studio we can quickly react to the needs and wants of casino players. Any new trend can be immediately introduced which we hope will make Bodog88 the most dynamic online casino out there.”

Keep on carving I say because you can never have too much variety!

How to play

Like regular baccarat this is a very simple game to play.  In fact the bets are pretty much the same…Banker, Player and Tie however the payouts are slightly different, and there’s one extra bet you can take, as explained in the below table.

So the main difference is the changed payout on Banker bets…1:1 for all wins except where Banker wins with a score of 6, in which case your payout drops to 0.5:1.  In addition, you can insure against Banker 6 wins with a Super Six side bet that pays 12:1 in the event that Banker does win with a 6.

Like I said, pretty simple.  If you want to give it a go, visit Bodog88.

Related pages at livedealer.org:

Bodog88 live baccarat

Other live baccarat options

iPad = No (Adobe) Flash Player  = No live casino games

But there is now an iPad application that changes this equation – a fact pointed out by a reader (thanks again Ed from Ireland).

iSwifter was developed by a bunch of techies who were sick of not being able to play Flash games or view the web in all it’s Flash enabled glory on their iPads.  You’ll find it in your iPad App-store and once downloaded (free for limited version, $5.50 for full version) you are able to browse the internet via iSwifter’s browser interface which gives you full Flash access.

iSwifter tested on live casino games

Armed with this new little piece of tech whiz-bangery the next step was to of course to try it out at a few live casinos and see if it was actually possible to play their games.

Test 1 – Unibet

The first thing I noticed when Unibet’s live casino page opened was the Flash animation.  See the girl at the table with the red background? If you visited this page with your normal iPad browser you wouldn’t.  Tick one for iSwifter. No problems logging in either.

Now for the real test…loading a game. I tap one of the live game launch buttons with my finger and rather than getting the ‘Sorry, you don’t have the required Flash Player’ error message, I am greeted by the Unibet live casino lobby.

I select Unibet’s dedicated live blackjack table (top left) …

I take a seat and place a bet which is simple finger tap to select your chip and then a second tap in your bet box to place that chip bet.

It’s that easy. In fact the touch screen functionality of iPad makes the games very playable and I found myself playing through an entire shoe before I remembered I had to test out some other casinos.

Now for the limitations.

I was playing from an already registered and funded account.  I did try and deposit funds (using VISA) into my account via iPad/iSwifter but the transaction didn’t process for some reason.  I immediately checked to make sure the problem wasn’t a bank/casino issue by depositing using my PC and the transaction processed immediately.

Test 2 – William Hill (Vegas)

This is William Hill’s Evolution Gaming powered live casino (ie same software as Unibet).

Again, from an already registered and funded account I encountered no problems accessing and playing the live games.

Again, depositing funds via iPad/iSwifter was an issue.

Test 3 – William Hill

This is William Hill’s Playtech powered live casino which is playable from the same registered account as William Hill Vegas.

Already logged in I launched a game of live blackjack and encountered the below error message which says ‘Sorry, we do not accept real money bets from your jurisdiction’. Curious, given I am certain that both William Hill and Playtech have no issues taking bets from my legal jurisdiction.

Test 4 & 5 – BetFred and bet365

Identical jurisdiction error messages were received at both of these casinos.  It seems that accessing the games via iSwifter trips the Playtech GEO-block system and it thinks you have a United States IP address.

Summary

You definitely can play live casino games on your iPad, and it’s really quite good fun.

Which games?…all offered by Evolution Gaming (live blackjack, European roulette, French roulette, baccarat).

Which casinos?…those powered by Evolution Gaming (may be some exceptions…didn’t test them all).

Any issues?…you may run into problems depositing funds into your casino account via iPad/iSwifter. Playing using an already funded account works fine.

You definitely can’t play at casinos powered by Playtech (for the time being anyway, although this could change very soon).

What about all the other live casinos?…didn’t have time to check them all out – that can be your job!

Anyway, keen to keep the good times rolling I ventured onto some more baccarat tables yesterday.  This time over at Canbet who run Microgaming’s live dealer games .

Iky was my dealer when I first launched the game.  Good start I thought (before even laying a bet).

After 20 minutes or so I wasn’t exactly killing it, but things weren’t going too bad either and I was up.

And then came the dealer change…

Enter Sakara.

Or as I now like to call her…THE SMILING ASSASSIN

The Banker wins dried up and only seemed to come when I jumped on the Player out of frustration.  When I zigged, the smiling assassin zagged – and the story was the same for most other players on the table who seemed to be betting in unison.

Within 10 minutes I was wiped out, and the assassin had cleared players from the table like a fart in an elevator.

Oh well. We all know streaks don’t last right?

A recent platform upgrade (yes there was an upgrade just a few months ago – this is another one!) has seen some major improvements. The first noticeable one is a great new backdrop of a casino floor that looks infinitely better than that old blue screen.

But there’s another great feature to this upgrade that applies to all the games including baccarat.  With a single  click of the view changer you go from the below ‘game view’…

…to ‘casino view’.

And you can now also adjust video quality settings (6 options) to the one that best suits your connectivity.  Pretty slick.

This upgraded live baccarat game is now available at Canbet casino.

Microgaming's live baccarat - complete deal history at the click of a button

If you’re an experienced baccarat player then this may not excite you too much, since you’re already able to get a good sense of game history by looking the Big Road, Bead road or other available tracing indicators.

For those less familiar with the game and its ins and outs, this will be nice feature for you to use…a clear presentation of the complete hands dealt going back 30 rounds.

It’s both simple and intuitive to access as well as being an unambiguous and attractive presentation of game history.  You simply click a green ‘history’ button located right of the video screen and up  pops the game history scroller showing all cards dealt and the outcome. And it also serves as a great learning reference to understand what the Bead and Big roads are actually showing you.

Baccarat game history is one of a number of really nice features that have been added to Microgaming’s new live platform.  Another one is the ability to play multiple games at once – but more on that in another post.

On the surface it’s fair to say that we weren’t massive fans of their new look games, particularly since a bunch of baccarat variations seemed to have been dropped.  But closer inspection reveals that there is method to M’gaming’s madness and the upgrade does come with plenty of smart features that do enhance the gaming experience rather than simply being added for the sake of change.

Microgaming’s live baccarat can be played at Royal Vegas or Canbet.

Something tells me you're looking for big baccarat bet limits

OK so we did a post on the biggest roulette and blackjack limit games, so to be fair to the baccarat players we should let you know where the highest live baccarat limits are.

And while the big brand European operators running Evolution Gaming’s platform seem to have a mortgage on the high roller action where blackjack and roulette are concerned, baccarat is a slightly different story.

It should be mentioned, that any of the majors will extend limits on application to VIP players, but as we have no way of doing a comparison of privately agreed limits, its strictly advertised limits we’re talking about here.

So,cutting to the chase, here it is – the biggest single hand bet you can place playing live baccarat…

The casino:

Bodog88

The game:

Premium Baccarat -  14 seat table with peeks for highest staked player

The limits: $15,000

For a complete list of maximum and minimum bets for all live games, visit our bet limits page where you’ll limits ranging from a low of 0.10 cents/pence to highs of $200,000 at over 25 different casinos.

Big on variation range, if not looks - Playtech's Asian dealer baccarat

After doing a bunch of baccarat game recordings recently, it struck me just how comprehensive Playtech’s baccarat range is.  And its not just the number of variations that players can select, but also the number dealers and tables available at any given time.

Now just to clarify – I’m talking about their Asian studio games, as opposed to their Euro studio platform.  If you aren’t across the distinction, read our live platform comparison page but basically one is video streamed from a dealer studio in Latvia, and the other from an Asian based studio.

The Asian games aren’t necessarily the best looking offering out there.  The bland blue-screen back drop doesn’t exactly do a great job of replicating the traditional casino experience.  And while you can chat to the dealers, their responses are via typed chat not clear audio, which you’ll experience at the Euro platform games.

But when it comes to sheer volume of variations and available tables/dealers then this has to be one of the best choices for baccarat players. Our review of their baccarat games is here .  Below however, just as an illustration of what they offer baccarat players, is a collection of video recordings of their full variation range…

multiplayer | mini | In-running | Progressive | VIP

The above games may be played at 21 Nova or bet365

Here’s the succession of events all culminating in a rather underwhelming impression of what Microgaming are offering…

1. On the off chance that the new upgrade came with browser play games I searched both Canbet and Royal Vegas for instant play live game links.
2. Nope.  Still download only.
3. Download casino software at both Royal Vegas and Canbet.
4. Register accounts at Royal Vegas and Canbet.
5. Search casino lobby at Canbet for a LONG time for links to the live games.
6. Contact Canbet support through live chat to find where their dealers are buried.   Turns out I need to first click the ‘My Promotions’ menu item (go figure) which then takes me to a page with a  live games launcher.
7. Find the launcher at Royal Vegas a little easier.  OK…Now we’re getting somewhere.
8. Hit the launcher at RV and a new browser window opens just like an instant play flash game!   That’s strange I think.  Wonder if Canbet has the same weird scenario…browser based games only accessible from a casino software download!
9. Yep.
10. Contact support again to confirm that I can’t load these games direct from the website.  Confirmed not.
11. 1 hour later and I’m yet to lay a bet.
12. Finally after having to login a second time, the games load and I can choose a game/table/dealer and start to play at Canbet.
13. Select Blackjack…
14. Get message ‘Sorry,  blackjack tables currently not available’.
15. Grasping at straws I load the RV live games lobby and select Blackjack…
16. ‘Sorry,  blackjack tables currently not available’  (really should have expected this as it’s vision from the same dealer studio, but after an hour and ten minutes I’m getting desperate – like when you can’t find your car keys and start looking in places like the fridge.
17. Decide to get a look at the other games to see if they’ve changed.
18. Fire up roulette…
19. Oh dear.  Microgaming what have you done.
20. Fire up baccarat…
21. As above.

To be fair, the games are still very playable and the vision quality is good.  But to be honest, from a look and feel point of view I think they are a backward step from the older versions.  Just small things like certain words on the interface being unreadable due to poor resolution, and the generally insipid colors.

There are added features like a detachable video but really…what do you need this for?

Any way, below are the old and new roulette and baccarat interfaces so you can be the judge.

new baccarat…

old baccarat…

new roulette…

old roulette…

Maybe there’s a whole lot of stuff ‘under the hood’ as it were that make the new games more robust and secure?  Trouble is, from a player’s perspective you don’t see any of this and take it all for granted anyway.

Oh and that blackjack game review…we’ll see if we can find an open table tomorrow!

Awards, certifications and testimonials in the online gambling industry should always be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism.  Many are meaningless.  And while this one doesn’t exactly come with the same prestige as a best picture Oscar, it is one that I think is worthy of notice.  Primarily because the site handing out the award is a player forum with almost 14,000 members that has been operating  for over 10 years, and also because its owner seems very transparent and objective in his assessments.

Anyway, this got us thinking about what makes a great online casino?   There is always going to be an element of subjectivity around this question so it’s a difficult one to answer for the collective.  A good example of this is the fact that 32Red, the newly crowned online casino of the decade would not make my personal top 10 list, purely because it’s a bit light on for live dealer games.  But taking subjective elements like game preferences and putting them to the side, there are a bunch of criteria that should be very relevant to all players.

The universal ‘Great Casino Attribute’ list

Trust factor -

It’s pointless playing at a casino you don’t trust. You want to be absolutely confident that the amount showing in your account balance is as good as money in your bank account.  But how do you quantify the level of trust you can attribute in a given casino?

Here’s a suggestion.  Take the following considerations into account:

• License:
  Is the casino licensed by a respected Euro region licensing authority?
  UK Gambling Commission
  Gibraltar Regulatory Authority
  Lotteries and Gaming Authority
  Alderney Gambling Control Commission
• Size:
  Is the casino’s holding company stock exchange listed?
  Has the casino served more than a million players?
  Has the casino invested tens of millions of dollars in it’s brand through mainstream sponsorship and advertising?
• Certifications:
  Is the casino eCOGRA (or equivalent) certified and are historical gaming returns audited and published?
• Software:
  Are the games powered by a well known platform provider?

If a casino ticks all of these boxes, then trust will not be an issue.  You just need to be concerned with trying to win.

Service factor -

Here we are looking at the extent to which the casino is equipped to best meet your needs in getting up and running and playing the games with as little inconvenience as possible.

• Banking
  Does the casino have the size and financial muscle to provide a broad offering of banking and account keeping options including a wide choice of currencies, and deposit/withdrawal options – including those of the best known virtual wallets such as PayPal ?
• Support
  Is toll free support offered to a range of countries and in a variety of languages?
• Rewards programs
  Is an extensive rewards and promo program operated, to maximize players chances of winning?

Believe it or not there are many casinos that tick all of these boxes.  And a very long list that tick all but one or two.  Names such as William Hill, 888.com, Unibet, bet365 and of course 32Red are all on that list and give you a good starting point before turning to personal gaming preferences to pick where you want to play.

Never have so many had so much to write about for so few.

I stumbled across a blog the other day on pet massage techniques.  Hundreds of pages dedicated to how best to pamper your pooch with nimble and loving fingers.  If some nutter (no disrespect intended) can write tens of thousands of words, plus countless videos about how to massage a dog, then we thought we could squeeze at least a few out on topics related to live blackjack, roulette, baccarat etc.

Initially at least, the purpose of the blog section will be to take a slightly less serious look at the world of live gaming than the rest of site.  Maybe think of it as a little less fact, review and analysis and a little more colour and even a laugh or two.

This is an exciting gaming platform still very much in its embryonic stages and we would like to follow its development closely over the next few years, and welcome all our visitors to come along for the ride.  To this end we welcome all your thoughts, perspectives and experiences in the form of comments to our upcoming posts.

Hope you find them interesting and insightful (but not too serious!)

cheers

LD