BetFred adds European live dealer casino

21 August 2009, Staff writer

BetFred, one of Playtech's early supporters of the live dealer format have made the switch to the new European dealer room.

Up until August, BetFred offered live blackjack, roulette, baccarat and sicbo all streamed from Playtech's Asian dealer studio.  Earlier this year, Playtech launched its new European dealer studio based in Riga, Latvia - close to Evolution Gaming's studio and BetFred have decided to make the switch.

The new studio offers a different look and feel video stream, with European dealers and a studio backdrop seeking to replicate the more sedate typical European casino.  Video stream quality seems to have been slightly enhanced at the new studio offering a gaming experience arguably superior to the older Asian studio from an ambience point of view.  BetFred it seems certainly thinks so - one the first Playtech licensees to make the switch.

On the downside, the switch means that fans of live sicbo and all of the live baccarat variations offered on the Asian dealer platform will no longer be able to play these games at BetFred.  The new live game range is limited to blackjack, roulette, and a single standard baccarat game, and unfortunately the casino has decided not to run the two live platforms concurrently.  Whether Playtech intends expanding game range availble from their new European dealer studio is not known.

Fans of blackjack, roulette and standard baccarat will not be disappointed however.  This is a great platform that retains most of the features of the older Asian interface and upgrades the video feed to one comparable to Evolutions super smooth and ambient offering.

It will be interesting to see whether other larger European facing Playtech licensees such as Bet365 follow suit and also make the switch.