Try these new variations on classic games at the online casino
Games like roulette, blackjack and baccarat are casino classics that have been a central feature of gambling houses from Las Vegas to Monte Carlo for more than a century. They remain as popular in today’s world of online casinos as they have ever been. While new slot games come out every week, the table games remain reassuringly unchanged.
Except that’s not entirely true. For sure, every casino, whether land-based or virtual, will offer these classics in their traditional forms. But the 21st century is all about choice and the casino industry is a competitive one, you need only look at the Gamble Online Casinos review site to see that. Every one of those providers is desperate to offer players something new for the independent reviewers to mention in the hope that it attracts more players.
These factors have combined with advances in streaming technology to allow the developers to let their imaginations run riot. Let’s take a look at some of their new takes on the classic games.
Lightning roulette
The roulette wheel was invented in the 17th century by French mathematician Blaise Pascal. It is surely the most iconic symbol of a casino. Traditionally, variations have been limited to adding a double, and even treble, zero to the wheel, measures which only serve to benefit the casino by increasing the house edge.
Lightning roulette is a variation that offers extra opportunities to the players. All the usual roulette bets are in play, but when the ball is released, lightning strikes hit one to five of the wheel’s pockets at random, adding a multiplier of between 50x and 500x to these “lucky numbers.” The multiplier is applied to the 30:1 payouts for straight up bets placed on that number.
Peek baccarat
20 years ago, baccarat had fallen from fashion, despite being James Bond’s casino game of choice in Ian Fleming’s original novels. Over the past decade, however, it has seen something of a revival, especially in its simplest form, punto banco.
Peek baccarat adds an intriguing extra dimension to the gameplay. Players get the opportunity to spend 20 percent of their ante bet on a look at one of the four cards before they are dealt. Once they have “peeked” they can then double or treble their bid. Standard punto banco can get a little formulaic after a while, and this is an excellent way to make gameplay more strategic.
Bac Bo
Baccarat is actually a game that lends itself well to variations, and there are fun single-card versions like Football Studio and Dragon Tiger that are well worth a look. But one of the most intriguing is bac bo.
As the name suggests, it combines baccarat with sic bo and the dealer rolls dice for player and banker instead of dealing cards. Instead of closest to nine, the winner is simply the highest score and there is none of the “third card” complication that you get with traditional baccarat. The tie offers variable returns, ranging from 4:1 for 6,7,8 to 88:1 for 2 or 12. Like traditional baccarat, however, these potentially high payouts come at the cost of a slightly higher house edge.
