The South African company, Microgaming, creates the software for the first online casino taking real money bets in 1996. The company formed in 1994 and claims on their website to have many undisclosed clients. Only their own site, The Gaming Club, is operational. It is initially only taking real money bets from South African residents.
A review of the software by GameMaster in Rolling Good Times magazine from April of 1996 was quite shocking. The Blackjack had no double, split, or insurance options! Also the dealer 'magically' won if he dealt 5 cards or more to himself. The reviewer was dealt a 20 and the dealer won with a 5-card 17. A message then appeared proclaiming 'Dealer Magic'! The reviewer estimated these strange rules equated to a 5% house edge.
The Roulette was another strange creature. The wheel didn't spin but the ball spun around the wheel, so it was doubtful the developers had seen a real roulette wheel in action! The only good game was a full pay Jacks or Better video poker. Unfortunately, the games were running on a slow or overloaded server because often it took minutes for each card to appear for any of the card games. A couple of months later an update of this review was much more favourable as they had fixed these problems in the software and offered real Blackjack.Discuss and read more on this topic by clicking here...
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