Understanding Microgaming Online Big Five Blackjack

• Published: February 26, 2015
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The leading online casino software provider Microgaming offers a blackjack variant titled Big Five Blackjack in its portfolio. It is a Gold Series game, which ensures an elegant casino setting on the screen. The online blackjack variant is available as a single hand and multi hand game. Big Five Blackjack is essentially a high roller variant with the maximum bet of 1,000 credits. The reference to big five indicates the big five of the South African safari, which are lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino. These are displayed on the blackjack table. The other connections to “five” are that there are five decks in the shoe and five spots on the table for multi hand games.

Big Five Blackjack is based on the European version in which the dealer’s hole card is not dealt and the dealer does not peek for blackjack upfront. The dealer hits on a total of soft 17. These rules offer a slight advantage to the online casino which is compensated by giving some benefits to the player. The most significant of these is that early surrender is allowed. This benefit is rarely offered in online blackjack variants. The player can surrender as soon as he sees his dealt cards and the dealer’s face up card. He will lose half his wager. You should not panic and surrender frequently because you will be losing out that way. The optimum strategy for Big Five Blackjack states that early surrender must be exercised only on two occasions. When the dealer’s face up card is 9 and the player’s hand value is 16 or when the dealer’s face up card is a 10 value card and the player’s hand value is 14, 15 or 16. The other rules can be checked from within the game by moving the cursor over the Game Rules icon on the screen.

The game play of Big Five Blackjack is similar to that of the many online blackjack variants. Microgaming offers a game play driven by prompts to help the player. This blackjack variant offers an average return to the player of 99.5% if played with optimum strategy. In the normal course you would need to memorise the optimum strategy or refer to a strategy card before every move. But Microgaming offers an easy way out. Big Five Blackjack has an Auto Play feature in Expert Mode. When the game is set on Auto Play it automatically uses the strategy card incorporated within the game.