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Advice Home | Feature Realtime Gaming Casino:
Cirrus Casino
Real Time Gaming software is fast, clear, and easy to use. The
casinos themselves are generally good bonus givers, and with the
fast play it is easy to get through the required play quickly.
Most Real Time Gaming casinos are okay but there are some questionable
one. One very generous bonus giver, Casino Merlin, went down in
early 2002 and player accounts are likely lost. So choose which
RTG casino to play carefully. One inconvenience is that you have
to fax in a copy of your credit card and drivers license for a
withdrawal of $500 or more. Table game limits are $5 to $500,
slots and video poker take coinages from 5 cents to $5.
Note: Caribbean 21, Pontoon, Spanish 21, Double Exposure,
and Super 21 are currently only offered at the Ruby Dragon casino.
Baccarat
Tie pays 9:1, six decks of cards. House edge of 1.06% on banker
bet, 1.24% on player bet, 4.93% on tie bet.
Blackjack
The default rules are as follows:
- Configurable number of decks
- Dealer hits soft 17
- Double on any first two cards
- Double after a split
- Split two times (to three hands)
Real Time Gaming claims their default number of decks is 2. However
I strongly believe most casinos that use their software opt for
more than that. I have seen the same card three times on the screen
at times. Other times I noticed the same card twice on the screen
much more frequently than would be expected in a two deck game.
Unfortunatley their rules never seen to state this important factor.
Assuming four decks the house edge under their rules is 0.58%.
The following table displays the basic strategy for Real Time Gaming
casinos. This table is based on 4 or more decks, which I believe
to be true of most of their casinos. Besides, it is safer to use
this strategy in a 2 deck game than vise versa. To use the basic
strategy look up your hand along the left vertical edge and the
dealer's up card along the top. In both cases an A stands for ace.
From top to bottom are the hard totals, soft totals, and splittable
hands. In the body of the chart are color coded cells that indicate
the best play: H=hit, S=stand, D=double, P=split.
Caribbean Poker
This is the same game as Caribbean Stud Poker. The rules and the
pay table are as usual. No side bet is available.
Caribbean 21
Caribbean 21 features a house edge of 0.19%.
Craps
Full double odds seems to be the default. Some casinos offer more.
On the don't side the player can bet 2.4 times the line bet on points
of 6 and 8 and 2 times on all others. A 4% commission is charged
on all winning buy and lay bets, based on the amount won. They also
offer place bets to lose with some unconventional pay offs, 2 to
5 on the 4 and 10, 3 to 5 on the 5 and 9, and only 9 to 20 on the
6 and 8. The following list shows the house edge on these bets.
The game has convenient buttons to clear bets and repeat bets. Hot
boxes help to place your bet in the right place. Winnings are rounded
down to the nearest quarter.
- Combined pass/come and buyings odds: 0.57%
- Combined don't pass/don't come and laying odds: 0.56%
- Place to win on 4,10: 6.67%
- Place to win on 5,9: 4.00%
- Place to win on 6,8: 1.52%
- Place to lose on 4,10: 6.67%
- Place to lose on 5,9: 4.00%
- Place to lose on 6,8: 20.91% (ouch!)
- Buy on 4,10: 2.67%
- Buy on 5,9: 2.40%
- Buy on 6,8: 2.18%
- Lay on 4,10: 1.33%
- Lay on 5,9: 1.60%
- Lay on 6,8: 1.82%
Double Exposure
The usual rules are followed with these specifics:
- 8 decks
- Dealer hits soft 17
- Doubling allowed on hard 9-11 only
- Doubling allowed after splitting
- Split to 3 hands
- Tied blackjack wins
- Suited triple sevens against a dealer seven pays 40-1.
According to Stanford Wong's 'BJ Edge' software the house edge under
these rules is 0.85%.
Keno
The game plays nicely with a button for a 10 spot quick pick. The
following table shows the return according to the number of spots
chosen.
| Keno
- Real Time Gaming |
| Pick |
Return |
| 1 |
75.00% |
| 2 |
84.18% |
| 3 |
83.25% |
| 4 |
84.51% |
| 5 |
84.10% |
| 6 |
81.42% |
| 7 |
85.16% |
| 8 |
85.41% |
| 9 |
85.03% |
| 10 |
86.64% |
| 11 |
86.75% |
| 12 |
84.31% |
| 13 |
82.70% |
| 14
| 85.41% |
| 15 |
84.42% |
|
Let 'Em Ride
This is another name for Let it Ride. The usual rules and pay table
are used. A $1 progressive side bet is available. The side bet pays
$50 for a flush, $75 for a full house, $100 for a four of a kind,
10% of the meter for a straight flush, and 100% of the meter for
a royal flush. When I checked the meter was only at $1724.51, which
results in a house edge of 76.46%! The meter would need to reach
$263,205 for this side bet to have no house edge.
Pai Gow Poker
The dealer is always the banker, resulting in a house edge of about
2.86%.
Pontoon
Pontoon features a house edge of 0.17%.
Red Dog
The usual rules are followed. Two decks are used, which results
in a house edge of 3.08%.
Roulette
A European and American wheel are available. The European wheel
has one zero and the American has two. Neither offers half back
on even money bets if the ball lands in zero. A button is available
to repeat the last bets made.
Slots
The operator may select their own return on the slot machines.
Spanish 21
Standard Spanish 21 rules are followed with these specifics:
- 8 decks
- Dealer hits soft 17
- Suited triple sevens against a dealer seven pays 40-1.
The house edge is about 0.81% under these rules.
Super
21
Follows the rules for Super Fun 21, except uses 8 decks instead
of 1. At this time I do not know the house edge under an 8-deck
game but my rough guess is 1.2%.
Tri-Card Poker
This is the same game as Three Card Poker with a stingier pay table.
At most casinos they lowered the Pairplus payoff on a straight flush
from 40-1 to 35-1, and lowered the three of a kind from 30-1 to
25-1. This increases the house edge from 2.32% to 4.58%. In Ante
& Play the bonus on the straight flush went from 5-1 to 3-1 and
the three of a kind went from 4-1 to 2-1, increasing the house edge
from 3.37% to 4.28%.
The Grand Banks casino is a little better. They leave the straight
flush at 40-1 in Pairplus for a house edge of 3.49%. In Ante&Play
they pay 4-1 on a straight flush for a house edge of 3.83%. Otherwise
the rules are the same as the other Real Time Gaming casinos.
Video Poker
Real Time Gaming has lots of video poker games to choose from. Each
casino can select their own pay table but most accept the defaults
as listed below. The following table shows the expected return of
all of them with optimal strategy.
| Video
Poker - Real Time Gaming |
| Game |
Return |
| Joker poker |
1.0018 |
| Jacks or better |
0.9954 |
| Double jackpot |
0.9940 |
| Double bonus |
0.9937 |
| Bonus poker |
0.9917 |
| Sevens wild |
0.9911 |
| Loose deuces |
0.9907 |
| Double double jackpot |
0.9895 |
| Deuces wild |
0.9891 |
| Pick 'em poker |
0.9874 |
| Bonus deuces wild
| 0.9865 |
| Aces and eights |
0.9863 |
| Double double bonus |
0.9849 |
| Bonus poker deluxe |
0.9849 |
| All American |
0.9849 |
|
War
Standard rules are used with one deck of cards. The house edge with
one deck is 2.42% (less than the 2.88% with six decks). |
