Microgaming

KNOWN HISTORY OF MICROGAMING

The company was originally formed in South Africa, but soon relocated to Europe once it became clear that lax regulation in this region would make for a more profitable business proposition.

And lucrative it certainly was – Microgaming quickly established the model of creating a casino platform on which to publish their games and licensing the full package to companies who were eager to run an online casino. In the coming years, as the gaming industry began to take shape, Microgaming’s model protected them from the political and regulatory hurdles that casino operators soon encountered. As a result, other gaming software providers quickly copied Microgaming’s strategy.

It was Microgaming’s Progressive Jackpot games which really got them noticed – these are discussed in greater detail later in this article, but the long and short of it is that – just like the casinos of Las Vegas – every casino wanted to have the biggest jackpots. In the online world, having the biggest jackpots quickly meant you needed Microgaming, and as a result Microgaming quickly formed partnerships with many of the world’s largest gaming operators.

FAST FORWARD: MICROGAMING TODAY

Industry juggernauts such as 32Red, Ladbrokes, Casino Rewards, and Fortune Lounge ran their casinos using Microgaming software exclusively for more than a decade. Industry pressures eventually forced them to adopt the same multi-platform setup used by the new generation of mega casinos including Videoslots, Mr. Green, Casumo, and LeoVegas. For a time, microgaming and the online gambling industry went hand in hand, and was known as the true online casino software provider at the time too.

Many companies would be in deep trouble should several of their biggest clients announce they would be moving away from Microgaming’s casino platform. Not Microgaming – the company had long predicted this switch would eventually take place several years earlier, so were fully prepared for it when the day arrived. Microgaming executives are irrefutably some of the smartest in the online casino industry, as this clearly demonstrates.

THE INTRODUCTION OF QUICKFIRE

In 2010, Microgaming created the Quickfire Application Programming Interface (API) which allowed their games to run on websites independently from the Microgaming casino platform. Later, the API was made available to other developers, so casino operators could integrate games from several different manufacturers into a single online casino.

This API was essentially responsible for the emergence of the modern multi-platform casino as we know it today. Non-Microgaming based casinos could offer Microgaming’s hugely popular titles, whilst also generating passive income in the form of licensing fees from other gaming software houses. The casinos were happy, developers were happy, and Microgaming… well, we would wager they were extremely happy.

THE WIDER EFFECTS OF QUICKFIRE

Interestingly though, Quickfire had another unforeseen side effect, and it has had a huge effect on the wider online casino industry to this day. Prior to Quickfire, smaller gaming software companies faced great difficulty when trying to get their games published on the larger online casinos, because both sides were required to do a great deal of work to integrate the new games.

The Quickfire API solved this issue by creating an intermediary “wrapper”, which would handle the nuts and bolts of the situation securely behind the scenes. Smaller development studios quickly realized that if they made their games compatible with Quickfire, they immediately stood a far greater chance of having their game accepted onto larger online casino websites.

The online casino industry was growing at an enormous rate around this time, and Microgaming had the perfect product at the perfect moment for a second time running – the Quickfire platform didn’t just appeal to existing slot developers, it tempted other software houses that had never created gambling software to try their hand at making slot machines and digital blackjacks, too.

Microgaming realized that their Quickfire platform was encouraging a new breed of developers to create online casino games, they immediately embraced the situation. They got to work and produced an upgraded API with expanded documentation and introduced a new pricing model which made it even easier for the smallest studios to create and publish their productions.

Such was the impact of Quickfire that many analysts believe it was this API that is responsible for the rich, diverse landscape of casino games, developers, and software which now exists today.

MICROGAMING’S OFFERING

One of Microgaming’s biggest advantages in the early days was its downloadable casino client, which ran much faster than the web-based versions of many of their games. Some titles such as Thunderstruck II even used higher resolution, extra detailed graphics when played using the download client.

Unfortunately, Quickfire was never adapted for the download client, and it is very rare to find a casino which still offers this functionality in 2021. The most upsetting aspect of this transition was the loss of the daily tournaments – casinos such as 32Red would offer one or two tournaments every single day which were completely free to enter yet paid out real money to the winners.

A WORLD OF CHOICE

Because Microgaming had been creating casino games for almost two decades before this review was written, it’s difficult not to be completely blown away by the amount of choice offered in every single category. Just how much choice? Searching for exact numbers, let us take Blackjack games as an example, many sites claim that Microgaming offer twelve variations of this hugely popular casino classic.

It is unclear where these sites got that number from – in all likelihood somebody copied it from Wikipedia a decade ago and poorly researched articles have just been copying it verbatim ever since. It does not take a great deal of research to confirm that Microgaming offer far, far more than twelve variations of Blackjack.

SO, JUST HOW MANY GAMES ARE THERE?

You will at once notice that there are both American and European variants of every game which has such variations, including Blackjack. There are single deck games, double deck games, and various shoe sizes such as the Las Vegas style four-deck shoe or Atlantic City’s crazy eight deck games.

Keep scrolling and you will find games such as Blackjack Switch, Bonus Blackjack, Perfect Pairs, Pontoon, Spanish 21, Super Fun 21, Vegas Strip Blackjack, and California Blackjack – a rough estimate would be that there are around 40-50 Blackjack games in total.

There are around five versions of James Bond’s favorite game Baccarat, alongside a dozen or more roulette games, several of which offer interesting twists on the typical structure of roulette, and as for Video Poker variants…. It would be an impressive feat for someone to even count those games before humanity cracks faster than light speed travel. Okay, that’s a small exaggeration, but it really is very impressive just how many different versions of a single game exist.

Finally, there is one category of games which generates as much as 80% of a casinos profit in many cases, both the online and land-based ones. Just what are these games? Read on…

SLOT MACHINES AT MICROGAMING CASINOS

Microgaming has by far the most evidence to support its claim of being the world’s longest running provider of casino software. After their progressive slot “Cash Splash” helped the company to break through and become a top-tier provider of online gambling software, they did not stop innovating. The developer has published over 1,200 online slots over the past two decades, the vast majority of which are still available for play today.

BRANDING & LICENSING

Microgaming were the first to license a well-known property from popular culture with the release of their Tomb Raider slot in 2005. This co-branding experiment earned them stacks of cash, and just like with Quickfire, that Tomb Raider slot machine kicked off an unstoppable trend.

Today, you will be hard pressed to think of a single popular entertainment brand that does not have a slot machine named after it. Every generation is catered for – He-Man? Check. Who wants to be a millionaire? Check. Spider man? Check. Britney Spears? Check …. The list goes on.

PROGRESSIVE JACKPOTS & MEGA MOOLAH

While Microgaming didn’t invent the progressive jackpot slot – we have Las Vegas to thank for that one – they were the first to bring the idea to the web. If you know the story of how progressive jackpot games spread throughout Nevada, you’ll no doubt agree that the internet is their natural home.

Just as Vegas went from single machine to multiple machines in the same casino, and then on to the networked progressives all in the name of having the right to call themselves the casino with the largest jackpots – Microgaming took this same idea online.

Microgaming developed the first online Progressive Jackpot slot in 1998 in the form of Cash Splash, and casino operators were thrilled when they realized the progress this could bring to their industry. The company iterated their progressive slot designs year after year, as the number of casinos running their games grew and the sizes of their top jackpots climbed ever higher.

Their hottest progressive jackpot machine today is the fearsome Mega Moolah, which boasts four progressive jackpots that seed at $10, $100, $10,000 and $1,000,000. It’s no coincidence that fifteen out of the twenty largest online progressive jackpot wins in history have been won from this machine, with the largest being a $22,553,214 dollar hit won at Grand Mondial casino in 2018.

TABLE GAMES

Casinos make comparatively peanuts from their table games, but whenever a land-based casino has tried to remove these games from the floor, the public outcry is so strong that they are soon forced to reintroduce them. Games such as Blackjack and Baccarat are just insanely popular – and the casinos can’t “uninvent” these games, no matter how much they might wish they could.

In the online casino world, things work a little differently. Microgaming casinos don’t really care if you spend hours playing their computerized versions of Blackjack, Three Card Poker, or Video Poker – these games do not require a human dealer, so there are very few costs associated with operating them.

Let’s say you choose to play the single deck variant of Blackjack, which has the lowest house edge in the entire casino. Trouble is, no matter how low the house edge might be, it is still, every hand is without exception in the casinos favor. Therefore, all the casino cares about is that you keep playing for as long as possible.

It’s the live dealer variants of these games which can often end up costing online casino operators’ money, which is why you will often find miniaturized slot machines offered to the side of these games to keep you entertained whilst waiting for your turn to act.

Playing the Tables at a Microgaming Casino

So, how many table games does Microgaming offer? Their website has a full list of all their table games available to browse, and because sometimes individual casinos choose not to offer every game in a providers catalogue, this is the best way to get an accurate representation of everything Microgaming has to offer.

Interestingly, Microgaming has chosen to list their live dealer games at the top of the list. Every game is dealt by a beautiful woman, apparently – coincidence? I think not! This is a clear attempt at titillating players – they are clearly hoping that this technique will attract players to join a Microgaming casino.

Interestingly, when testing some of these games a try, it is hard to be sure if the dealer is 100% real – could this be advanced graphical trickery? Microgaming is keeping tight lipped on the matter, but several other bloggers and news sites have commented on their almost robotic actions as well.

Fig.1 – The first block of table games displayed on Microgaming’s website.

 

Whilst some people might have a problem with companies such as Microgaming using attractive female dealers to promote their games, many would argue that it is the natural thing to do? Microgaming is simply taking advantage of the age-old adage that sex sells, and why shouldn’t they? Almost every other industry takes advantage of this, so why shouldn’t Microgaming?

With that out of the way, lets talk about the games – with two decades of experience, it’s no surprise that Microgaming’s table games are, in many people’s opinion, the best you will find anywhere. An interesting quirk is that when Microgaming created the “Gold” series of games to replace the old, dated looking originals, the uproar was so huge that Microgaming ended up leaving the “classic” versions of their Blackjack, Roulette, Baccarat and so forth available for play, as well as their much more modern looking Gold series.

The World’s Greatest Blackjack

Microgaming’s “Classic Blackjack Gold” is a single deck game that offers the best odds of any Blackjack game in the world – both online and offline. The house edge is a razor thin 0.12%, making card counting a viable technique if the table Is completely full – with a full complement of player hands and just a single deck, you get to see a lot of the cards.

Our personal favorite is the “Premier Blackjack”. The fast mode is a godsend, as it can be so tedious watching card animations after every single hand. You can change the look of the felt, and there is even an autoplay function which lets you specify what you would do in every single situation, and the game will play for you … it’s probably not something you’ll want to use all the time, but it is fascinating seeing it in action.

HTML5: The Challenge of Rewriting 1,200 Casino Games

Unfortunately, the switch to HTML5 and the death of almost every download casino client means that many Microgaming favorites are difficult to find now. The company is working with Switch Studios to get as many games converted as quickly as they possibly can. Here’s a quick breakdown of the table games currently offered by Microgaming in the HTML5 format:

• European Blackjack Gold
• Premier Blackjack
• Atlantic City Blackjack Gold
• Vegas Strip Blackjack
• Vegas Downtown Blackjack
• Classic Blackjack Gold
• Baccarat
• Vegas Single Deck Blackjack
• European Roulette
• American Roulette

More games are appearing all the time, so if your favorite Microgaming slot, table game, or video poker machine seems to have disappeared right now, don’t worry – the company claims that they will convert every game eventually.

VIDEO POKER

Moving on to Video Poker, Microgaming has a huge suite of games which are clearly inspired by the “Game King” cabinets that are ubiquitous all around the state of Nevada. Microgaming has a clear competitor when it comes to Video Poker, however – Real Time Gaming (RTG) have a huge number of these games available as well. Microgaming has more resources than RTG, however, and are managing to convert their Video Poker games much faster than their competitor.

Real Time Gaming does have more regular cabinets for sure, with outrageous games such as “Triple Double Bonus Poker”, however Microgaming has created several video poker games which are immediately recognizable to fans of the genre but work slightly differently. If you have never tried Microgaming’s Power Poker series of games, you may be best keeping it that way… they are incredibly addictive!

All Aces

Microgaming scores another huge point for their game “All Aces”, which has the lowest house edge of any online casino game. At just 0.08% with perfect strategy, fans of Double Double Bonus Poker will love All Aces – hit four aces and you are paid half the value of a royal flush. Considering the royal flush is ten times harder to hit, this is a real bargain.

Multi-Hand Games

Of course, you can choose to play as many hands as you like simultaneously too – within reason that is, the maximum is currently set at 100 hands. Can you imagine being dealt a royal flush pat and scoring 100 royal flushes from a single bet?

As amazing as that would be, it seems important to mention that multi-hand video poker tends to have a much lower expected value than playing a single hand at a time. There are many articles on the web which explain the math behind this in great detail, so I won’t repeat it all here.

So, who IS the king of Video Poker?

The final nail in the coffin is market penetration – Microgaming are miles ahead of RTG, and probably always will be. Therefore, if you are a video poker fan, Microgaming casinos are the place for you!

The Most Popular Microgaming Titles

With so many titles to choose from, and a lack of accurate data on which Microgaming slots make the company the most money, the list below is based purely on the games with the highest RTP. These games are theoretically the most generous for the player, which seems an appropriate metric on which to judge. If you chose to play these games, you should get more playtime for your money. As always though, this isn’t guaranteed!

Game	RTP	Style	Paylines	Max Win	Notes
Lucky Leprechaun	96.83%	5×3 Reels	20 Lines	5000x Stake
Jurassic Park	96.67%	5×3 Reels	243 Ways	?	No HTML5 Version at some casinos
Thunderstruck 2	96.65%	5×3 Reels	243 Ways	8,100x Stake	Max Win Only Available in Wild Storm
Terminator 2	96.62%	5×3 Reels	243 Ways	2,933x Stake	Really Fun Game for Fans of the Franchise!
Santa Paws	96.24%	5×3 Reels	25 Lines	800x Stake	Christmas Themed Clone of Polar Paws
Atlantis Rising	96.20%	5×5 Grid	25 Lines	500x Stake	Low Variance, But Still Fun!
Mystic Dreams	96.06%	5×3 Reels	243 Ways	72,000x Stake
Mount Olympus	96.01%	5×3 Reels	25 Lines	8,000x Stake	No HTML5 Version at some casinos
come	95.43%	5×3 Reels	9 Lines	4,333x Stake	Wins are usually big, but very rare
Major Millions 5 Reel	89.41%	5×3 Reels	15 Lines	Progressive	See below regarding this game.

All but one of these games uses the standard 5×3 reel setup, and while Microgaming certainly has experimented with other layouts – 6×4 is another popular option at Microgaming – it’ clear that the company likes to stick to established slot design formulas most of the time.

Microgaming also seemingly reuse their engines more than other developers – for example, Thunderstruck 2, Playboy, Immortal Romance, and the Finer Reels of Life are all essentially the same game with different graphics and in some cases a very slightly tweaked paytable or selection of bonus rounds.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

WHO IS MICROGAMING?

Microgaming is one of the oldest (founded in 1994) and biggest online gaming software providers of content and the Quickfire multi-provider platform found at many top online casinos.

WHICH GAMES DID MICROGAMING MAKE?

Microgaming has a huge collection of casino games, including variants of blackjack, baccarat, roulette, poker and more. Published Microgaming slots total over 1,200 and continue to grow regularly with exciting branded and unbranded additions.

WHAT ARE THE MOST POPULAR MICROGAMING GAMES?

Although it’s hard to choose the most popular Microgaming games, we like Mega Moolah, Immortal Romance, Thunderstruck 2 and Game of Thrones.

WHERE CAN I FIND MICROGAMING ONLINE?

Microgaming online casino games are available at many top online casinos. Unfortunately, Microgaming online casinos are not yet available to US residents.

CAN I PLAY MICROGAMING GAMES WITH A NO DEPOSIT BONUS?

Regrettably, no deposit bonuses on Microgaming games are not available to US residents, but may be available to residents of some alternative countries depending on the casino.

WHICH COUNTRIES ARE ALLOWED TO PLAY MICROGAMING’S CASINO GAMES?

Although Microgaming is one of the largest online casino software providers in the world, they are extremely careful not to license their games to any casino which intends to offer their games to players in a country where online gambling is restricted or illegal. The most obvious country being the United States, although several states have taken matters into their own hands over the past few years and created online gambling laws which supersede the edicts set out in the UIGEA.