The Wombat says: Vegas Downtown Blackjack Gold is another game in Games Globals’s Gold series of online blackjack games. Vegas Downtown is a single-hand game although there is a multi-hand version that uses up to five hands, too. Or you could play Blackjack Pro Monte Carlo Multihand if you can get your mouth around it!
On the whole this Wombat prefers good old fashioned slots to table games ( they’re a bit too classy for the likes of me), but every once in a while we feel the need to branch out. This is one of those occasions… Let’s play Blackjack!
Look and Feel
As with the other Gold series games, Vegas Downtown comes with some cracking graphics and 3-D animations, plus a well thought out layout. We’d put this up there with our Blackjack Single Deck Touch game on the design front, although that game is only available on mobiles.
The buttons and tabs on the interface are easy to use while the casino-like sound effects and background music accentuate the Sin City atmosphere… Slick.
Playing Vegas Downtown Blackjack Gold
The game uses two decks of 52 cards and very much follows the rules of regular blackjack, the aim of the game is to get a total that is greater than the dealer’s without busting (aka going over 21 for those of you who aren’t au fait with the rules.)
One of the most unique features of Vegas Downtown is that the dealer is required to draw on a soft 17 rather than stand. Whats that then? Well, a soft 17 is a combination with a total of 17, in which one of the cards is an ace. Compare that to Multihand Blackjack Gold which has a slightly different flavour. Nuances, nuances!
At the beginning of the game, the dealer hands the player two face down cards, while dealing himself one face-up card and one hole card (facedown). If the face-up card is an ace, the player is given a window to take an insurance bet.
This pays off 2 to 1 if the dealer’s hole card gives the dealer a blackjack. If it is not a blackjack, the player loses the insurance bet. The main blackjack bet pays off at 3:2. Oh and by the way, giving up is against the rules in Vegas Downtown Blackjack Gold, so you better be in for the lomg haul.
Split Cards
Us lucky players can split a pair of cards that have the same value, but this is limited to once, and only if the pair is made of aces. In such a hand, you will receive one extra card and will be required to stand that hand.
For other types of splits, you can re-split another two times to form four hands. You are allowed to double down on any first two cards including on newly split hands. Doubling down effectively means that you are confident of beating the dealer on the next card. Therefore, the next card after splitting always stands. You can only double down once on each hand. Confused? Take a look at the rules in the game settings…
Conclusion
This game mixes luck and with a bit of strategy which adds an edge of the unpredictable to your gameplay, and it also means that you never quite know what’s coming around the corner. Vegas Downtown Blackjack Gold is worth a play for die-hard Blackjack fans, but the rest of you might want to start with something a but more simple…
Wombat Score: 3/5
This game is no longer available for players from the UK, but is still available for players in Canada (not Ontario), New Zealand, Ireland, Japan, Brazil and many more countries.