Vivo Gaming has been offering live dealer games since 2010 but features a relatively small portfolio which is currently limited to Live Blackjack, Roulette and Baccarat.

Though the company did develop other products over the past years, it seems they finally decided to focus on the three most popular games and keep them as simple as possible.

Vivo’s Live Blackjack plays in a studio designed to look like casino floor; being able to see other tables in the background and hear subtle noise created by other dealers increases authenticity. The developer’s lobby usually offers access to two Live Blackjack games – one with a host communicating in English and the other featuring a native Turkish speaker.

Both tables have identical limits; depending on the casino, you may or may not be offered a choice between Standard (€5 min) and VIP limits (€25 min). Bet Behind functionality can get you in on the action if all 7 seats happen to be occupied.

The dealer deals two cards to each player as well as themselves. When their up card is an Ace, they will offer Insurance which costs half of the player’s initial bet and pays 2:1 if the dealer’s hole card turns out to be any 10-point card. If you were lucky enough to score Blackjack vs their Ace, you’ll be offered Even Money (1:1 payout) before your opponent peeks to see if they were equally fortunate.

The game doesn’t support pre-decision; one has to wait their turn before they can inform the dealer whether additional cards need to be dealt.

Vivo’s Live Blackjack incorporates two side bets commonly found in all similar products. The 21+3 optional wager takes into consideration the first two cards dealt to the player and the dealer’s up card and pays 5:1 for a Flush, 10:1 for a Straight, 25:1 for Three of a Kind, 40:1 for Straight Flush and 100:1 for Suited Three of a Kind. Perfect Pairs side bet wins when your initial hand is a pair, with mixed colour pair paying 6:1, same colour pair 12:1 and cards of same suit 25:1.

In-game options enable players to chat with the dealer, turn sounds on and off, read rules and change interface language (there are 25 options in addition to English). The visibility of cards dealt is very good plus you’ll see their total value displayed next to each hand. Vivo games are offered in both Flash and HTML5 so that one can play on tablets and smartphones as well as PCs.

Vivo’s Live Blackjack uses 8 decks of 52 cards and its dealers stand on all 17. Players have the option to Double Down and receive only one additional card.

They can also Split pairs to play two separate hands and make a Hit, Stand or Double decision for both; the only exception are Split Aces which get one card each.

Unlike many other Live Blackjack games, this one allows you to keep re-splitting up to a total of 4 hands. Vivo’s game has a theoretical return of 99.44%.

• 8 decks in play
• Dealer stands on all 17
• Double Down on any two cards
• Split Aces receive one card each
• Split to up to 4 hands
• Insurance pays 2:1
• Even Money offered for player’s BJ vs dealer’s Ace
• Tie results in a Push
• RTP 99.44%

There’s nothing wrong with keeping things simple as long as one delivers high quality, but in our humble opinion, Vivo currently doesn’t – at least not in a consistent manner. Streaming quality is average and significantly inferior to, for example, Evolution’s.

There’s no option to adjust video quality (one can only switch to full screen mode) but the worst thing is that, during one of our gaming sessions, the screen was constantly going black and frequently for longer than a few seconds.

This can easily prove to be disastrous as it could be your turn to act and you wouldn’t be able to see your cards nor betting controls. On another occasion, the card reader wasn’t working properly so the dealer had to swipe the same card multiple times. This kind of technical issues can truly ruin the experience.

One thing Vivo’s portfolio sorely misses is a common draw variant; seeing that there are only two tables available, it can easily happen that you can’t find a vacant seat and will have no option but to wait or bet behind one of the seated players.

Some may appreciate the simplicity of UI but others might dislike the fact there are fewer in-game options than in competitive products. Game rules are standard although other developers don’t allow as many re-splits. Vivo’s dealers tend to be communicative and quite friendly but not all of them speak good English so one may occasionally struggle to understand what they’re saying.