Original Release: PlayStudios, 2014, Android/iOS/Amazon
A basic blackjack game that ties into the MyVegas / MyVIP “real world rewards” system
MyVegas Blackjack (Mobile, PlayStudios, 2014)
Where to Buy: Freemium via Android/iOS app stores or Amazon
How to Emulate: Android Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
MyVegas Blackjack is a smooth and pleasant basic blackjack app with some added benefits, chiefly the MyVIP / MyVegas rewards for playing, but also some major limitations in options.
If you’re not familiar with the MyVIP rewards world, it’s a family of about 10 mobile and Facebook “social casino” apps now that provide you with reward points for playing that can then be cashed in for an assortment of actual prizes. The program is tied in with MGM so a lot of those rewards are at their various casinos, but they’ve expanded over the years to a number of other partners like cruise lines and TopGolf and even some of that random Shaq branded merchandise.
You pay two prices for getting these reward points for free: advertising, and limited options. None of the MyVIP apps actually force any sort of third-party advertising, but they do frequently nag you to buy chips. Blackjack is actually one of the most restrained of the bunch, it just has a pop-up when you start it up and then it pretty much leaves you alone. It is one of the few that does allow you to voluntarily watch third-party ads for more chips, however.
As far as limited options, one is simply the amount of free chips doled out. You start with 25k and get about 5k per day just for showing up, and if you’re playing bets of 25 or 100 at single-deck with good conservative strategy that’ll hold you for a very long time. But initially you ONLY have access to a basic single-deck game and have to gradually unlock all the other game’s features by earning EXP from your bets: playing multiple hands, new rooms with new rules, side bets and so on.
Aside from earning rewards, the app does a few things to spice up the usual blackjack grind. Each new table you unlock has a set of 10 bonus cards to collect, which appear randomly with card draws. You have to win the present hand to keep them. Collecting the complete set gives you a huge EXP and money boost. At level 10 you also unlock the Strip quest; this isn’t like the My Strip you build in Facebook MyVegas if you’re familiar with that, it’s just a long chain of bonus objectives for more EXP and free chips (like winning a certain total of chips at a particular table).
Also on the theme of being overly basic, don’t expect any tutorials or play optimization tips here. You actually get sort of the opposite with a “charged bets” feature that offers some bonus chips if you keep making statistically not good plays during a hand. I guess it clues you in to what’s risky, but there’s nothing here to tell you what you could be doing better. There’s not much else to do aside from two slots you can unlock, both copped from MyVegas (Betrock Nights and Frontier Fortune).
Blackjack generally is not comped well in real casinos, and it’s definitely nerfed in the other MyVegas games that offer it … and that theme continues here as it’s one of the tightest of the app family about doling out the reward points. You’re capped to 4k per 24 hours and that’s strictly for about an hour of time-in-app (so you can sit there doing nothing if you want, so long as the screen stays active).
Still, it’s simple and straightforward, and it doesn’t have the problems with crashing and freezing on older devices that others (like MyKonami and the bingo game) now seem to be plagued with.
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