Welcome the online casino software page of online casino ie where we provide an overview of the software providers used by the online casinos that we recommend. Online casino operators are generally speaking bookmakers who have started life many years ago in the sports betting industry and are not specialised in computer software. The software which is of course a very critical part of any online casino offering is provided by specialists in the field and although there are a number of providers available, the four that we shall look at are Playtech, Chartwell, Microgaming and Wagerworks.
Netent or NetEntertainment to give them their full name is a Swedish specialist in providing digital gaming systems otherwise known as casino software to the online casino industry; the company was established in 1996 and is listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. Netent is unique in providing casino games using the latest technology; they have no casino operations of their own, thus avoiding any conflict of interest with their users, preferring to focus on better software and images and claims the highest payouts in the industry. There is no doubt that NetEntertainment has some great original characters in the video slots section and the graphics are in our opinion second to none making the software very different from many of the competitors and as soon as you start to play you will notice that difference immediately. Netent is probably the most used casino software in Scandinavia being used by such companies as the Betsson Group but being less known in the Irish casino market but we are sure that all this will change when more Irish casino players see what is on offer through All Irish Casino which is the only one of our preferred casino list so far to use them. The focus is definitely on entertainment maing NetEntertainment a very appropriate name.
Playtech was founded in 1999 in Estonia and it finalised the first deal with an online casino operator in 2001. In 2003 the company was one of the first to launch live casino using live dealers and video streaming as well as introducing their Bingo platform and the following year the poker platform. Mobile phone gambling software was launched in 2005; the same year as the RNG (Random Number Generator) was certified. This rapid expansion led to the company going public in 2006 with a listing on the London AIM (Alternative Investment Market) and in 2008 Playtech signed an agreement with Paramount Digital Entertainment which enabled the use of characters from Paramount Pictures on various slot machines and in 2009 a similar arrangement with Marvel Entertainment Inc to use their comic book characters. As you can see, Playtech is one of the best known software providers in the market and is duly proud of its achievements in the field of fair and responsible gambling where the software includes facilities for self exclusion and age verification. This software is used currently by Bet365 and William Hill.
Chartwell or to give it its correct name Chartwell Technology Inc was established in 1998 in Vancouver, Canada and now has employees in London, England, Malta and Singapore and is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Chartwell goes out of its way to emphasize that it is not a gaming operators and does not compete with its customers; they develop games and gaming systems and are certified to offer their service in all of the leading regulated online gaming markets. The last few years have seen considerable advances and perhaps the biggest coup for the company was achieving a licensing agreement with Betfair which is of course a betting exchange rather than a casino operator. Of the casinos that we recommend on this site Bwin uses software provide by Chartwell.
Microgaming is headquartered in the Isle of Man and is a privately owned company having one of the broadest ranges of casino slots in the industry. The first online casino software was developed in 1994 and by 1998 online table games such as Blackjack, Roulette and Craps were made available in download format and the first wide area progressive jackpot slot called Cash Splash was also released in the same year. By 2002 Microgaming had more than 100 games available and some lucky punter had won over $1.500.000 on the progressive jackpot game Major Millions™ which at the time was a world record. The Poker network was released in 2003 which was the same year that Microgaming became a founder member of eCOGRA (e-Commerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance) by which time there were more than 200 games on offer. Development continued into the field of live dealer casino and by 2009 there were over 400 download games and 200 flash games available and the first “Grand Slam of Slots” created the first online slots tournament millionaire. Today the software is behind more than 120 casinos and 40 poker rooms but perhaps the best known one is Ladbrokes which uses both the casino and poker software.
Wagerworks was originally a subsidiary of Silicon Gaming, a slot machine manufacturer, but shortly afterwards in 2005 Silicon Gaming was itself acquired by International Game Technology (IGT) and it included all technologies and games. It is now an independent entity concentrating their efforts on casino operations software. Wagerworks has one advantage over its competitors in that it has a history of the land based casino business from its time as a slot manufacturer. Perhaps the biggest claim to fame for Wagerworks is the MegaJackpots® series which are multi line, multi coin machines with Jackpot values of over €1,500,000. The largest user of Wagerworks is Paddy Power casino who use it across the site but 888 casino and Bet365 casino also use of the slot offerings.