Richard Branson’s Virgin Media launched the UK’s latest latest live roulette game last night with a twist — it wasn’t strictly live.

While the glossy set promised all the things usually associated with live dealer roulette as seen on rival SKY channels Smart Live Casino and Live Roulette, there was something missing.

Yes, there was a smiley presenter. Yes, there was a state of the art studio. Yes, there were lots of pretty graphics showing who was playing and how they were doing.

Virtual Oversight

Quite what was wrong only became clear when the countdown clock reached zero. Rather than go to the roulette wheel they went to a computer screen. Perhaps the wheel got lost in the post? The result was what may well be the first ever live dealer-led video game — an interesting concept.

Given that a BIG reason for the success of other live dealer games is that punters still don’t trust Random Number Generated (RNG) computer games in the same way they trust a dealer spinning a real roulette wheel, perhaps brave rather than interesting is the better word than interesting.

Future Plans

On Monday, we reported on casinoupdate.co.uk how VMtv managing director Jonathan Webb had described the new channel as “the first step in reinventing our Challenge brand for the 21st century.”

With “live” blackjack and “live” bingo scheduled for launch later this year, station bosses are probably hoping someone remembers to order cards and numbered balls in time.