Soft Magic Dice Blackjack Software

Soft Magic Dice (SMD) is a newer gaming software developer, having launched in
November 2014. We’ve seen multiple sites that state SMD began in
2012, but their website claims they opened in 2014.

SMD’s web site also proclaims that they hope to be a top
three online gaming provider.

As we’ll cover later, they’re off to a rocky start in this
goal because they’ve been accused of spamming players and
offering poor customer support.

But does this mean that you should avoid their blackjack
games?

Let’s find out by looking at SMD blackjack’s general aspects,
the games, where their blackjack variations are found, and other
info on Soft Magic Dice.

General Aspects of Soft Magic Dice Blackjack

7-Card Charlie Rule

SMD offers three real money blackjack games, including
classic, royal, and Blackjack Pro.

At first glance, these games are indistinguishable in terms
of rules. But upon further inspection, royal blackjack offers
the highest betting limits, while both royal and Blackjack Pro
feature the 7-card Charlie rule.

This rule gives you an automatic win if you’re dealt seven
cards without busting. Not many software providers offer 7-card
Charlie, which makes SMD special in this regard.

Graphics

The graphics for all of SMD’s blackjack games are very basic.

Every table features green felt that lacks the polish of the
top software providers. The black-felted table rim also looks
plain compared to the detailed wood frames we’ve seen across the
industry.

The best detail can be seen in the chip stacks at the back of
the table. The card shoe also looks nice, especially when
considering the table’s other bland aspects.

Many software companies offer green and blue felt colors to
give players different looks. But not SMD, which appears the
same across all three variants.

Table Layout

The plainness doesn’t end with the graphics because the table
layouts also lack sophistication.

You’ll see chip denominations in the lower left-hand corner,
a space where you make bets, and a placard that shows the
minimum and maximum bets.

While these are the only essentials you need to play online
blackjack, SMD doesn’t offer any of the frills seen with other
providers’ blackjack tables.

Specifically, this doesn’t feel like a land-based casino
table because there aren’t any other sections where other
players would sit.

If you just want to play blackjack and not worry about a
lifelike table, then this won’t bother you. But if you’re hoping
for realism, then this is the wrong blackjack provider for you.

Music & Sound Effects

SMD doesn’t offer music for any of its blackjack games. But
they do feature different sound effects when you win on each
variant. Examples include:

• Blackjack
  Pro has a ringing sound when you win hands.
• Classic
  blackjack and royal have both a ringing sound and shouting man
  during wins.
• You’ll also
  hear cards flipping, and a blip to indicate losses.

Betting

The betting range varies wildly for each of SMD’s blackjack
variations. Below you can see the minimum and max bets for each
game along with chip denominations:

• Blackjack
  Pro – Minimum bet is $50, max is $1,000. Chip denominations are:
  $1, $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, $500, and $1,000.
• Classic
  Blackjack – Minimum bet is $1, max is $20. Chip denominations
  are: $1, $5, and $20.
• Royal
  Blackjack – Minimum bet is $10, max is $200. Chip denominations
  are: $1, $5, $10, $25, $50, and $100.

The majority of online blackjack games offer minimum bets of
$1, and max wagers ranging from $100-$500. But as you can see,
SMD’s games are either strictly for low rollers or high rollers.

Gameplay Options

One of the most-disappointing aspects to these blackjack
variations is that they don’t have any gameplay options.

It would be nice to adjust the sound effects volume and
tinker with other options. But Soft Magic Dice doesn’t provide
any such menus at this time.

Instant Play & Mobile Platforms

SMD blackjack is available on every platform, including PC
download software, instant play (PC & Mac), and mobile devices.

Return to Player RTP

Before getting into the RTP for SMD’s blackjack games, it’s
worth going over an interesting story about the matter.

In May 2015, news circulated that Soft Magic Dice was
offering an online blackjack game with a 0.75% player advantage.
The notable quality was that this game not only offered several
player-friendly rules, but also the rare early surrender rule.

Given that many card counters work tirelessly to gain an edge
like this, sites like CasinoListings and WizardOfOdds ran news
on the insane edge that SMD’s best blackjack game was offering.

The Wizard of Odds (a.k.a. Michael Shackleford) posted about
the matter on his forum and also started playing the game to
take advantage.

To Shackleford’s surprise, he lost $500, which seemed nearly
impossible given the supposed 0.75% player advantage.

After months of back-and-forth exchanges, an SMD engineer
finally took a look at the game and found that there was indeed
a flaw with it.

Via Mission2Game Casino, SMD refunded affected players and
fixed the flaw, with the engineer never revealing what the
problem was.

The engineer took out early surrender along with a few other
player-friendly rules, thus altering payback. Here are the
current RTPs for their three blackjack games:

• Blackjack Pro & Royal Blackjack = 99.75% RTP
• Classic Blackjack = 99.74% RTP

As you can see from this story, there was never any 0.75%
player advantage to begin with. But it’s nice that SMD
eventually looked into the problem and refunded players’ losses.

As for the RTP, 97.75% is among the best in online blackjack.

Software Security & iTech Labs Certification

Although they got off to a rocky start with their flawed
blackjack game, SMD has quickly turned things around.

First off, their software is now certified by iTech Labs –
one of the premier testing facilities for online gaming
software. They found that SMD offers fair and random games, thus
easing fears about the 2015 story.

Besides their certification, Soft Magic Dice also uses secure
sockets layer (SSL) encryption to keep players’ private and
financial information safe.

They also offer fraud prevention services to casinos,
notifying the latter if any hackers attempt to access sensitive
info. Assuming this ever happens, it will trigger a warning that
alerts customer service/fraud prevention to investigate the
problem.

Soft Magic Dice Blackjack Games

For the most part, SMD’s three blackjack games are similar.
In fact, the strategy for achieving optimal payback is the same
across all three variants.

The only difference beyond the stakes is that Blackjack Pro
and royal roulette both have an extra rule.

That said, we’ll discuss these two games together, and
classic blackjack separately.

Classic Blackjack

Rules

Following the previously discussed rule changes in 2015,
classic blackjack is configured more like other games across the
industry.

Gone is the early surrender rule that lowers the house edge
by 0.62%. This and the other two games also contain the
no-hole-card rule, which is seen in European blackjack.

Below are the rules for SMD’s classic blackjack.

• Natural
  blackjack (21 w/ first two cards) pays 3:2 on your bet.
• The dealer
  stands on a soft 17 (A6).
• Dealer
  doesn’t receive a hole card. You lose all bets if dealer has
  natural blackjack & you don’t have one.
• You can
  only double down on totals of 9 to 11.
• You can
  double down after splitting.
• You can
  only split hands once.
• No
  surrender.
• 1 deck.

Return to Player RTP

RTP for SMD’s classic blackjack is 99.74%, which is 0.01%
less than Blackjack Pro and royal blackjack.

The reason for the lower RTP is that the 7-card Charlie rule
drops the house edge by 0.01%. But this is such an insignificant
amount that most players won’t care.

The fact that you get both a single deck and 3:2 natural
blackjack payouts is huge.

Going from 6 decks to 1 deck lowers the house edge by 0.54%,
while 3:2 blackjack payouts (instead of 6:5) lower the house
advantage by 1.39%.

Some of the rules go in the casino’s favor, such as the
dealer not receiving a hole card, only doubling down on 9-11,
and only being able to split hands once.

Nevertheless, this game still offers high RTP at 99.74%.

How to Play

The game begins with you clicking a chip from the available
denominations on the left-hand side. Every time you choose a
chip, it appears in your betting circle.

As you add chips to the betting circle, you’ll see options at
the bottom for Deal, Clear, and Undo. Clear removes your entire
bet so you can start over, while Undo only takes away the last
chip.

When you’re satisfied with your bet, click Deal to receive
your cards and see the dealer’s up card.

Upon receiving your hand, you’ll be given the following
options: hit, stand, double down (9-11), and split (pairs).

Once a hand is finished, you can either choose New Game or
Rebet. New Game sees all your chips removed and gives you the
chance to bet again, while Rebet uses the exact same wager to
play.

Strategy

Given that the 7-card Charlie rule doesn’t affect how you
play hands; the strategy is the same across SMD’s blackjack
games.

Below is a chart that will help you achieve the optimal
99.74% RTP for classic blackjack, and the 99.75% RTP for
Blackjack Pro & royal blackjack:

• Your total
  is 5 to 8: always hit.
• Your total
  is 9: double down when dealer’s up card is 2 to 6. Hit when
  their card is 7 to A.
• Your total
  is 10: double down when dealer’s up card is 2 to 9. Hit when
  their card is 10 to A.
• Your total
  is 11: always double down.
• Your total
  is 12: hit when dealer’s up card is 2 to 3 and 7 to A. Stand
  when dealer’s card is 4 to 6.
• Your total
  is 13 to 16: hit when their card is 7 to A. Stand when their
  card is 2 to 6.
• Your total
  is 17+: always stand.
• Your cards
  are A2 to A6: always hit (double down isn’t available for these
  totals).
• Your cards
  are A7: stand when dealer’s up card is 2 to 8 and A. Hit when
  their card is 9 to 10.
• Your cards
  are A8+: always stand.
• You have a
  pair of 2’s: split when dealer’s up card is 3 to 7. Hit when
  their card is 2 and 8 to A.
• You have a
  pair of 3’s: split when the dealer’s up card is 4 to 7. Hit when
  their card is 2 to 3 and 8 to A.
• You have a
  pair of 4’s: always hit.
• You have a
  pair of 5’s: double down when dealer’s up card is 2 to 9. Hit
  when their card is 10 to A.
• You have a
  pair of 6’s: split when the dealer’s up card is 2 to 6. Hit when
  their card is 7 to A.
• You have a
  pair of 7’s: split when the dealer’s up card is 2 to 7. Hit when
  their card is 8 to 9 and A. Stand when their card is 10.
• You have a
  pair of 8’s: always split.
• You have a
  pair of 9’s: split when the dealer’s up card is 2 to 6 and 8 to
  9. Stand when their card is 7 and 10 to A.
• You have a
  pair of 10’s: always stand.
• You have a
  pair of aces: always split.

Blackjack Pro & Royal Blackjack

Rules

Again, the rule distinction with these two games is that they
both offer 7-card Charlie. Other than that, the rules are the
same:

• Natural
  blackjack pays 3:2 on your bet.
• The dealer
  stands on a soft 17 (A6).
• Dealer
  doesn’t receive a hole card. You lose all bets if dealer has
  natural blackjack & you don’t have one.
• 7-card
  Charlie rule: you automatically win when being dealt 7 hands
  without busting.
• You can
  only double down on totals of 9 to 11.
• You can
  double down after splitting.
• You can
  only split hands once.
• No
  surrender.
• 1 deck.

Return to Player RTP

RTP for both Blackjack Pro and royal blackjack is 99.75%. The
slight improvement in the RTP is due to the 7-card Charlie rule.

As mentioned before, the 99.75% RTP is among the best you’ll
find in online blackjack.

Unfortunately, the downside is that you must bet more to play
these games. Royal blackjack requires a $10 minimum bet, while
Blackjack Pro features a $50 minimum wager.

We have no idea why Soft Magic Dice requires such large bets
to play their games.

Beyond convenience, a big reason for playing online blackjack
is to escape the high minimum wagers featured in
brick-and-mortar casinos. But this isn’t the case with Blackjack
Pro and royal roulette, where you must bet more than on some
land-based casino tables.

What’s worse is that risking so much money exposes you more
to the house edge. To illustrate this point, consider the
following:

• You can
  play classic blackjack for $1 a hand. At this rate, you’ll
  theoretically lose 1 cent every four hands (4 x 0.0026 house
  edge).
• You play
  royal blackjack at $10 per hand. At this rate, you’ll
  theoretically lose $0.10 every four hands (40 x 0.0025).
• You play
  Blackjack Pro at $50 per hand. At this rate, you’ll
  theoretically lose $0.50 every four hands (200 x 0.0025).

Neither of these rates sounds horrible, but let’s now assume
that you play 300 hands per hour:

• You’d lose
  $3 per hour with classic blackjack (300 x 0.01).
• You’d lose
  $30 per hour with royal blackjack (300 x 0.10).
• You’d lose
  $150 per hour with Blackjack Pro (300 x 0.50).

If you play faster than 300 hands per hour, you’re looking at
even bigger theoretical losses.

For this reason, we recommend choosing classic blackjack and
its 99.74% RTP. Not only is this a solid return, but it’s much
easier on your bankroll than Blackjack Pro and royal blackjack.

How to Play

Both royal blackjack and Blackjack Pro have the same playing
process as classic blackjack. The only difference is that you
can use larger chip denominations and bets in the royal and Pro
versions.

The largest chip in Blackjack Pro is $1,000, while the
biggest chip in royal blackjack is $100.

If you’ve already played SMD’s classic blackjack, you won’t
have any trouble playing these two variations.

Strategy

Use the same strategy as classic blackjack.

Where is Soft Magic Dice Blackjack Found?

The only online casino that currently uses SMD’s software is
Mission2Game. You can read more about Mission2Game below along
with their promotions and popularity.

Finding Soft Magic Dice Blackjack at Mission2Game

This is a unique superhero-themed casino that features two
heroes on the homepage. The woman is wearing a 777 logo and M2G
belt, while the guy has a spades logo on his suit.

Although the interface looks nice, it’s too busy for our
tastes. But the navigation is good and we had no trouble finding
the SMD blackjack.

We clicked the Games section, then chose Table games >
Blackjack Games > all three games are listed.

Once you click on a demo or real money blackjack game, you’ll
be prompted to create an account. We were annoyed because our
first attempt stalled out due to an internal server error, but
the second attempt worked.

Mission2Game Promotions

The promotions section shows that you can pick up a $2,500
table games bonus through the blackjack action here. This casino
also offers comp point exchanges, where you can trade in 100
points for $1.

Mission2Game Popularity

According to SimilarWeb, Mission2Game Casino is ranked
5,843,851 globally and 1,857,478 USA in traffic at the time of
this review.

This suggests that Mission2Game hasn’t gained any steam,
despite being open since 2015. It also suggests that SMD isn’t a
popular provider considering that Mission2Game is their only
client right now.

Soft Magic Dice Reputability

The Soft Magic Dice website boasts that they’re founders are
industry experts who have 30 years of experience in the casino
gaming industry. The site doesn’t specify if this is 30 years of
collective experience between the founders, or 30 years as a
group.

Whatever the case may be, they got off to a poor start, which
is why they’re struggling to attract clients today.

Let’s go through their follies and also rehash a good
incident involving players affected by the flawed blackjack
game.

Spamming

Most of the complaints we’ve seen revolve around SMD and
Mission2Game spamming players through email. Furthermore, some
players even say that they didn’t sign up for anything and have
still been spammed.

Support Pushing Deposit Bonuses

A poster on AskGamblers wrote that they contacted support
about an available $10 no-deposit bonus.

Rather than immediately crediting them with the bonus, the
customer service rep tried convincing them to take advantage of
the deposit bonuses.

Limited Games

Another AskGamblers poster complained that Soft Magic Dice &
Mission2Game don’t offer enough games. We have to disagree
somewhat because, while SMD isn’t the world’s largest provider,
they do have over 100 total games.

No Licensing

While SMD has been tested by iTech Labs, there’s no mention
of licensing on their site. Furthermore, we’ve read where they
don’t respond to questions about their licensing.

While this doesn’t inspire trust, it also doesn’t immediately
mean that SMD is untrustworthy.

After all, we’ve seen casinos in the Alderney, Curacao, and
Panama licensing jurisdictions get away with shady things and
not receive any reprimand.

Unfavorable & Contradictory Terms

According to ThePogg, Mission2Game has a clause stating that
they’ll take funds from any account that has been dormant for
more than 180 days.

Another issue involves contradictory withdrawal limits. One
area of the site states that the maximum withdrawal is $2,000
regardless of VIP level, while another section states that
players’ cashout limits depend on one’s VIP status.

Contradictory bonus terms can also be found on the site.
Specifically, there’s a mix-up on whether deposit bonuses are
cashable or sticky due to both types being referenced.

Faulty Video Poker and Slots

An added piece to the earlier story about Michael Shackleford
is that he found further faults in some of the video poker and
slots games by SMD.

Here’s one example: the video poker game counted the wheel
straight (A 2 3 4 5) as a loss in video poker.

Here’s another example: the slots game 80s Night wasn’t
counting wild symbols in reel 1 as wild.

SMD Repays Cheated Players

Shackleford used the above problems to supplement his
argument about the blackjack game not working properly.

It took a while before SMD addressed his problem, but they
eventually responded by fixing the faulty games and repaying
players who were cheated in blackjack.

This shows that Soft Magic Dice is responsible to some
degree. Furthermore, we haven’t seen any other serious
complaints regarding SMD’s games cheating players.

Other Soft Magic Dice Game

SMD is a full-service software provider that offers
everything from slots to bingo. That being said, let’s take a
closer look at what they have beyond blackjack.

Slots

SMD offers 5 reel, 3 reel, and progressive slots.

We count almost 40 games in the 5 reel section. Some of these
games include: 20,000 Leagues, Backstage Pass, Fast Racing,
Fiesta, Genie’s Fortune, Gold Digger’s Fortune, Groove City,
House of Frankenstein, Nights of Sahara, Pirate’s Cove, and
Wacky Farm.

Scratch Cards & Bingo

One of the best things that SMD does is create good scratch
card and bingo themes. We count 20+ games in the specialty
section, each with solid graphics and a quality background.

One example is Electric Ball bingo, which features spheres of
electricity around the card.

Another example is Magic Nuts, a scratch card that involves a
squirrel gathering nuts in the forest.

Table Games

Besides blackjack, SMD’s other table games include several
baccarat and roulette variations.

The 5 roulette games are different versions of European and
American roulette, with the difference being the stakes.

Baccarat has four different versions that are only separated
by stakes, along with punto banco.

Video Poker

Besides scratch cards, the other thing that SMD does well is
themed video poker variations that you won’t find elsewhere.
Some of these themed games include: Genie of the Lamp, Jacks or
Better, Moonlight Poker, Pharaoh’s Tomb, and Science of Cards.

Here’s an example of what to expect: Pharaoh’s Tomb features
a mummy, Egyptian drawings, stone columns, and hieroglyphics on
the cards.

The only catch is that all of these games feature Jacks or
Better video poker. If you like another variation, then you’re
not going to find it among SMD’s selection.

Conclusion

Soft Magic Dice blackjack landed with a splash in 2015, when
players thought that they were getting a 0.75% edge. This turned
out not to be the case since the software was buggy, and players
ended up losing money.

Upon being contacted about the matter, SMD fixed the problem
and refunded affected players. But they’ve still been recovering
from this and other negative incidents that have plagued them.

One way that SMD is trying to attract players is through
their high RTP, which runs between 99.74% and 99.75%. It’s rare
to find an operator that offers this high of RTP for all their
blackjack games.

The only catch is that the two 99.75% RTP variants –
Blackjack Pro and royal blackjack – require $50 and $10 minimum
bets, respectively. As covered in these games’ RTP section, you
can lose lots of money playing the Pro and royal versions for
hours.

For this reason, we recommend that you play the classic
variation, which requires a $1 minimum bet and offers 99.74%
RTP.

Of course, there’s also the issue of whether you should play
with SMD at all.

The only casino they’re found at is Mission2Game, and they’ve
had a number of issues regarding spamming, faulty slots / video
poker, and contradictory bonus terms.

The one good thing that SMD has going for them reputation
wise is that they repaid the aforementioned blackjack players
who lost money. But we still have trouble giving their blackjack
games a full recommendation based on the collection of
incidents.

In summary, you’re taking a gamble by playing real money
blackjack with SMD. But as long as nothing nefarious happens,
it’s a worthwhile gamble due to the high return.