Wirex is an Italian iGaming software developer that offers a range of online gambling solutions, including casino, sports betting, and live casino games. Now, it’s a little confusing because while Wirex develop all of the games, the software provider who actually appear on the branding, is Portomaso Gaming. This appears to be the result of a partnership – it just makes things a bit confusing!
Wirex offer a variety of live dealer games, including Punto Banco, Roulette, Auto Roulette, Blackjack, and Studio Lounge Roulette. In this Wirex live casino review, we’re going to take a look at their games in more depth. We’ll also look at where their games can be played – so, let’s get started!
Best Wirex Live Dealer Casino
Company Information and History
Wirex was founded in 2002, by Luigi Giuri – the current CEO. The company has offices in Lecce, Lamezia and Malta – and the company primarily offers gaming solutions to Italian and Maltese players. They’ve also recently entered a couple of new markets – Spain and Greece – and they’re ‘beginning to consider’ the US market, as well as India and Southeast Asia. The company is becoming more of a prominent figure in the iGaming industry, and while they’re not the largest company in the world, they continue to grow their presence.
Wirex currently hold gambling licenses from the UK’s Gambling Commission and the Maltese Gaming Authority, and they have announced that they’ll be looking to acquire new licenses in the near-future to be able to offer their games to even more customers around the world.
Now, if you’re confused about why we mention Wirex and Portomaso in this review – well, join the club!
While we were writing this Wirex live casino review, we found it quite confusing to figure out what the two companies actually do. It appears as though Portomaso are the company who actually make and run the live dealer games, while Wirex are the brains behind the technology. Because of this, you may see the games branded using Wirex’s and Portomaso’s branding.
Wirex Live Casino Review: The Games
Wirex offer a good number of live dealer games. Some are streamed live from land-based casinos, while others are dealt from their custom-made studio. We played all of them before writing this Wirex live casino review and you can find our thoughts below.
Wirex’s Oracle Live Punto Banco
This game is streamed live from the Oracle casino. It’s a 7-seat table and the game uses a total of 8 decks. An unlimited number of players can play at once despite the 7-seat configuration. From our experience, the Oracle casino dealers change the card shoe when around a quarter of the cards remain.
Player bets are paid at even money, while Banker bets are paid at 19/20. (This means there’s a 5% commission attached to the Banker option.) Unfortunately, there aren’t any side bets available but you can see detailed game statistics for the past 10 rounds.
Wirex’s Portomaso Live Punto Banco
This game is streamed from the Portomaso casino. It’s virtually identical to the Baccarat streamed from the Oracle casino, with the main difference being that there are 9 seats. It’s also possible to place Tie Bets, and these pay 8/1 when won. Again, there is also detailed statistics available for the past 10 game rounds.
Wirex’s Portomaso Live Roulette
There are two versions of Live Roulette offered by Wirex, and they both follow European rules. In fact, the only difference between the two games is the actual playing interface. On the first game (Classic Roulette), the betting options are positioned at the bottom of the screen. On the newer version, the betting options are found on the right-hand-side of the screen.
There are plenty of betting options available, and there’s also La Partage rules. (This means you get half your stake back in you place an even money bet, and the ball lands on zero.) If you want to place Neighbor bets, there’s a Racetrack which you can clicked on. A detailed game history covers the last 500 spins, and shows you Hot and Cold numbers.
There’s also an interesting Hi/Lo side bet offered on the newer version of the game. This allows you to place a wager on whether you think the next spin will land on a higher or lower number than the last spin. The odds are dynamic, meaning they are calculated on every spin to reflect the true odds. Our team were really impressed with the quality of Portomaso live Roulette. We spent quite a bit of time playing it to help us write this Wirex live casino review.
Wirex’s Oracle Live Roulette
This variation of Roulette is streamed from the Oracle casino. It uses the same playing interface, and there’s only one table available. Here, the table looks a bit crisper, and it’s coloured cream, meaning the game looks a bit more neutral. Unfortunately, the Hi/Lo side bet isn’t available here, but all of the other betting options are available.
Wirex’s Live Auto Roulette
This is another version of European Roulette, but there’s no dealer present at the table. Instead, the ball is fed into the wheel automatically, quickening the time it takes between rounds. The optional Hi/Lo side bet is offered at this table as well, and the La Partage rules also apply. When writing this Wirex live casino review we found that the provider’s live Auto Roulette was offered at almost every site offering their games.
Wirex’s Studio Live Blackjack
Studio Live Blackjack is streamed live from the Portomaso Casino, and up to 7 players can be seated at once. The game is played using an 8-deck shoe, and the game uses European rules. This means the dealer takes just one card on the initial deal.
Pairs can be split a maximum of 4 times. Only one card is dealt when splitting aces, however. Players can also take Insurance when the dealer shows an Ace. Insurance pays 2/1. You can double on any two cards, and Blackjack pays 3/2. There are two side bets available including Perfect Pairs and 21+3. There’s also a ‘Bet Behind’ option, which means an unlimited number of players can play at the table at once.
Wirex’s Studio Live Roulette
Studio Live Roulette is another of Wirex’s live dealer games, and it’s a European Roulette table. The game is streamed live from the Portomaso casino, and uses a multi-camera setup, allowing you to see all angles. There’s a healthy selection of betting options, and you can place bets using the main betting grid or the Racetrack. You also have the chance to create (and save) favourite bets. As with all of Wirex’s live dealer games, a comprehensive set of stats and game history is available as well.
Streaming Quality
Wirex’s technological capabilities are clear; their games all stream in HD, and they use multiple cameras at each table to allow you to see the cards dealt, or the wheel’s result without needing to rely on the computerized graphics. From our experience while playing their games for this Wirex live casino review their games are really fast-loading. This means you won’t spend ages waiting around for the games to actually load.
Obviously, if you can, you’ll want to play their games through a sturdy and reliable internet connection. This will ensure there’s no buffering/lagging – but from the providers side of things, they’ve got everything covered, and their streaming infrastructure is solid, so you shouldn’t experience any problems.
Playing Interface and Betting Options
To write this Wirex live casino review, we wanted to cover as many bases as possible – and that’s why we spent a fair bit of time actually playing the games. One of the major ‘plus points’ we found, was the look and feel of the playing interface. It’s all built in HTML5 and we found the games easy to play.
Wirex have opted for a minimalistic approach to designing their games, and almost all of the game’s options and settings are found at the bottom of the screen – either side of the chip denominations available. The exception to this is a small table information tab which is seen at the top-left-hand-corner of the screen.
While it’s completely up to the operator to decide which betting limits they want to offer players, we found that most sites hosting their games allowed players to play between 1 and 250 credits per game. On games like Roulette, there’s chip denominations worth as little as 0.10 credits.
Languages Offered
All of Wirex/Portomaso’s dealers are English-speaking. In fact, English is the only language their dealers speak. The only exception to this, is if an operator uses Wirex/Portomaso’s private tables, in which case they can have dealers speaking different languages. The game interface itself displays the game in English, Italian, Spanish, German, French, and some other languages. This ensures most players can understand the games, even if they can’t understand the dealers.
Wirex Live Mobile Casino Review
Wirex/Portomaso offer all of their live dealer games in HTML5. This basically means they can be played from most mobile devices, without the need of downloading any apps of specialist pieces of software. One of the things we really like about the way they’ve done their games for mobile users, is that the betting interface changes quite a lot. This means you’ve still got a good, clear view of the table, but you can still easily place bets and adjust the chip values.
Wirex’s Live Dealers
Wirex/Portomaso employ a variety of male and female dealers. They certainly look professional, and they’re very good at their job. However, when it comes to the interaction side of things, their dealers are a far-cry from the standard we’ve come to expect from market leaders like Evolution Gaming and NetEnt.
When writing this Wirex live casino review we found that the dealers rarely smile – and they look quite bored, in all honesty. While that doesn’t affect the games themselves, it doesn’t make for the most enjoyable playing experience.
Wirex Live Casino Review: Our Thoughts
Once you get past the confusion of figuring out who Wirex and Portomaso actually are, you’ll find the developer offers a fairly decent live casino solution. Wirex don’t offer the most extensive range of games – and currently, only a small number of online casinos offer them – but they offer a good selection of Roulette, and new tables are added now and then.
One of the only negatives we picked up while writing this Wirex live casino review was the lack of Roadmap options on their Baccarat games. For European players, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue – but for Asian players, it may come as a disappointment.
If you’d like to try Wirex’s live casino games for yourself, you can check out our recommended casino list below. All sites listed run Wirex’s live software.
Where To Play Wirex’s Live Casino Games?
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