Online Casinos > Reviews > Abracadabra Casino

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Supported languages

•

English

Software

Abracadabra Casino was developed by Aqua Online, which is also sometimes referred to as Cytech. The company was founded in South Africa, where it is publicly traded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange offering e-commerce services for large, non-gaming clients. Most of its revenue, however, comes from the online gaming industry, and most of that work originates in Aqua’s London office. This center also operates a call center and support staff handling email queries from players at its clients’ casinos.
Through a third party, a British Virgin Islands company called Cyber Finance Investments, Aqua offers e-cash services to its gaming clients. This includes fraud management as well as banking relationships and casino/player account reconciliation.

Licence

It is not known whether this casino is licenced or not. To have a gaming license means that a casino is able to 1) deposit enough money yearly as a financial backup for players (approximately US $50,000 up to US $100,000 per annum), 2) pay the taxes (of about 2,5% up to 5%), and hence 3) is subject to the control of the government that issued the gaming licence in case of any disputes.

Games

•	Baccarat [Mini]
•	Blackjack
•	Craps
•	Keno

•	Poker [Caribbean]
•	Red Dog
•	Roulette [European]
•	Scratch Cards

•	Sic Bo
•	Slots (19)
•	Video Poker (7)

Baccarat (Mini)

Mini Baccarat Review

Game: In Baccarat you and the banker receive two to three cards to get a point value as close to nine as possible. You have to correctly guess whether you or the banker will win, or a tie will occur.

Odds: In baccarat the best bet is on the banker (bet that the banker will win) and the fewer the decks used the better the banker bet gets. Since Abracadabra Casino uses only one deck, the house edge on a banker bet is 1.01% (it would be 1.06% if played with six or eight decks). Dealt and played using "standard" rules, if you win by betting on the banker, the bank receives a 5% commission (land-based casinos take 4%).
The single-deck house edge on a player bet is 1.29% (where the six / eight-deck house edge on a player bet is 1.24%). These differences in percentage do not seem large, but they do have a considerable impact on play in real life.
A winning bet on a tie pays 8:1 which results in an house edge of 15.75% on tie bets (14.44% when using six and 14.36% when using eight decks). Anyway, you should avoid betting on ties at Abracadabra Casino since there are online casinos offering 9:1 payouts on ties lowering the house edge to 4.8% on tie bets.

Set: You can chose tables with table limits of $1-$100, $5-$500, and $25-$1000 which is excellent since betting limits are considered to be important when playing baccarat and high betting limits are certainly positive.

Summary: Abracadabra Casino offers a very good baccarat game (single-deck) with pretty bad odds on player and tie bets but excellent betting limits for high rollers.

Craps

Craps Review

Game: In Craps two dice are thrown by a player. If he rolls a 7 or 11, he wins. If he throws a 2, 3, or 12, he loses. If he throws any other number (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) he continues throwing the dice and hopes that the same number will be thrown again before the 7 comes up. When the 7 comes up first, he loses. You can bet on the player or the house.

Odds: Abracadabra Casino offers 2x odds: if you bet $10 on the pass-line (bet, that the player will win), you can increase your original bet after the dice have been thrown by 2x the amount you bet. This is called "wagering behind". To wager behind is what a good craps player will do and a criteria of a good craps game is how many odds the casino offers you to wager behind. As the amount of allowed odds increases, the house advantage decreases considerably. The house edge is 0.85% / 0.68% (pass-line / don't-pass-line bet) when offering 1x odds - as most online casinos do, 0.61% / 4.5% when offering 2x odds - as Abracadabra Casino does, and 0.47% / 0.34% already when offering 3x odds - as only very little online casinos do. But Abracadabra Casino does not exactly offer 2x odds the way land based casinos do: 2x usually means that you can wager behind 2x the amount you could win. So if the odds were the real 2x and you bet $10 on the pass-line, you could win $20 and hence wager 2x $20 = $40 behind. Because Abracadabra Casino does not follow the real rules - as almost no online casino does - the basic house edge stays 0.58% on pass-line-bets. They also offer place bets to lose with some unconventional payoffs, 2 to 5 on the 4 and 10, 3 to 5 on the 5 and 9, and only 9 to 20 on the 6 and 8.

A good strategy would be to always wager behind.

Set: A 5% commission is charged on all winning buy and lay bets, based on the amount won which is excellent since most other online casinos will charge you more on those bets. The stakes (betting limits) are $1-$500 which is excellent in combination with the 2X Odds.

Summary: Abracadabra Casino offers a pretty good craps table (2x odds). There are better online casinos to play craps at. You'll find them in our Best Craps List.

Keno

Keno Review

Game: There are 80 numbered balls. You pick some numbers. 20 balls are drawn. You win of course as more of your picks match the numbers that were drawn.

Odds: There are two types of keno: a) paying you good already when you match only a few picks (therefore decreasing the payouts for matching many picks) and b) paying you good only when you match many picks (therefore decreasing the payouts for matching only a few picks). You have to decide where you prefer to play. I'd play only the a) type. Abracadabra Casino is the a) type casino. The average payout here is nearly 95%. This payout ratio is excellent since both land-based and online casinos generally pay back about 70% - 75% on average.

The best bet is on pick 13 offering a return of 96.54%.

Set: You may pick 1 to 15 numbers, bet $1-$10 per pick, and play 1, 5, or 10 games at a times.

Summary: Overall, Abracadabra Casino offers returns ranging from 92.90% to the high of 96.54. This payout ratio is excellent. Betting limits are excellent as well.

Poker (Caribbean)

Caribbean Poker Review

Game: In Caribbean Poker you place an ante (bet before game starts) and after having received five cards decide whether to compete against the dealer or not. You simply compare cards. The better hand wins.

Odds: The basic house edge for this game is 5.21% which doesn't make it look competitive compared to other casino games. American Roulette has a slightly worse house edge though.
Anyway, Abracadabra Casino makes this game interesting because it offers you a side bet of $1 for which you will receive an additional payoff for certain paying hands (flush or better). This extra win is based on the value of your own five-card hand, not on the hand of the dealer. So even if the dealer beats you or does not qualify you still get the bonus payoff. Their jackpot usually is about $60,000 which results in a house edge of 57%. Only when the jackpot is very high ($250,000) the house edge decreases enough to really make this side bet worth a try. When you review the payoff chart keep in mind that some online casinos offer you a 999:1 payout for a Royal Flush.

The strategy for Caribbean Poker is quite simple: you should raise on any pair or better and fold on anything less than ace/king.

Summary: That's a standard Caribbean Poker game offering the option of a side bet. There certainly are online casinos with much better Caribbean Poker games.

Caribbean Poker Payoffs
*Hand*	*Payoff*	*Bonus Payoff*
Royal Flush	100:1	100% of Jackpot
Straight Flush	50:1	10% of Jackpot
4 of a Kind	20:1	$100
Full House	7:1	$75
Flush	5:1	$50
Straight	4:1	4:1
3 of a Kind	3:1	3:1
2 pair	2:1	2:1
1 pair	1:1	1:1

Red Dog

Red Dog Review

Game: Red Dog is a simple game where two cards are chosen by the house. You may raise your bet if you think a third card will fit in between the first two. You are given certain payouts for certain spreads. The spread is the number of ranks between two given cards. For example, the spread between a five and an eight is two. The maximum spread is eleven.

Odds: In Red Dog the greater the number of decks the better the odds for the player. This is because of the greater probability of drawing a fitting card or a three of a kind, which pays 11:1. Since Abracadabra Casino uses one deck only - as most online casinos do, the house edge is 3.16% which makes Abracadabra Casino one of the worst places to play Red Dog at. There are online casinos offering red dog played with eight decks, cutting the house edge down to 2.75%.

Summary: This is one of the worst red dog games to find. The stakes (betting limits) are very bad as well.

Roulette (European)

European Roulette Review

Game: A wheel with pockets numbered 0 to 36 is spun in one direction. A ball is spun around the wheel and as the ball slows, it drops into one of the pockets of the wheel. You bet on which pocket the ball will drop into.

Odds: This is an 'European' single-zero roulette (with only one zero on the wheel) which sets the basic house edge to 2.7%. That's actually far better than the American roulette version which usually has an incredible basic house edge of 5.26%. But Abracadabra Casino doesn't use any additional rule to put you in an even more favorable position, so the house edge stays at 2.7%.

If you prefer to bet on one of the inside bets once in a while, you really should play European roulette, since the house edge is 2.7% on all bets. But if you are an outside bettor, who likes to bet on high, low, red, black, odd or even only, you should play an American roulette version offering the "la partage rule" since it offers slightly better odds for those bets (2.63%).

Consider that inside bets offer far better payouts than outside bets, so bet the middle 12 once in a while. Generally the best idea is to bet on the streak that is running at the moment (e.g. if the last number was red, bet red).

Summary: That's a standard European roulette version. The betting limits are very bad. There are better roulette tables in our Best Roulette List. If you would like to bet big, go to Global-Player Casino. You can bet up to $6,000 on a spin there.

Scratch Cards

Scratch Cards Review

Game: Scratch Cards are like lottery tickets where you scratch off a protective covering to reveal matching numbers or something similar.

Odds: This scratch-off game has a winning multiplier that goes up to 50x, so for your $2 bet you'll walk away with $100 if you win. There is absolutely no way to estimate what the overall payback may be.

Set: Limits are $2 to $200.

Summary: Abracadabra Casino is one of the few casinos that offer scratch cards at all. If you enjoy playing them, do it.

Slots

Slots Review

Game: Slots are machines with three to five wheels with symbols on them, spinning downwards when you pull a lever at their side or similar and coming to a stop after a few rounds of spinning. If the symbols align you win.

Odds: It is difficult to calculate the payout probabilities of slot machines without knowing how many times a certain symbol appears on each real. You could sit in front of the slot machine, pull the lever 1,000,000 times and write the results down or rely on the information that Abracadabra Casino gives you. They say their payouts were 98%. If this is true than it's a good place to play slots at if you are interested in payouts only.

Set: Another reason for playing at Abracadabra Casino is that they offer quite a large choice of slot machines. The betting denominations are $0.25, $1, $2, and $5.

Summary: Great choice of slot machines. Many of them are excellent and offer big enough jackpots. 2 of them are really great ("Goblin's Cave" and "Alchemist's Lab"). You'll find the best slot machines in our Best Slots List.

Video Poker

Video Poker Review

Game: In Video Poker you receive five cards and decide which ones to change (only once) in order to make a good poker hand. As better your hand as better the payout gets.

Odds: Abracadabra Casino features a set of seven different Video Poker machines, almost all of them offering a very good payout.
Their 'AJacks or Better' video poker machine for example offers 9/6 and a return of 99.54%.

Set: The coin denominations you wish to play are 25c, 50c, $1, $2, or $5.

Summary: Overall, video poker and slots seem to be Abracadabra Casino's best games.

Video Poker Payoffs
*Name*	*Type*	*Max.Payout*	*Return*
Jacks or Better	9/6	800	99.54%
Aces & Faces	8/5	800	99.25%
Tens or Better	6/5	800	99.14%
Deuces & Joker Wild	3/2	2000	99.07%
Joker Poker	7/5	1000	98.59%
Double Joker	5/4	800	98.10%
Deuces Wild	3/2	800	96.76%