Lightning Blackjack

Intro

Screenshots

Each round of Lightning Blackjack plays out like a standard blackjack game, but with one difference. Pay the Lightning fee and win the round and you’ll be rewarded with a multiplier on your next hand — win that hand and the multiplier boosts your winnings. This means you’ll need to win two hands in a row to see the benefit. As you need to pay the Lightning fee on both hands to receive the multiplier, it can be a little frustrating when you lose the second hand. Of course, these multipliers can unlock some significantly larger wins so many players will enjoy the increased risk vs reward.

It’s important to compare rules between blackjack games when assessing the house edge. Lightning Blackjack’s rules are as follows:

• Eight decks.
• Shoe change at 50% penetration
• Double Down allowed on initial two cards
• Split any pairs
• Split Aces get one card
• Dealer peeks for Blackjack
• Dealer stands on all 17s
• Blackjack pays 3:2, insurance pays 2:1

When played with perfect strategy, the RTP of Lightning Blackjack is 99.56%. RTP means Return to Player and it’s an estimate of how much is paid out to players in comparison to what’s paid in. Theoretically, for every £100 bet on Lightning Blackjack, £99.56 is paid back out in winnings — but only when you play with perfect strategy.

If you decide to pay the Lightning fee to access the random multipliers, it’s worth considering this will significantly up the volatility of the game, which means you’re more likely to see infrequent but larger wins. As such, this game is better suited to those with a larger bankroll.

Aside from the aforementioned Lightning multipliers, there aren’t any bonus features or rounds to be found in Lightning Blackjack. That’s pretty common for a blackjack game, although we would have liked to see a few side bets like 21+3 or Perfect Pairs, just to offer players a bit more variation. Of course, the multipliers are the main event here so lack of side bets won’t be a deal breaker for most.

As with all Evolution Gaming titles, Lightning Blackjack runs flawlessly on mobile. The game is built with HTML5 so it scales perfectly to any size of device. As the controls are fairly simple, everything fits on the screen and is easily accessed. We’d debate live dealer games are best enjoyed on a larger screen, but with some of today’s plus-sized devices, you can enjoy an immersive experience straight from your palm.

Lightning Blackjack’s interface combines the live dealer stream with a virtual overlay, displaying players’ cards and the RNG multipliers. Everything looks slick and well-designed, although it’s not the most inspiring. We know Evolution is capable of more engaging studio sets — Quantum Blackjack is an example of one of their more visually unique games. A bolt of lightning shoots out when a multiplier is activated, but even this feels a little tame. However, many players will be looking for realism in their live blackjack games and Lightning Blackjack certainly does the job in that regard.