The Heist: skill-based casino game at Kroon Casino

The Heist: skill-based casino game at Kroon Casino

CasinoBazen was never a fan of Oranje Casino and Kroon Casino.  Especially the years of overdue maintenance and resting on their laurels caused several younger online casinos to threaten the big two of the throne when it comes to the most popular online casino in the Netherlands. Also owner Betsson finally realized that it was five minutes past twelve for Kroon Casino and Oranje Casino.

Betsson paid over 140 million euros for Kroon Casino and Oranje Casino. That money must be earned back. Higher bonuses' and 'giving away free spins' have undoubtedly flown across Betsson's conference tables. However, a different strategy was chosen. The strategy of adding unique games. A while back, Betsson already entered into an agreement with StakeLogic. This allows you to play legendary slots like Random Runner and The Amsterdam Masterplan at these two 'Dutch' online casinos, but also a unique slot like Wild Wild West. That strategy continues. You can now play two so-called skill-based casino games at Kroon Casino.

The Heist: a skill-based casino game

Skill-based is in this case a bit of an overstatement because in The Heist it mainly comes down to luck. But it is a start. That's how you should see this casino game by Gamevy. Gamevy won the Pitch ICE 2015 at the big London casino fair ICE 2015. MicroGaming was quick to add Gamevy's developers to its Quickfire platform. That has already provided two casino games and one of them is The Heist. Click here to play.

The object of The Heist is to crack the safe. You do this by walking on a path with 10 obstacles toward the vault. Each obstacle consists of three squares: left, right and center. It's up to you which box you choose. One square is a passage to the next obstacle, one life is deducted and one square is a question. You have a total of five lives; if you run out of lives, you're out of luck. By answering questions correctly you can continue without losing any lives. Be careful with your lives, because each time you lose a life, the maximum prize you can win in the end also decreases.

These questions are multiple-choice where you have a choice of two answers. So if you were to guess blindly, you always have a 50% chance of guessing correctly. The advantage, however, is that you can call in unlimited helplines. That is, you can of course just consult Google unseen. A tip from us: already open Google on another screen. You have only 20 seconds per question and that's not very much if you need to consult Google. Some questions are simple, like what is the capital of Bosnia, but answering a question like "how many European capitals start with an r" in 20 seconds means a combination of logical reasoning and guessing.

After you reach the vault with at least one life left in your pocket, the vault is opened for you. For many players, this would be the ultimate moment to jump in the air, post cries of joy on Social Media, and/or open a bottle of champagne. Unfortunately. Don't rejoice too soon. The game in The Heist actually begins when you hit the jackpot. At this point you have at most a few euros to grab, namely once your bet.

This is because you still have to continue playing for the jackpot in the game 'Jackpot or Jail'. At each of the 10 stops, there is a money bag. At each money bag, you have the choice of collecting a cash prize or putting your prize at stake. In the first case, you say goodbye to your jackpot dreams but have won something. In the second case, you put your prize at risk, but you may be one step closer to the jackpot. So you still have quite a way to go to the jackpot. Also, now it comes down to pure luck, because the random number generator determines whether you win or lose your bet. Every time you win, you get the same choice: bet your winnings or take your winnings.

Can you beat the casino simply with this skill-based game?

Unfortunately. If you are a walking Wikipedia, you do stand a better chance, but still, you depend mostly on the luck factor. If you manage to answer all the questions correctly, you save some lives, but still, success depends on the luck factor. So: before you start memorizing Wikipedia. You're not going to play Kroon Casino bankrupt with your factual knowledge.

In fact, if you answer all the questions correctly, the payout percentage is 90%. That's low. If the payout percentage is all you care about, you're better off choosing a fun online slot. A slot machine like Blood Suckers, for example, scores 98% with a payout percentage that is 8 percentage points higher. The questions are generally fairly easy, so someone with some basic knowledge will soon be at 90%.

That's just as well because if you start answering questions wrong the payout percentage plummets faster than the British pound after the Brexit is announced. If you answer a quarter of the questions wrong, you still have a 56% payout percentage left. If you answer only half correctly, you still have a 29% payout percentage left.

The future of skill-based casino games

You read it already. Developers of skill-based casino games will have to pull out more than building some quiz questions into a gambling game. Skill-based casino games are the future, but it has to be better than The Heist. The only thing you can do with your skills in The Heist is prevent the payout percentage from plummeting to an outrageous low of 29%.

Fortunately, The Heist is only a first step to much better skill-based casino games. They have to be, too. After all, the casino game is aging about as fast as the room at a bingo night at the parish center. Young people prefer to play games on the game console where it comes down to skills rather than chance. Or on social media games of chance like Candy Crush where there is an element of competition. You compete against your (Facebook) friends.

For casinos and online casinos, this is still a challenge. The characteristic of casino games has always been that it comes down to chance and coincidence. The challenge now lies in creating casino games that contain a skill component that young players find attractive, and an Overview of the Popular Indian Casino Bollywood that does not run the risk of being played bankrupt by a few very skilled players.