Skill-Based Solitaire Now Available for Online Cash Play

For years I’ve heard rumors that Las Vegas Casinos had offered a gambling version of the classic game Solitaire. Most of the internet rumors orbited around the ideology that a friend of a friend of my mailman saw it once, years ago. I was never able to substantiate the rumors and more importantly I was never able to locate a photograph of the game being played at a casino; whether or not it was ever available in a casino no longer matters. Casino Solitaire has been developed by the innovative casino gaming company Solitairus, and is now being offered as a skilled-based game for monetary play online, and will hopefully be available in land-based casinos in the not too distant future.  All of this has been made available after the company Solitairus was able to get their math models supported and approved by gaming regulators meaning the best possible return to players on the game of solitaire is being offered by casinosolitaire.com.  The approved idea went on to be protected by Industrial Patent US8,721,415,B2, and Design Patent US D713,469.

If the game had existed during the casino gaming industries infancy, it makes sense that the game had to be removed years later. When the corporations started taking over the gaming world, the government regulated gaming commissions that were established to protect players from being cheated were forced to evaluate all the casino games. Every game had to be proved out so that actual numbers could be compared to the expected results. For years the Solitaire math proved too difficult for even world class gaming mathematicians. The inherent insolvability was perhaps the biggest blunder in the field of finite mathematics.  So it had to go.

Even though the casinos made a good amount of money from the game they were not too sad to see it removed because it was a slow game (it provided a lot of time of play for the gambler) and more importantly it was limited in its revenue, because only one player could play per dealer. So in laymen’s terms, it took up a lot of real estate on the gaming floor.

Solitaire really took off when Microsoft added it to their operating system Windows 3.0, in May of 1990.  In an interview with the Washington Post, Libby Duzan,  Microsoft’s lead project manager for entertainment, claimed Solitaire was included in the operating system to soothe people intimidated by the operating system.  The game had an added bonus of teaching people how to use the mouse instead of just a keyboard.  In the late 1990s, Microsoft went on record saying Solitaire was the most used application of their operating system.

The Microsoft version of solitaire had a Las Vegas setting where the player was awarded 5 points for every card that was placed in the foundation stacks (ace piles). This was consistent with the rumors that a player was awarded five dollars for every card placed in the foundation stacks, with starting cost of $52, 1$ for every card. The Solitairus version has no dollars being awarded for the first few cards placed in the foundation stack, but has a large bonus being awarded as a jackpot when all cards make it to the foundation stacks.

The Solitairus Casino Solitaire game has progressives and a bonus tournament feature available on its online version.  Because Solitairus has been able to calculate the expected return to player based on a player playing perfect basic strategy for the game, Solitairus was able to not only identify a method to return a substantial amount of the money invested to play, they were also able to allocate money for a progressive and a mystery free tournament offer with its online version.

The casino-based version which is approved for multiple jurisdictions has not been released yet as Solitarus wants to use the online success they expect to help support casinos decisions to add this form of skill-based gaming to their floor. Currently the casino-based gaming product offers a feature called Breakout Poker as a bonus feature.  The Breakout Poker game is based on a random number generator and is paid out according to a four card poker hand. The game is available with and without the bonus game feature in the land-based casino version.

As it sits, Casino Solitaire can be played as a straight cash game, or as a tournament, where scores of players compete for the best score or for free using Casinosolitaire.com.  In the land-based cash game version, there is a rapid play feature where all card moves are moved automatically and according to the regulator approved strategy, this casino-based version also highlights cards which it recommends be moved given the same strategy.The philosophy behind these features for the casino-based version is it will help players learn the best moves available for Solitaire when playing the game and as an added benefit will speed up the play of the game in an effort to keep the excitement growing as a player plays the game.

The dissection of the strategy and all pertinent gaming values will no doubt be evaluated by Mike Shackelford at the Wizard of Odds site shortly.  The Solitaire game was the last player vs. dealer/machine card game evaluated.  It represents a quantum leap in skill-based gaming and with it, comes an increased time on device value proposition, that will enhance the players experience. Well done Solitairus, well done.