What IGT makes
Almost everything, over a very long time. IGT is first of all a maker of physical casino machines and lottery systems, and its land-based catalogue is one of the most recognised on any casino floor: the La Rueda de la Fortuna slots that became the biggest branded machine in the business, Cleopatra, and the Megabucks wide-area progressive that turned a row of slot machines into a shared multi-million jackpot. Alongside the machines it supplies electronic table games and runs national lotteries. Its digital arm, PlayDigital, brings much of that into the online casino: video slots, and a range of software table games including blackjack, roulette and poker variants played against the computer.
IGT and blackjack
This is where IGT differs from the slots studios. The honest answer is yes, IGT makes blackjack, in two forms, but not the one some readers are hoping for. On the casino floor it has a long electronic blackjack heritage, with automated and dealer-assisted blackjack terminals in single and triple-hand formats sold to real casinos, a line that traces all the way back to the video blackjack machines its founder was building in the 1970s. Online, through PlayDigital, it offers software blackjack such as Power Blackjack and a standard multi-deck Blackjack, dealt by the computer rather than a person. What IGT does not run is its own live-dealer studio, so there is no streamed IGT blackjack table with a human dealer the way there is with the live specialists. If you do play IGT blackjack at an online casino, it is software you are up against, not a person, so let the game’s own rules screen decide it for you: pick the version that pays a blackjack at the full 3 to 2, and steer past the tempting side bets, which is where the house edge quietly widens. For a real dealer on camera, the studios to seek out are Evolución y Playtech.