The leading online gaming software provider Microgaming offers game statistics for the benefit of the players. These statistics are weaned from that playing session and provide a variety of information. Online casino players have different view points on the usefulness of the statistics. Some do not find them useful at all and never look at them. Other players use them for limited specific purposes. Whether a player uses them or not it makes sense to be aware of and understand what is offered.

The statistics can be accessed from the bottom toolbar. The statistics box can have a number of tabs, depending on the game category. The first tab is titled General and is present in every game category. In games like slots and roulette the unit is spin and in card games like blackjack and video poker the unit is hand. The General Tab is divided into two sections. The first section is Spin Results or Hand Results. The first item is the number of spins played and the second item is the session time in hours: minutes: seconds. These values are actual recorded values. From these values the spins per hour is calculated and displayed.

The spins per hour is one statistic that can be used in a practical manner when managing bankrolls. Players start by setting the session bankroll and session time. Then in order to know how much they can wager per spin they need to know how many spins they will be able to get in the allotted time. They can do a dummy run using free money and pick up this information from the Microgaming statistics. For new players the number of spins per hour will be low. As they gain proficiency in wagering this will keep increasing. Hence players will need to repeat the dummy run at periodic intervals. The second section of the General tab records the three highest wins in the session.

The Microgaming blackjack games statistics displays three other tabs, which are Dealer Hand, Starting Hand Comparison and Dealer’s Final Hand. The most useful of these is the Dealer Hand. The rows give the dealer open card value and the columns give the dealer final hand value, including blackjack and bust. The cells are percent values and they indicate the likelihood of a particular final value for the dealer hand given his face up card. In the early days of online casino gambling this information could be used to formulate blackjack strategy. However, today not only are strategy cards available but these cards are built into the software. Hence the utility of Microgaming blackjack statistics has considerably reduced.

The Microgaming video poker games statistics displays two other tabs. The first tab is Win Summary, which displays the percentage outcome of the different payout rankings. The Optimal Play tab is the more interesting and useful one. Video poker is a game that requires optimal play. Microgaming video poker can be played with a feature called Show Hints enabled. Every time the player deviates from the optimal play a hint pops up. The first section of the Optimal Play statistics is Hint Summary and it displays the percent of hands in which the player went wrong and had to use the hint. The second section Comparison to Optimal Play is meant for players who have not enabled the Show Hints feature and hence could have made mistakes and earned a lower return than the optimal one. This statistics section displays the optimal play return and the actual return. The Optimal Play statistics can help a player track if his video poker play is improving.