The arrival of a new online casino isn't much of an event these days. After all there are literally hundreds of them. On the other hand, it's also true that a good one is hard to find and Vegas Magic Casino, a new Boss Media licensee, is well worth discovering.

Vegas Magic Casino is a nice, straightforward place to begin your play. I particularly appreciated the crystal clear instructions for downloading. Sure, it's no big deal, but if you're like me you just want to get the preamble over with already. Here it's select, download, click, install. Bing, bang, boom, we're done, let's play!

Two things you'll notice right away. The first is that this is new software. Everything looks great! Good graphics, attractive multi-media voices and respectable options for enabling/disabling things like music and so on. I especially liked the animations in the card games.

Another thing you'll see is that it's multi-player all the way. Regardless of the game you choose, you need to select Public or Private. You'd think Private would mean single player, but if I read this correctly people can ask to join your Private game. This would of course make it a multi-player Private game, so we're right back where we started: multi-player.

Want a little tip on getting the most out of these games? Assuming you're running in Windows 95 or better, select "Appearance" when you fire up the package and click the DirectX radio button. You'll then be running the games in full-screen mode and believe me, it's better!

So, to the games. I downloaded the full package and got Blackjack, Roulette, Caribbean Poker, Video Poker, Slots, Progressive Slots and Keno.

Standard across the board is the Public/Private option. Also pretty standard is the choice of betting limits: $1-100, $5-500, and $25-1000 with the obvious exceptions of Video Poker and Slots.

Blackjack is Single-Deck, dealer peeks and will stand on soft-17, player can double after splitting but can't re-split. Video Poker (Jacks or Better) is a 7/5 game, with a 5000 bonus for Max Coins but notice that 4-of-a-Kind pays only 20. Roulette is American style with its double zeros.

In the upper corner of the Slots Room you'll see an arrow marked "VIP" but if you click on it you'll get a message saying "Members Only" or some such.

I asked the Manager at Vegas Magic Casino how one becomes a member? "Registered Vegas Magic Casino members must have deposited a total of at least $50,000 in their casino accounts and actively participated in the casino games during the most recent month," they said, and listed off a bunch of perks including loss bonuses, no withdrawal limits and the like. VIP indeed.

Just announced at Vegas Magic Casino is a "100% deposit bonus on your first $25". I deposited and received the bonus automatically. Support options at Vegas Magic Casino are many and my emails were promptly returned and informative. Financials are standard with the slight inconvenience that you have to wait for a PIN number to arrive via regular post before you can withdraw, but we've seen this before so it's not unique to Vegas Magic Casino.

Just in case you think I've gone all gushy over this casino, let me make a quibble or two. For one, it's a house rule that if there is more than one bonus coming to a player, they award the highest and cancel the rest. That's a rule that should be made very explicit. It isn't and I lost a bonus I'd earned in their Blackjack Contest because of it.

By the way, their Blackjack Contest is worth checking out. Play free Blackjack for real bonus dollars: I like it!

Another little peeve of mine is the pop-up you get when you leave the site. I was getting ads for other casinos. Doesn't make much sense to me, and besides, I hate those exit pop-ups.

Quibbles aside, Vegas Magic Casino gets the thumbs up. And congratulations Boss Media on building some of the best software I have ever played. Trust me, I don't get to say that everyday.

My rating for Vegas Magic Casino: A full house.