The live online casino option is a popular development but not for everyone

There is no doubt that online casinos have become extremely popular since their introduction approaching twenty years ago, so much so that our recommended list of online casinos here at onlinecasino.ie has more than doubled in number since those early days. The concept of playing casino games at an online casino came about almost accidentally, when the leading bookmakers decided to add a few gambling games to their already established online sports gambling sites. The original idea was to encourage their sports gambling customers to spend more time online and therefore possibly spend more money, but it soon became apparent that it was not just sports gambling fans who were attracted to the idea of playing casino games online. The site operators quickly noticed that many of the new customers registering on their online sports gambling sites were not interested in gambling on sporting events, they were only interested in the casino games featured on those sites. This recognition that there was a totally different market for playing casino games online encouraged the site operators to add more and more games and the online casino was born. Since then of course we have seen the online casinos develop a number of different ways to enhance our enjoyment when playing casino games online, not least of which is what we now refer to as the live online casino option. This development was one of the first new ideas to be introduced into the rapidly growing online casino sector, and actually came about in response to concerns being raised by some of the new online casino games enthusiasts about whether the games were absolutely fair and above board. The biggest source of those concerns was the traditional casino games of roulette, which was of course one of the most popular games featured in our real casinos and was therefore also one of the first casino games to be introduced online. Almost every one of the casino games featured at any online casino relies on a Random Number Generator to determine the winning number or sequence of numbers. For most of the online casino games that does not present a problem, but our enjoyment of those online games is also dependent on the graphics used to illustrate the games on our screens and that is where the game of roulette presented a serious difficulty. Try as they might the casino software designers were unable to satisfactorily illustrate the movement of the ball on a computer generated roulette wheel as it tried to move to the preselected winning number. Because online casinos were a new concept in the world of gambling, there was always likely to be a potential lack of trust among the gambling public, so the apparently strange movement of the ball on the roulette wheel was enough to fuel enough conspiracy theories to force the site operators to come up with a solution. That solution was the live online casino option, which was originally designed solely for the game of roulette but is now available at most online casinos for a variety of different games.

On the face of it the obvious solution to the problems with the graphics associated with the casino game of roulette was always going to be based around using a real roulette wheel, but that was not as easy as it might have seemed. The idea of installing a real roulette wheel in a remote studio and then streaming the games live from that studio to our screens required a whole new form of casino software to make it work. The online casino software company generally credited with the first successful live online casino feature is Playtech, but this form of live online casino feature is now available at almost every online casino regardless of which software company they are using. Although streaming roulette and a few other casino games from a studio has become common practice for most online casino operators, it is not universally popular among all online casino games enthusiasts. The problem is that setting up and maintaining a studio is expensive, and of course the online casino operators also have to employ the real dealers who are controlling the games which again adds significant costs to the business. One of the biggest attractions of playing casino games online rather than at a real casino or even a bingo club is that the games can be played for very low stakes because the overheads associated with operating an internet site are far less than those incurred with running a business on our high streets. Many of the online casino operators have therefore increased the minimum table stakes associated with playing casino games in the live online casino mode, making it almost as expensive as playing in a real casino. There is another potential downside to playing roulette in particular in the live online casino mode, and that is the necessary time limits players have to place their bets. Because the dealers cannot actually see the players, the games have to be managed to a set time scale which clearly also reduces the time players have to place their bets. Again for many new roulette players the ability to take their time deciding where to place their bets is one of the most welcome options associated with playing casino games online and they therefore do not enjoy the live online casino option. Although the remote studio system still provides the live online casino feature on almost every online casino, we have recently seen a new approach to this option provided among others by the All Irish casino. In this case the casino games are actually streamed live from a real casino based in Malta. At the All Irish casino players can therefore enjoy playing roulette, blackjack and baccarat in the company of other casino games fans at a real casino. This is clearly a very different way of playing casino games online but it is also probably the closest you can get to the atmosphere of a real casino when playing remotely.