The live online casino concept has been developed further

Almost every internet site that is trading with the general public has significant advantages over their high street rivals, including of course the online casinos. In fact in most cases it is difficult to identify any disadvantages which is why the big online retailers are becoming so dominant and why so many of our town centre stores appear to be struggling. During the very early days in the development of online casinos however one major disadvantage was identified, and because that problem related to one of the most popular traditional casino games, the game of roulette, something had to be done to resolve it. The solution adopted by most of the online casino operators at the time was what we now refer to as the live online casino option. The history of the development of the live online casino option began almost immediately after the big bookmakers began to add a few casino games to their established online sports gambling sites. At the time there were already two well established groups of potential online casino customers for the site operators to target, the largest of these was the huge number of bingo fans who regularly attended their local bingo clubs and the other group were the existing members of our real casinos. In Ireland this second group had almost always been limited to playing roulette or blackjack because most of our real casinos did not have the floor space to offer their members the opportunity to play any of the other traditional casino games, which meant that roulette was one of their favourite games. Unfortunately it was also the only traditional casino game which was difficult to turn into an online casino game, because the software designers were unable to produce the graphics necessary to effectively illustrate the movement of the ball on a roulette wheel. Almost all the online casino games featured at our online casinos are dependent on a Random Number Generator to determine the winning number, the next card or the slot machine icon, and that is clearly also true when it comes to online roulette. The problem was that the graphics were unable to illustrate the movement of the ball to that winning number, which in turn began to raise doubts in some people’s minds as to just how fair and honest these new online casino games actually were. If those doubts had been allowed to persist the whole future of online casino gambling could have been affected even though it was only the game of roulette which was causing the problem. It rapidly became clear that the only way to resolve this problem was to actually use a real roulette wheel rather than attempt to create more sophisticated graphics, and that was how the idea of a live online casino option came about.

In those early years in the development of online casinos most site operators chose to set up remote studios and employ real dealers so that the games could be streamed live to our screens. That in itself required brand new casino software, but eventually the live online casino option with roulette being streamed to our screens from a remote studio became a reality. Clearly the need to set up and maintain a studio and to employ the dealers meant that the operating costs increased substantially, so most online casino operators also began to offer a few other games such as blackjack and baccarat in the live casino mode. The increased operating costs did however persuade some online casino operators to increase the minimum table stakes for the casino games when they were played in the live online casino mode, thereby negating one of the biggest advantages that online casinos have over their land based rivals namely the fact that most online casino games can be played for very small stakes. That is however not the only drawback associated with playing casino games such as roulette streamed from a remote studio, there is also the question of timing. One of the most attractive features of the game of roulette is the option to place multiple bets on each spin of the wheel, and although many of us are used to the frantic nature of this activity in a real casino and a busy table, many new online casino games players like to take their time deciding where to place their bets. Unfortunately the dealers in a remote studio cannot see the players and are therefore forced to manage the game to a strict time sequence which may be faster than some players would like. The online casino operators and the casino software suppliers have done their best to resolve the issues relating to the game of roulette in particular, but clearly streaming the games from a remote studio has brought its own problems and therefore does not suit every online casino customer.

Recently we have also seen a further development in the concept of a live online casino feature, with some casino games being streamed live from a real casino. The All Irish casino were the first to offer this interpretation of the live online casino experience, and they offer roulette, blackjack and baccarat all streamed live from a real casino in Malta. Clearly the fact that online casino games fans are playing these games at the same time as the real casino customers means that the atmosphere is totally different and is probably as close as it is possible to get to the experience of playing casino games in a real casino. We should point out of course that this version of the live casino option is only available during the opening hours of the casino in Malta, but for most people that does not necessarily present a problem. To summarise the development of this way of playing online casino games, we are now much more likely to trust the fairness of the casino games we are playing so perhaps the original objective of the live casino option is less relevant, it is nevertheless an enjoyable experience for many online casino games players.