The live online casino option is not for every player

The internet has undoubtedly had an influence on almost every aspect of our lives, including how we work, shop and of course how we spend our leisure time. Many of us who enjoy gambling on our favourite sports or playing casino games are almost certainly now doing those activities on the internet at one of the online sports gambling sites or an online casino. Unlike online retailing however the growth of online gambling does not appear to have had a significant effect on the attendance figures for horse racing or greyhound racing meetings, nor the bingo clubs or real casinos for that matter. Although footfall at our high street betting shops has reportedly fallen, in the main we have clearly taken to online gambling in a big way, particularly when it comes to playing casino games at an online casino. There were of course some criticisms during the early stages in the development of online casinos, but innovations such as the live online casino option have resolved most of the more serious problems and more and more people are now playing casino games online. For those of our readers who may not know how or why the live online casino option came to be developed we need to go back to the beginnings of online gambling and introduction of online casinos in particular. The first online gambling sites were all set up and operated by the big bookmakers and focused primarily on sports gambling, but it wasn’t long before they began to add a few casino games to those sites and thereby create what we now refer to as online casinos. Most of the casino games were relatively easy to convert into a satisfactory online format, but there was one important exception and that was the game of roulette. Roulette was of course one of the most popular of the traditional casino games played in Ireland and the UK, so it was also one of the first of the traditional casino games to be introduced online. The problem was that the casino software designers were unable to effectively reproduce the movement of the ball on a roulette wheel, which then led to a number of conspiracy theories that the games were weighted too heavily in favour of the site operator. We have to remember that the idea of playing gambling games online for real money was very much in its infancy at the time so it was important that the potential players trusted that the games were all fair and above board.

The other element of online casino games which was not fully understood at the time was the use of a Random Number Generator to determine the winning combinations. The only RNG that most of us had heard of at the time was ‘Ernie’ the machine that produced the winning British Premium Bond Numbers, but no one really understood how it worked. Every online casino game now uses an RNG to decide the winning combinations, and for most games that is not a problem because the graphics can easily illustrate a winning combination for slots games and anything to do with dice, but the game of roulette was another matter entirely. It proved almost impossible to replicate the movement of the ball on a roulette wheel as it moved towards the winning number determined by an RNG, and many regular roulette players were not convinced that the online game was fair. The eventual solution to this problem was what we now call the live online casino option. The online casino site operators set up a remote studio and employed real dealers to manage the game using a real roulette wheel. The games were then streamed live to our computer screens so removing the need to use simulated graphics. Having set up the studios and employed the dealers many online casino operators have now expanded the live casino option to include other games such as baccarat and blackjack, and many have also added the software necessary to enable the players to communicate with the dealers while they play. The live online casino mode is an important development in the growth of online casino gambling, but it does have its drawbacks both for the site operators and the players.

From the point of view of the site operators, running a studio and employing dealers is far more expensive than simply operating an internet site, which has led to some operators increasing the minimum table stakes for casino games played in the live casino mode. One of the major advantages that the online casino site operators have over all their land based rivals is that they can allow their customers to play casino games for very small stakes, so raising the table stakes is not universally popular. There is also another element of playing casino games such as roulette streamed from a remote studio which does not suit some players and that is the timing of the game. Those of us who have played roulette on a busy table in a real casino will have experienced the sometimes frantic atmosphere as everybody tries to place their bets on the table, and the way the dealers try to keep the game moving as quickly as possible, but many online casino customers have not had that experience and don’t actually enjoy it either. The problem is that the dealers managing the games in a remote studio cannot actually see the players, so the games have to be played to a strict timetable which of course limits the time the players have to place their bets. Despite these obvious drawbacks the live online casino option still has a strong following and is a welcome development in the growth of online casino gambling. Over the last couple of years we have even seen the concept taken one step further by streaming casino games such as roulette, baccarat and blackjack live from a real casino with real dealers. That is a totally different experience for many online casino customers.