The live online casino option still has a significant fan base

When the online sports gambling site operators decided to introduce a few casino games onto their sites they began a whole new sphere of online gambling which we now refer to as the online casino sector. Most of the first online casino operators were of course the major bookmakers and the casino games were simply part of their big online sports gambling sites, but it soon became clear that there was potentially a very large new fan base for the idea of playing casino games online. In response to that enthusiasm for playing games online the online casino operators and their casino software partners began to rapidly increase the range and the number of casino games they featured on their sites so much so that the online casino section of their sites started to outgrow the sports gambling part of the site. It was not all plain sailing however, because the idea of gambling on casino games on the internet was still a relatively new concept and the online casinos had not yet become a totally trusted environment in terms of the fairness of the games. That lack of trust was of course the driving force behind the development of what we now call the live online casino option, although that option has since become popular in its own right among many online casino games players. Clearly most of the casino games we can play at any online casino are slots games in various forms, but it was one of the more popular traditional casino games which was responsible for most of the early doubts concerning the fairness of the casino games being featured by the online casinos. It was the traditional casino game of roulette which caused the online casino site operators and the casino software designers the most problems in the early stages in the development of the online casino sector because of the difficulties they faced in satisfactorily illustrating the movement of the ball on a virtual roulette wheel. To explain why this was a problem we need to consider how almost all the casino games we can play online are managed and how the winning numbers, cards or other factors are determined. The answer to that is that almost all the games rely on a Random Number Generator or RNG to determine the winning combinations, and it is the RNG which is the device we all have to trust when we play casino games online.

At the time the only RNG that most people had ever come across was the one nick-named Ernie which was used to determine the winning numbers for the UK Premium Bonds, so it was not surprising that people had their doubts. Using an RNG for slots games, dice games and almost all the card games featured on the online casino sites presented no particular problems for the software designers and the computer graphics were perfectly acceptable and realistic, but the game of roulette was another matter entirely. Illustrating the movement of the ball on a roulette wheel as it moved towards the winning number selected by the RNG proved to be very difficult indeed and was certainly not very realistic. It was this which began to raise doubts in some people’s minds and those doubts also threatened to derail the whole concept of playing casino games online. The online casino site operators needed to respond to those problems as quickly as possible, and that resulted in the introduction of the live online casino option which is now a common feature on almost every online casino site. The live online casino option enables players to play roulette as it is being streamed live from a remote studio with real dealers and more importantly a real roulette wheel. Clearly streaming the games to our screens from a studio required a completely different form of casino software as well as the need to employ the dealers and of course maintain the studio building. This obviously also led to increased costs for the site operators, but almost all of them decided that it was going to be worth the additional expense in the long run.

As we commented earlier in this article the live online casino option has become a popular way to play roulette and indeed a few other online casino games which have since been added to the range of games available to play live, but for various reasons it does not suit everybody. Some online casinos for instance have raised the minimum table stakes for casino games played in the live online casino mode because of the increased cost associated with operating the remote studio. Many online casino games players were attracted to the idea of playing casino games online primarily because of the very small stakes that the online casinos were willing to accept, so any increase in the minimum table stakes is not welcome. There is also the question of timing. Those of us who began to play casino games in a real casino will have experienced the panic which can set in as you try to place your bets on a busy roulette table in a real casino, but many new players are used to being able to take as much time as they like to place their bets when playing roulette online. The problem is that the dealers operating the game in a remote studio have no contact with the players and therefore have to manage the game to a strict timetable. That clearly means that there is a fixed time limit on the time the players have to place their bets when they are playing roulette in the live online casino mode, which again does not suit everybody. Nevertheless the introduction of the live online casino option did help to build our trust in the fairness of the casino games we were playing online, and although it is not everybody’s favourite way to play casino games online it does have a significant fan base who can now also play baccarat and blackjack in the live mode at most sites.