About Live Casinos

Live Casino – What you need to know

Online casinos normally purchase a Live Casino solution from one of the many online software gaming companies.  Microgaming, Playtech, Evolution Gaming, Amaya Gaming and Net Entertainment all have very popular solutions.

The software gaming companies all have their own live casino / dealer studios, from which they transmit table games via live real time video feeds into the online casinos. The dealing studios are located in Malta, Gibraltar, Latvia, Canada, the Philippines and Costa Rica.

You find that most of the suppliers provide Live Blackjack, Live Roulette and Baccarat and a reduced number also provide Casino Hold Em (Poker), Sic Bo & 3 Card Poker.

Solutions

Typically you find that the software providers have a menus of services they can provide.

  • A basic entry level solution has shared tables, shared dealers and no casino branding.
  • A branded solution with dedicated tables and dedicated native language speaking dealers.
  • A full turnkey solution where a dealing room , tables, dealers, communications infrastructure that is fully branded is provided.
  • Hardware & software solutions that enables a live casino to be deployed into an existing land based casino, so a video feed can be provided direct from a companies own casino.

The most common options are the first two or a mixture where one or two dedicated tables are provided at peak usage times.

The Games

Blackjack, Roulette & Baccarat are the most popular games offered.  Casino Hold-Em, Sic Bo and 3 card Poker can also be found but only at a limited number of live casinos.

The games are generally the same across all solutions, however some of the providers have slightly different general play rules and the range of added features can be different.  It’s worth checking out my reviews to see what features are available or have been taken by the online casino. I prefer to play at casinos that allow you to double on any cards and also double after a split and not all offer this!

How it works

For card games, the deal is always made from a dealing shoe.  Some of the dealing rooms have the dealer shuffle the cards at the table, others take the cards away to be shuffled at a table near by.  A few of the studios have started to use Shufflemaster machines, where the cards are returned to the shoe at the end of each hand and shuffled.

The cards are scanned as they leave the dealing shoe, so that they register in the software.  The games play out as normal and the results are displayed via the video feed and also in the software interface.

The software interface is different from each of the software providers, but they do have functionality that is common to all.  The ability to change the viewing mode, where you can either have the live video feed or a mixture of the video feed and computer generated images. Other settings such as sounds, auto confirming of bets, chat and display of bet amounts are quite common, but not available at all live casinos.

Poor streaming speed is one of the issues that has plagued the live casinos over the years, but with advances in technology, broadband and cable this has become less of an issue.  However it still exists and some solutions are better at handling it than others. I cover all of this in my live blackjack casino reviews.

What you will notice

You will find that although two online casinos use the same software provider there will be differences in what games they present and what stakes are on offer.  Some casinos limit the number of tables they take from the solution provider and also configure their software to take different betting ranges.  This is something that is controlled by the online casino, not the software provider.

Summary

That’s basically it.!  The rest of Liveblackjacksites is devoted to reviews of the Live Casinos that offer blackjack.   Hopefully this has given you an understanding of how live casino works.