Live Dealer Online Casinos

One of the latest trends in online casinos is to offer live dealer gambling. This is usually done in the games that are popular in land-based casinos like roulette, blackjack and baccarat. Live dealer online casinos combine the best in online gambling and land-based gambling and therefore are becoming very popular.

Traditionally, in land-based casinos the random events in gambling games are generated through mechanical devices. The roulette numbers are called when a ball falls in numbered slot on the roulette wheel. The playing cards are shuffled in a mechanical shuffler and then dealt through a shoebox. The dice in craps are rolled across the table and made to bounce off against a wall. All these have the affect of ensuring that the outcome is unpredictable and unbiased. When online casinos were started in the early 1990s these functions were performed by a complex software known as the random number generator (RNG). Unfortunately, because of its very nature, players could not see what was happening inside the RNG and could directly see the outcome. This created a suspicion in their minds that the computer program was not necessarily above board. It was because of this suspicion that online casinos took a long time in getting accepted. Then over ten decades considerable improvements were brought about in online casinos. One of the objectives behind these improvements was to recreate, to the extent possible, the land casino environment. Dealers’ voices and animations filled in some of the gap. However the online casino experience was still no where near the land casino experience.

What was predominantly missing from the experience was the existence of a live dealer, a flesh and blood figure who would actually spin the wheel or deal the cards or a roll the dice. A live dealer who would smile at and chat with the players was needed to complete the land casino experience. Hence online casinos went a step backwards to incorporate this experience. Live casino operations were videotaped and streamed into online casinos. Online casinos actually conduct live operations in selected games where the traffic is high and the casino can expect significant revenues. These operations are conducted around the clock. A video camera continuously records these operations and transmits them to the online casino websites. When players access live dealer games they can actually see these video images.

Live dealer casino games function as follows. When the player accesses, for example, live dealer roulette he will be taken to a roulette table displayed on the screen through the casino software. He will place a wager as he does in online casinos. However he cannot take his own time for doing this. Once it is time for the wheel to spin the software will not accept any bets. Also, the player cannot himself activate the spinning of the wheel. Once all the bets are placed the video stream takes over and displays a live dealer spinning a real roulette wheel and a rolling the ball in it. When the ball comes to rest in a numbered slot, the live dealer announces the number as is done in land-based casinos. The software takes in this number and performs the payouts as in the usual online casinos. The blackjack and baccarat transactions take place similarly. Some online casinos offer live dealer games in craps and sic bo as well.

Over the last two years the popularity of live dealer casino games has increased significantly. Many online casinos have gone one step further and have released the identities of the dealers, who are predominantly female, to the online players. The website of the casinos lists selective information about these dealers and also the time schedules when they will be operating. This enables players to have their own favorites and ensure that they gambling when their favorite live dealer is operating the game.

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