When online casinos began to appear around two decades ago they were pretty primitive and certainly very limited in what could be offered. However as the industry has grown to become what it is today operators have spared no expense in trying to make playing casino games online as close to playing in a bricks and mortar venue as possible. One of the ways in which this has been achieved is through the development of live casino where players can interact with a real dealer and croupier from the comfort of their own home.
A typical live casino will offer a suite of table games such as blackjack, roulette, and baccarat as well as poker, wheel of fortune, and some custom games which are often the flagship titles in the portfolio of a particular provider. The experience is also augmented by the fact that the games are streamed to players in HD quality which adds a further dimension to the gaming process.
Getting started with a live casino is as simple as finding a reputable website and then making an account. Generally speaking you will be required to enter your name, email address and phone number in order to be verified before you can start playing. This is in addition to choosing a password and username which will allow you to access the site. Once you have done this you will be prompted to deposit some money in order to play your favourite games.
In order to enjoy the benefits of a live casino players will be presented with a video feed of a real dealer with the appropriate equipment such as a shoe of cards for blackjack or a genuine roulette wheel. The game play is then processed by the software and the outcome is announced in real time on screen. During the course of a game players can place bets which will be processed until a “no more bets” announcement is made and the betting buttons are then disabled.
The dealers in a live casino are trained in the rules of the specific games they are working with and have to go through a lot of training to ensure that their personality and appearance are right on target in order to engage with players. They will normally be miked up and speak to the player in a way that allows for two-way interaction although players will need to type their comments into a chat window which will be displayed on the studio monitor within the dealer’s line of sight.
Obviously the technology used in the studio is also essential and this comes in a number of different forms. In order to capture the data that is gathered for each game there will normally be some form of OCR (optical character recognition) software in use which is similar to the systems used in car parks to recognise license plates. A Game Control Unit is also an indispensable piece of hardware that records all the information that is needed for the game to take place.