What is a Live Casino?
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A live casino is a fun way to play games without having to leave the comfort of your own home. Unlike traditional online casinos which are purely digital, a live dealer casino has the added bonus of a real person behind the table. The experience of playing at a live casino is almost identical to that of being in a bricks and mortar casino. During peak times there can sometimes be a shortage of seats at a live casino table, but the operators are generally exceptional when it comes to anticipating demand.
Essentially, a live casino game is streamed from a studio set up by the casino which includes at least one camera operator and a host. The dealer is then placed at the game board which is filmed in real-time using powerful cameras that provide multiple views. These are then digitized and sent back to the player’s computer screen. The software which runs the casino then uses the digitized data to interact with the physical elements of the game.
The software used by a live casino is highly specialised and it uses a number of different technologies to communicate with the players and dealers. These include optical character recognition which is gaining in popularity in fields like health and insurance for its ability to process information quickly, a roulette wheel which has sensors that capture the positions of the numbers as they spin around and an ingenious piece of hardware called a GCU (game control unit) which is responsible for encoding the video broadcast.
In addition to the above, a good live casino will also use audio and chat technologies. These allow players to talk to the dealer and other players via a text box which appears on the player’s monitor. This allows for two way communication and makes the experience feel more realistic.
The majority of live casinos will offer blackjack, baccarat and roulette tables. There will usually be a huge number of these tables and a great variety of rule variations. However, due to the exorbitant cost of setting up a live casino and employing the necessary personnel, only a small selection of games will be offered by any one site.
For example, a baccarat table will normally operate to the standard rules of drawing up to 16 and standing on 17, but there will be many side bets which can be placed such as suited cards and pairs. These will pay out at higher rates than the basic game of blackjack which pays only if you have an ace with any ten or picture card. This is a feature which makes live casino baccarat much more exciting than the standard version. However, both will likely feature a high number of tables as the games are very popular. This will be because people love the interaction of the game and the fact that they can make the same decisions as they would in a land based casino.