Online casinos have been around since the late 1990’s and were a game changer for the casino industry. While casinos across the world were thriving, there were many challenges in the market, from stereotypes on who visited the casino resitting all people from going, to legal issues that made in-person gambling unfeasible for some people. However, online casinos changed the name of the game.
From enabling people across the world to access offshore casinos, even in areas where they were restricted by local law, to being able to play in any place and at any time of day or night, playing online opened up a whole new door of opportunities for both providers and players. Yet, the online experience was lacking and people missed the real life excitement that physical casinos offered.
From this, the live casino was born. While live casinos have been around since the early 2000’s, today’s live casino offering has been drastically elevated by new and continually evolving technologies. Below, we’ll take a look at the impact live casinos have had on the market.
What do live casinos offer that regular online casinos cannot?
Live casinos offer it all, all so we thought. However, there will always be a difference between the physical and virtual worlds. With that being said, today’s technology has challenged this view by enabling the virtual and physical worlds to collide, in which live casinos offer the best of both physical and online casino worlds.
Live casinos offer a real life dealer that is streamed from a physical casino location in real time to online players. The real life dealer is able to interact with and talk to the players, giving the game a more lifelike quality.
What are the benefits of a live casino?
Live casinos offer a number of unique benefits that help online players to benefit from the attributes of a physical casino. Let’s take a closer look at some of these benefits below.
Playing with real humans
When you play baccarat, blackjack or poker online, you usually play against the computer as the dealer. However, with live casinos, you get to play and interact with a real life dealer, making the game much more entertaining. Many live casino games also let you chat to other players too to make the gameplay more enthusiastic.
A more immersive experience
Playing online is highly convenient, fast and exciting, yet it does take away some of the traditional experience of a traditional night, playing in a real venue. Many of today’s games have a feature that enables you to interact with other players too, creating a sense of community.
Peace of mind
Many people worry that the software used to monitor their online game is not operating fairly, and unfortunately this has sometimes been the case with not such reputable sites. However, lice casino games are not only controlled by a real life human but all monitoring software ensures the human dealer doesn’t make any mistakes either.
Enhanced technology
Live casinos of today are not what they used to be in the early 2000’s. While 2000’s technology ensured we lost the dial-up connection every times someone wanted to make a phone call, today’s online casino technology is in 8k resolution and continually evolving.
Not only that, players can choose to combine their live casino experience with other game enhancing technologies such as a VR headset that makes them feel more immersed in the virtual ‘real casino’. VR technology can also help to block out distractions and help subdue any noise going on in the external environment.
What are the downsides to live casinos?
While live casinos have brought some great benefits, there are some drawbacks in the grand scheme of things too.
Taking away from local business
Live casinos can operate from anywhere that seems to be a real life casino, it doesn’t have to be limited by physical location with today’s technologies. However, having a live dealer in an empty casino may benefit players but it certainly doesn’t benefit the physical casino or local area.
Some may argue that live casinos have encouraged unemployment rates by taking away the jobs of many and replacing it with just one job. In addition, it may cost the casino more to operate on this kind of model than simply running an online casino with virtual dealer software.
Overall, there are fair arguments in favor and against live casinos, however it is clear that live casinos have helped to grow and expand the casino sector across the world. While there may still be some drawbacks, from less employment opportunities for locals, to higher operating costs for casino owners, it’s clear that online players are still reaping the benefits that live casinos have to offer.