Live Dealer Casinos

Many people think that playing casino games online is nothing like playing in a real life land casino – but nothing could be further from the truth. By using purpose-built live video feeds combined with state-of-the-art virtual betting surfaces online casinos are able to bring you all the glamour and excitement of a top-class gaming destination without you even having to leave the house. You can even play on your mobile device now as well. 

All live online casinos offer Roulette, Blackjack and Baccarat with many now laying on Casino Hold 'Em, Sic Bo, Three Card Poker and Hi/Lo as well. 

Live online casino play is like any other form of web-based gaming: You can expect better results if you use a strategy rather than using your instincts alone. 

Even the most basic approach of setting loss limits and aspirational levels of winnings for every session will pay dividends quickly, though when it comes to strategy there are much more complex ideas that can be used.

Most of these revolve around deciding how much to bet following a loss or win. At the most basic level you can play the Martingale method which follows a double-or-quits procedure. This an example of a progressive system that requires you to increase your bet after a loss, whereas regressive systems require you to scale back subsequent bets to reduce risk. 

More advanced ideas use complex, mathematically-driven sequences and many players use a variety of ideas to suit their own preferences and circumstances. Click here to know more about live dealer strategy

Live Blackjack is the most popular of all the live online casino games. You can choose to play with just yourself against the dealer, or step up and take a seat at a table with up to 6 other players just as you would in a real land casino. Once the table opens you can make a bet within the staking limits specified on the icon you licked to enter the room, and when it's your turn the dealer will give you two cards each, all upturned bar one dealer card. 

Whilst there are lots of different variations on this game available in virtual format, the standard European game is nearly always found in live rooms online. You can therefore take out insurance if the dealer has an Ace showing which pays 2 to 1 if they have a Blackjack, whilst beating the dealer pay evens and a player Blackjack pays 3 to 2. 

Live online roulette allows you to enjoy the glamour and spectacle of the world's most visually impressive casino table game in the comfort of your own home. The game lends itself surprisingly well to online play, too.

There are no limits as to how many players can join in a game at any one time, with no need to take up positions in chairs making it easy to let an unlimited number of players join in the fun. 

Online live games come in European or French format – you won't find any expensive American games on offer, and the French games offer a house edge of just 1.35% on outside bets – compared with 2.70% on European games, so the French games are well worth seeking out. 

In terms of dealer/player format most live Baccarat uses a many-to-one format with up to seven players sitting opposite the dealer in any one room. The high-end reputation of this game is not unjustified; Players frequently inflict serious damage to land casino profits by playing it, though the highly-complex nature of the game has been watered down for online players so it's not hard to get used to playing. 

Technically what you're really playing in live online rooms is actually Punto Banco rather than pure Baccarat, and that means the dealer makes the decisions from a defined set of complex rules that they need to know and you – the player – don't even need to memorise.

Different casinos operate different live casino software that often doesn't match the rest of the software they use for their virtual games as making online virtual slots is a very different business to running live feeds from a casino studio in another country. It's a major undertaking which is why only the biggest players in the industry supply the service. 

Playtech offer an impressive service with Latvian-based studios offering a wide range of games and even a custom-built side game panel that lets you enjoy some of their best slots between rounds. Read about Playtech live dealer casinos.

Microgaming offer an allocated seating set-up that works like an upmarket poker site, and lets you play alongside avatars of other players if you wish. It's the most realistic of the lot. Read the in-depth review of Microgaming live dealer casinos here. 

NetEnt win hands down on style, with Eastern European studios beaming the most contemporary–looking games of all across the world. Click here to read our review of NetEnt live casinos. 

Novomatic are now offering live games too, incorporating their very best slots into their roulette games to give you higher odds if required. 

The best-known of all, though, are Evolution Gaming. They offer the famous Immersive Roulette, which uses up to seven cameras for a premium quality service than nobody has exceeded. Read our review of Evolution live dealer games now.

Everyone's familiar with live Roulette, Blackjack and Baccarat on the web, and most players are now aware that Casino Hold 'Em – the fixed odds equivalent of the popular Texas Hold 'Em poker game – is also available fairly widely. 

What's not so well-known is that there are other games you can enjoy that you may have seen in land casinos, that aren't so easy to find on the web.

Sic Bo is the world's most popular dice game – far bigger than Craps – and it's rapidly making its way from Asia across the globe. Again it's beguilingly simple yet utterly absorbing, and it's now available at some of the more forward-thinking Playtech casinos. 

Finally, there are now a few casinos offering Caribbean Stud Poker. This is a basic table poker game requiring you to make a bet, get dealt a hand and then try to beat the dealer. However with this variation three's an ongoing ante on offer with every hand, linked to a giant progressive jackpot. It's triggered at random, and if you win it you could be looking at instant retirement.  

These are just a handful of lesser-known live casino games that are becoming more and more popular on the web. Give it a few years and you can guarantee that no matter what your preference is on the casino floor, you'll find it somewhere online!

Live casino games are so popular that players all over the world are keen to join up and participate. That, of course, means the default format of always offering games in English is no longer a viable commercial model and the major online casinos offering live games are now starting to expand the range of languages on offer from their croupiers.

At the forefront of this initiative are the sportsbook operators, who attract large levels of business and high-staking players. They appeal to large number of players all over the world, as well as expats and foreign language speakers in their home countries, and with large markets to be tapped in places like Russian and China it's not surprising that their respective languages are spoken by live casino dealers.

Also on offer are tables hosted by dealers speaking German, Dutch, Swedish and other Northern European languages, though the Mandarin-speaking rooms are by far and away the most markedly different, featuring Asian-style décor and outfits for the dealers. 

Multi-language live rooms are a very different proposition to virtual casinos that offer the same facility. Text associated with virtual games needs to be translated once and posted online, whereas a native Chinese speaker needs paying constantly, so these rooms are not cheap to run. That's why only the large casinos offer them, so if you want to play at a casino that's aimed at one market with live rooms that offer additional language support then large operations like Ladbrokes Casino, William Hill Casino and Paddy Power Casino are a great place to start.