Some Live Dealer Casinos Now Offer Poker

Author: Neha Agrawal

At first, Live Dealer Casinos couldn’t figure out how to offer multiple-player Poker games. The other games they offered only involved one player competing against the house, which wouldn’t work for poker. But someone finally figured out how to do it.

Their idea was to use the same technology as you may have seen on the poker shown on television, where small cameras under the table reveal the player’s hand to the audience, but not to each other.

With this technology, some Live Dealer Casinos can now offer all of the favourite poker games, from Hold ‘em to Five Card Stud and all the others, like Omaha and Razz.

Rather than throwing or tossing the cards to the player as the dealer would do around an actual table, he places them in each player’s spot on the table. The cameras show all the players their cards and the game proceeds in the normal fashion.

The community cards are dealt and visible on the table and the betting is exactly the same. You can see the chip stacks of the other players. The dealer may advise you of the time remaining before you have to make a bet.

There are no visual “tells” available at a Live Dealer poker game, though if you’re used to playing online on a simulated screen, you’re used to that. You’ve also probably figured out other ways to come up with tells even though you can’t see the other players.

Multi-player poker is more expensive to operate than other Live Dealer Casino games because it requires many more cameras and the technology to operate those cameras. Dealers also need a lot more training, since not only do they have to follow all the rules and customs of all other poker dealers, they also have to place the cards in just the right spot without revealing them.

Because of the added expense and the uncertainty of how popular this type of live dealer game will be, not many of the largest gaming operators offer all the forms of Poker in their Live Dealer Casinos. This may change in the future. The reason that many prefer playing with a live dealer for blackjack and baccarat are the same reasons they would want a live dealer for poker. That is, they would prefer the cards being drawn by a person and not a random number generator.