How Do Live Casino Games Work: 101 Guide

Don’t worry, both options are trustworthy and transparent, and the most important factor here is the casino you choose, and not the difference in how the results are produced.

With RNG games, you have to trust the certification that the game is fair. The software is independently tested by third-party auditors to verify that the outcomes are genuinely random and that the return percentages match what’s advertised. The actual process of generating a result is not visible to us, but some casinos do publish their audit results, so you can check them out.

Live games offer a different kind of transparency. You can watch every card being dealt and follow every spin of the wheel, which means that the outcome is not in question (at least not in the same way). You don’t really take the results on faith because you watch it happen, but these games are also tested by independent testing agencies to ensure that the wheels or decks are not rigged.

Whether that matters to you personally depends on how you think about the game, but if you’re someone who has always wondered about the integrity of an RNG result, live games are the more transparent option.

RNG games tend to offer a much wider range of bet sizes, including very low minimum tables that start at just A$0.10 per bet.

Now, I have to be very clear here: live games also come with very wide betting ranges, so this mostly depends on the particular table that you’re playing, but generally speaking, RNG games do come with wider betting ranges because there’s no dealer to pay and no studio equipment involved, so operators can afford to run these games at minimal cost.

Live tables generally carry higher minimums of around A$0.50 to A$1 per bet (can be much higher if you’re playing at high-roller tables), particularly for the more popular variants. The production costs involved in running a genuine live studio mean the economics are different, and that passes through to the table limits.

High rollers often find the opposite is true, though, with dedicated VIP live tables offering much higher maximums than you’d typically find on an RNG game.

RNG table games move at whatever speed you want them to move. Since there’s no dealer to wait for, no other players at the table, and betting time at the start and end of rounds, it means that you control the pace. If you want to play 300 hands of blackjack in an hour, you can, and if you need five minutes to make a decision, you can do that too.

Live games are played by multiple players at the same time, so they’re very similar to land-based casino games in terms of pacing. Every round has a betting window, typically somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds, depending on the game and the provider, and once that window closes, the round begins regardless of what you’re doing.

The dealer runs the table, and rounds on a live blackjack table might average somewhere around 40 to 50 hands per hour, which is substantially slower than what you’d experience on an RNG version of the same game. In other words, you can’t speed up or slow down the game on your own, so you have to play at the pace of the game.

I wouldn’t get into much detail here about how the speed of the game affects your bankroll because I’ve explained it in my blackjack and roulette guides, but faster games usually mean larger bankroll swings over the same period of time.

Note from Mike Waters: If you’re playing with any kind of strategy, the pace of the game matters a lot. RNG games are usually the better option because you have more time to think and calculate the bet size correctly. For example, a complex strategy like Fibonacci will require you to calculate the size of the bet each round, and 15 seconds of betting time isn’t always enough.

Both formats come in far more variations than you can think of, but they are often very different. While RNG games usually include standard variations of blackjack, roulette, and baccarat alongside dozens of rule variants with some side bets, live games are on a different level.

Providers like Pragmatic Play and Playtech have built out enormous libraries that go well beyond the classics. For example, live blackjack alone has ‘branched out’ into variants like Lightning Blackjack, PowerUp Blackjack, Infinite Blackjack, Speed Blackjack, etc.

The game goes for live roulette, which, besides the standard European, American, and French variants, has games like Quantum Roulette and Lightning Roulette that add new features like bonuses and multipliers.

Then, there are all the other live games, like Casino Poker Hold’em games (in these games, you actually bet on poker), multiple baccarat variants, Craps, Bingo, Keno, and a whole different category called ‘Game Shows’ that includes anything from Monopoly Live to Wheel of Fortune.

This is not a ‘what’s better – RNG or live dealer’ comparison, because both have their own place in the online casino world, but there’s one category where the gap between the two is probably the most obvious: audiovisuals.

Simply put, RNG games look like video games, and, to put it lightly, I’d say that they’re built for efficiency rather than looks. Live games are very different. Modern studios are purpose-built for broadcasting casino games, so they have professional lighting, multiple HD camera angles, and dealers who are trained to present and deal the games on the same standards as major land-based casinos.

Some tables look genuinely impressive, and the streaming quality has improved so much that you can now play the games with Full HD or even 4K streams. Also, software providers now invest much more money in live dealer games, so it’s no surprise that the audiovisual experience is on another level.

Live roulette is the other pillar of any live casino library, and you can expect multiple European, American and French variants.

Besides these classic versions, there are also plenty of ‘enhanced’ versions that providers have built in recent years. For example, Lightning Roulette and PowerUP roulette add random multipliers to randomly selected numbers each round, while games like Multi Wheel Roulette allow you to play on multiple wheels simultaneously.

As I have pointed out in my roulette guide, however, the house edge is almost always higher in these modern variants, so if you’re looking for the highest RTP games, I recommend playing the standard European or, even better, French roulette.

This is the category that has genuinely changed what live casino means as a format. Games like Crazy Time, Monopoly Live and Dream Catcher didn’t exist before the live casino game format was born. They’re essentially television game shows with bonus rounds, multipliers, and other elements that have nothing to do with traditional casino table games.

They’ve attracted a huge audience because they offer something that neither RNG games nor classic live tables can replicate, and the production quality on the top titles like Money Time and Sweet Bonanza Candy Land is genuinely impressive. If you’ve never tried one, it’s worth having a look, even if just out of curiosity.

In comparison to games like blackjack, however, the outcomes are largely luck-driven, and the house edge is usually a bit higher.

Beyond blackjack and roulette, there’s usually a wide variety of other live classics available in the Live Casino section at casinos.

Baccarat is a popular card game that’s very popular in Asian markets, and it’s one of the simplest and highest-RTP games that you can try.

Live poker variants like Casino Hold’em and Three Card Poker are house banked games where you’re playing against the dealer rather than other players, and they’re a popular choice too. Craps, Sic Bo, and Dragon Tiger are other casino classics that are available for players who want something a bit different.

Availability varies by casino and the comprehensiveness of its live offering, so if you’re after a specific game, it’s always worth checking the lobby.