Live-Dealer Casino — Studios & Tech

Live-dealer casino streams a real human dealer at a real table from a studio, with your bets placed through software overlaid on the video. The maths of the underlying game (blackjack, roulette, baccarat) is identical to its RNG version — the same house edge applies. What live adds is production: cameras, optical character recognition (OCR) or RFID to read the cards and wheel, and a low-latency stream. It costs more to run, so live tables usually have higher minimum bets.

Cameras capture the table; OCR reads the value of each card and the number the ball lands in; some studios use RFID chips in cards and wheels for a second, tamper-resistant read. The result is fed to the game server so wins settle automatically. The dealer deals; the software scores — you are watching a real outcome, not an animation over an RNG.

Live blackjack, roulette and baccarat carry the same house edge as their RNG counterparts — a live European roulette wheel is still 2.70%, live baccarat banker still 1.06%. The 'live' part is presentation and trust (you see the physical outcome), not better odds. Watch the rules on the felt exactly as you would at a machine.

Betting closes before the outcome is revealed, and a low-latency stream keeps that window tight and fair. Studios are audited like any licensed game; the streaming layer does not change the probabilities, it just delivers them. A slow or laggy stream is a UX problem, not an edge problem.

Live casino is concentrated among a few large studio operators — Evolution is the dominant supplier, having also absorbed brands like Ezugi and NetEnt's live tables. That concentration is why so many different casino sites show near-identical live lobbies: they are licensing the same underlying studios.