If there is one thing that is truly a trend in recent years in online casinos, it is definitely the live casino sections! If you have never heard of live casino sections, we will briefly introduce them to you.
Live casinos have become one of the fastest-growing areas of online gambling in recent years. And it's not surprising at all. These sections combine the convenience of classic home gaming with an authentic experience similar to visiting a real casino. In just a few clicks, you can anytime you want get into a casino environment without having to worry about opening hours, dress codes, or anything else you would have to deal with in a real casino.
You could say, very theoretically, that live casinos are like physical casinos in your pocket. But, as we've already mentioned, unlike traditional casinos, you don't have to go anywhere for online live casinos, you don't have to dress up for them, and you don't need to think deeply about the entire game. In this section, depending on the casino you choose, dozens to hundreds of tables await you, where dozens to hundreds of live dealers are seated. One at each table. Each of them is waiting for you to join the game. For your bet.
It's not a simulation or artificial intelligence at all, far from it. These are real, trained dealers that you would encounter in the aforementioned physical casino. Unlike a real casino, though, only you can see the dealer here, not the other way around. This one-way observation brings one of the greatest advantages of these casino livestreams, which is anonymity. We'll look at what other advantages and disadvantages live casinos bring below in the text.
As you've read above, live casino sections are full of so-called tables. That is, livestreams with various casino table games. In these sections, you will typically find classic casino table games, including blackjack, roulette, poker, dice, and other games. So-called game shows have their own subcategory in this section.
The choice of game, table, and dealer is up to you. You can always navigate to those games and dealers that you find most appealing and convenient. Some of the live streams offer you a free preview – you can open the table without betting, look at the gaming environment, and decide if you want to play there, while others have stricter rules.
Individual tables are captured using several HD or 4K cameras that shoot different angles at the table – close-ups of cards, the roulette wheel, and the dealer's face. The cameras run non-stop and everything they capture is subsequently broadcast in high quality to the casino website. Footage from multiple angles help intensify your experience and better replicate the atmosphere of a brick-and-mortar casino. At the same time, they give you the opportunity to immerse yourself more in the game and maintain perfect control over everything happening on the stream.
The entire broadcast is, as the term "livestream" suggests, transmitted in real-time, with the aim of the broadcasters being for you as a player to see everything immediately, without any delays and in the highest possible quality. This is ensured by the so-called Game Control Unit (GCU), which is a small hardware box located at each table. It encodes the video, synchronizes data between the table and server, and ensures that everything is timed down to the millisecond. Without the GCU, no live casino game would work properly – it's like the brain of the entire table.
For the game to be able to function interactively, the technology called OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is necessary. It recognizes what cards were dealt in the game or which number the ball landed on. Once this happens, the software immediately recalculates the result and displays it to the players. Thanks to this technology, the dealer doesn't need to enter anything manually and can focus entirely on dealing, chatting, and the players.
Another important factor in live sections are the providers who bring you the tables and entire streams. Although live casino sections are very popular and growing sections of casinos, there are still only a few gaming and development studios that provide these tables and livestreams to players.
Among the names you'll come across on global gambling platforms is, for example, Pragmatic Play Live. This development studio is among the strong market leaders in recent years, both in gambling games in general and specifically in live casino sections. Tables from this provider are a combination of speed, functionality, and simplicity.
What you can also rely on from Pragmatic in these sections is optimization for mobile devices, which will ensure that you can easily enjoy individual tables on your phone or tablet. A certainty is also the speed and quality of transmission, which ensure that you can fully enjoy your game. The Pragmatic Play Live portfolio includes not only classic table games but also game shows such as Money Time, Mega Wheel, or Snakes & Ladders Live. All games and tables from this gaming studio can be enjoyed by players in up to 28 supported languages and accompanied by trained, experienced, and professional dealers.
Playtech is another name that is inseparably linked to this section. Playtech is among traditional and well-established brands that build their reputation more on classics, though this is not the case in live casino sections. In this section, this development studio does offer a comprehensive selection of traditional games such as roulette, blackjack, and baccarat, but their offering also includes interesting game shows that add character to their portfolio. Nevertheless, this is more of a choice for conservative audiences – for players who prefer a traditional casino atmosphere, slower pace, and classic rules without too much embellishment.
The live table offerings also include broadcasts from the Ezugi provider. This lesser-known development studio often offers tables that are not as common among mainstream brands. Ezugi brings specific studio environments to live casinos, interesting dealers, and often even adapted rules for specific markets.
Among the biggest names in the industry is definitely Evolution – this provider maintains a pretty decent lead over other studios, primarily due to a very comprehensive portfolio of offered live games, modern studios located around the world, and modern technology that delivers high stability, quality streaming, and smooth game transmission for thousands of players at once. You'll find everything in Evolution's offering. You'll have access to games from roulette, through blackjack and baccarat, to poker. There are also rare variants of these table games and, again, popular game show formats.
The offerings of live sections of foreign platforms also include tables from NetEnt studio, which is part of Evolution Gaming Group.
However, these are just the most well-known names. Other studios such as BetGames, Platipus Gaming, or Hacksaw Gaming, and the tables they offer, can be explored directly on available foreign gambling platforms.
In live casino sections, you'll most often encounter traditional table casino games, which you've certainly already learned about from brick-and-mortar casinos or from table games sections in online casinos. The offerings typically include roulette, blackjack, dice, or baccarat, but increasingly you'll also find formats in the style of television game shows, which rely on significantly faster game pace, strong visual elements, and quick interactions with the stream operators – instead of a typical dealer, you'll more often encounter hosts.
Live roulette is among the most popular choices for players in these sections. This game is often the first choice primarily because it combines very simple rules with the speed and excitement of every spin of the wheel. When you add to that the option to bet on a wide spectrum of bets – from the very lowest to those really high ones intended more for experienced players – you have an ideal casino game.
Roulette typically appears in casinos in several variants. Among the most common variants is European roulette with one zero (with one square containing the number 0), but you'll often come across more modern or faster versions, and there's no shortage of thematic tables.
Blackjack also holds a very strong position in live sections. You might know it better by its alternative name. This card game, as its name suggests, has relatively simple rules – ideally collect 21 points.
This is truly a casino classic, which appears in these sections again, just like roulette, in a whole range of variations.
You'll often encounter various VIP tables with higher limits in the offerings, tables optimized for quick decision-making (speed versions of games), or fun versions that slightly modify the whole game – for example Gravity blackjack or Playboy blackjack.
Unlike roulette, the entire pace of blackjack is calmer, slower. Because of this, blackjack in live casino sections feels much more personal than its classic digital variant. A player in the live version of blackjack doesn't have to constantly click, can watch the game more, and can think calmly before each move, which allows them to better absorb the atmosphere and enjoy the game similarly to how they would in a brick-and-mortar casino.
Dice in live casino sections are among those games that at first glance may not captivate you, but in reality deliver surprisingly intense experiences that can simply excite many players. Dice are a quite specific game, as they are often perceived as a return to the most basic form of gambling, which relies purely on chance, simplicity, and delivers immediate results to the player. With this game, there's a fast and straightforward progression, which simply puts dice on par with roulette or baccarat.
For more experienced and demanding players, dice are like a relaxation game in the live casino offerings. They're ideal for calming down between more demanding games or can often serve as an ideal entry point for new players.
Another very prominent game in live sections is baccarat, which is popular mainly for its simplicity and very fast-paced gameplay. In live form, this game often gains a much more ceremonial and sophisticated touch, simply because baccarat studios often lend luxurious backgrounds and environments to the game.
In baccarat, the player practically doesn't deal with complex strategies, just bets on one of three possible outcomes. This relatively simple and again very straightforward progression of the entire game makes baccarat an ideal game for both beginners and those who want to enjoy a calmer but still thrilling experience in live sections.
Among the absolute classics you'll find in various forms in pretty much every casino section is poker. In the live games offering, poker is the game that brings players a good dose of strategy to this section. Unlike the previous games, you'll definitely use it here – in poker you'll enjoy moments full of manipulation, bluffing, and other entertainment. Now, thanks to fast and quality transmission, you can enjoy all these pleasures in the same quality as if you were experiencing them directly in a casino.
Then there are the so-called live or game shows in the sections, which in recent years have become one of the biggest advantages of modern live casinos. Game shows often mix classic casino rules with elements of beloved television game shows. When you add to that a pleasant environment, professional hosts, and interesting game rules, you have a recipe for casino perfection.
Among game shows, you'll often encounter various wheels of fortune, lottery games, quiz games, or games based on chance. Such formats of casino games have become extremely popular, especially because the shows are visually attractive, dynamic, and thus accessible to players who wouldn't normally approach traditional roulette or blackjack.
What we described above is primarily how live casino sections function in foreign countries and on foreign gambling platforms. However, the truth is that in the Czech Republic, due to the EU, there is stronger regulation of the gambling market, so different rules apply to us and for us. And these also apply to these livestreams and games.
Gambling legislation in our country is quite strict and very specific about who is allowed to offer this type of games to Czech players. For any online casino to operate legally on the Czech market at all, it must have a license from the Czech Republic's Ministry of Finance, which automatically means complying with a whole range of rules regarding player protection, responsible gambling, identity verification, and game fairness checks. These are conditions that are "too complicated" for many foreign casinos, which often look for the easiest, not the fairest way to make their platform accessible to as many people as possible.
This discrepancy in licenses, conditions, and rules that foreign casinos deliver and that the Czech Republic requires are, in fact, why most foreign gambling platforms operate outside the law in our republic.
Live game sections were permitted in the Czech Republic only in 2024. However, even in this section, control in Czech casinos is much stricter than it is with foreign platforms.
For this reason, the game offerings in these sections of Czech casinos are much more limited. Currently, you can play