A lot of the casino platforms and sites now offer live dealer blackjack and other casino games as part of their offerings on their sites. While often slanted to be a way of providing authenticity to their brand there are still some things you should look out for to ensure that everything is above board and if you want to play, you’ll find the best live dealer blackjack sites here.
What’s good about Live Dealers anyway?
With the advent of technology and online gambling, a lot of variables and attributes have become less tangible and visible. Per se, when you’re at a casino you can see the dealer hand out the cards or spin the roulette wheel. When you’re using a device to play these games (without a live dealer) these game mechanics are hidden, prompting discussion that they could code for the player to lose more often than not.
If a site offers live dealers it’s trying to install confidence in the brand and/or specific game by making elements of it more tangible. The live dealer while not in front of you in person at least offers a human touch which in theory is less suspect of being rigged or coded to an unfair level.
Stream quality and communication
Right then, you’ve logged on to your favorite online casino and found a decent-looking live dealer blackjack game. First, let’s watch the dealer’s feed for a hand or two without betting any serious money. Make sure he or she is live and not just a video. If you see him touching his nose every two minutes or pulling the same gestures or even worse getting the same cards, it’s on a loop and should be avoided.
Also, look at the picture quality. Can you make out the cards? If anything is alarming, just log out. Is it glitching out or generally of poor quality? If so just log out. Some hooky sites use intentional buffering to ensure they always win because it’s very easy to reveal the dealer’s hand while buffering and then when it’s fully loaded they just happen to have blackjack… for the seventh time in a row.
There are some live dealer rooms now that offer you the chance to talk to dealers, which is great for validating authenticity. If you greet him with hello and he says hello back to your username, then you know he’s live and it’s likely they’re using some of the latest technology to keep the game flowing too.
If you can talk to the dealer then be sure to keep the communication flowing. The more live interaction you have with the dealer, the more genuine connection and assurance that it’s a real live dealer.
While communicating with the deal make sure they’re speaking in the local language with proficiency. If it’s an English language betting site but they’re unable to articulate in the language then something might not be right.
Dealer setting and background
When the dealer’s live stream is up and running, look beyond the dealer. Where is he? Is he professionally dressed? Apply the same rules that you would for real-world gambling, if you wouldn’t gamble in a dark and dingy basement then don’t gamble with a live dealer who is in such a setting. Apply the same rules as you would a casino, if it doesn’t feel right, just get out.
If you want to see a real-life example of where there was a scandal, you can learn about it on this video here, BetOnline has since opened up and apologized and taken steps to make sure this never happens again, but it shows how easily issues can come up.
How often is the live dealer winning?
As the dealer, he’s playing on behalf of the house (the online casino) they have a vested interest to win. After all, that’s how they make money. But because you’re not actually in the room with him and you can only see a partial amount of the transaction, there’s an opportunity to rig the game. That deck he’s drawing from could be pre-loaded for him to win 99 times out of 100. If there’s a dealer who’s winning all the time, log out and try another provider.
By the same merit, if the live dealer is consistently losing he might try to install fake confidence into the players. Essentially, you just want to observe regular dealer behavior.
Different dealers
Any online casino worth it’s salt should be able to hire a few live dealers to host and present games. It’s not a good sign if it’s the same guy doing it every session on the hour, as it does bring up suspicion.
Make sure it’s a real person
This wouldn’t be an issue a few years ago but in 2023, deep fake and animation technology is so good that companies can present something that resembles a human form – very convincingly.
If you can tell it’s not a real person, then just log out and find another live dealer who’s an actual person. Non-real dealers are a real red flag as you can’t tell who has programmed them or what their agenda is.