What to Look for in a Live Casino Platform

Posted by Harry Kane on Tuesday, March 3, 2020

There’s no doubt that live casino gameplay represents one of iGaming’s fastest growing verticals, particularly as players become increasingly accustomed to online gambling and keen on participating in immersive and realistic gameplay experiences.

Of course, the increased authenticity of live casinos is also appealing to experienced gamblers, especially those who are looking to transition from brick-and-mortar gambling without compromising on the overall experience.

If you’re one of the growing numbers of live casino players in the UK, however, it’s important that you’re able to identify the best and most rewarding platforms with which to interact. But how can you achieve this objective, and what should you look for in a potential site?

Let’s Start With the Basics

As arguably the most important step is to compare your real-time bonus options and identify the platform with the most relevant incentives to you.

Make no mistake; bonuses play a critical role in the modern-day iGaming experience, especially when you consider their diversity in the existing marketplace and the fact that operators use lucrative promotions as a way of incentivising new players.

Fortunately, live casino bonuses also work in much the same way as standard platforms, as they typically take the form of deposit matches (usually between 100% and 200% up to a finite amount).

This type of deposit match forms the basis for the vast majority of live casino bonuses, while they also tend to feature minimum and maximum deposit values.

So, once you’ve credited your account with a viable amount (and opted into the promotion where required), the value of the deposit match will be added to your account and can be deployed according to the terms).

Ultimately, it’s important to select a bonus that suits your bankroll, as while some may seem relatively modest, they also enable you to deposit an initial amount that you can comfortably afford.

On a similar note, you should appraise the wagering requirements associated with each promotion. These requirements refer to the amount of cash that you’ll be required to wager before accessing any winnings and completing a withdrawal, and on average this will be around 30-times the full value of the bonus offer.

This requirement can actually be as low as 20-times and as high as 50-times your bonus value, however, so read the associated Terms and Conditions in order to ensure that you can easily afford any wagering terms.

Where possible, try to look out for live casinos that have removed all wagering requirements from their bonus offer, or limited, no-deposit promotions that effectively translate into free gameplay.

This is an important consideration, whether you’re a high-roller with a huge bankroll or a casual player who only has a finite amount of cash with which to wager.

Look out for Rankings and Licensing Data

As you can probably tell by now, there shouldn’t be too much variance in your approach whether you’re appraising a standard online gambling platform or a live casino alternative.

With this in mind, it’s also imperative that you partner with secure and fully licensed live casino platforms, which are completely reputable and regulated in the various jurisdictions where they operate.

But how do you go about identifying such platforms? Well, one idea is to seek out independent comparison sites that collate data on the leading casino platforms before reviewing and ranking these entities accordingly.

As part of the objective review process, casinos are rated across a number of categories, from their security precautions and games’ library to the precise of secure payment options that are permitted through the site.

The most detailed reviews will also include full licensing data, whether the casino in question is a standalone platform or one of several brands belonging to an established parent company.

By reviewing such resources in detail, you can quickly identify the best and most secure platforms in real-time, while also comparing live bonus offers to arrive at an informed decision.

Some sites will even publish samples of independent user reviews that have been collated by live players, helping to add a little insight and context to the decision-making process.

In general terms, we’d recommend prioritising established and fully licensed platforms that boast a high overall ranking, while also ensuring that your chosen site features 128-bit SSL encryption as a minimum.

Explore the Software and Full Games’ Library

Once you’ve identified a secure and licensed live casino platform with a viable bonus offer, you can turn your attention to the concept of gameplay and the user experience.

After all, each live casino platform is different from the next, as they draw from different software houses to power the experience on offer and ideally build a diverse array of games across various verticals.

Arguably, the two best and most prolific live casino developers are Evolution Gaming and NetEnt respectively. The former has been an award-winning live casino platform for nine consecutive years, for example, during which time it has continued to blaze a trail for others to follow.

While NetEnt is more renowned as a standard iGaming developer with a library in excess of 500 games overall, it has recently branched out into the live casino vertical and produced a vast array of real-time table games for players to enjoy.

There are other premium developers active in this field, of course, but these two are currently leading the way both in terms of the quality of live games produced and the number of iterations built from classic casino gameplay. This means that rather than simply accessing live variations of European Roulette and Blackjack, you can enjoy more creative and immersive iterations, while also playing at variable table limits and benefitting from authentically paced gameplay.

In the case of live table games developed by Evolution Gaming, you’ll also note that this entity comprehensively trains its live dealers to deliver the most professional, realistic and interactive gameplay experience around.

This is a really important consideration, particularly for those who are looking to transition directly from brick-and-mortar gambling or simply want to elevate their online experience onto an entirely new level.