Live Casino Reviews

Live casino games have exploded in recent years. The ever-expanding availability of high-speed broadband internet means that streaming games are accessible to almost everyone, including mobile users. Let’s have a look at what you should expect from live casino reviews and how you can understand them.

Nearly every online casino site seems to have a live casino now. Slots alone just aren’t enough.

And it’s something that players seem to love – going back to the future by recreating the atmosphere and experience of a real-life casino with an internet connection and a studio.

Wherever you find a popular internet business you’ll find an accompanying marketing and information press, and so we have a huge number of live casino review sites.

Live Casino Reviews Updated 2021

What are live casino games?

Live casino games are any game that is played in real life in a remote location and linked to a player via an internet link.

That generally means casino games, but that’s not all you should expect from live casino sites these days.

The Big Three games are: live roulette, live blackjack, and live baccarat.

You should expect to see those three in all modern live casino sites and reviewed in live casino review sites.

You will also almost certainly see a small group of other live casino games:

Live poker. Live poker is available as a round-table game, where players play against each other and bet head-to-head. But in live casino terms, poker means dealer poker, usually a set of relatively well-known games like Hold’Em, three-card poker, and Caribbean stud poker, for example.

Then there are a set of Asian games that have become popular globally, including keno, sic bo, and Dragon Tiger.

And you can now play craps.

These games are quite often available in unique variants that are exclusive to a particular company as well as the more standard variants, for example, European, American and French roulette rules.

Live classic casino games weren’t enough for modern players though, and now we have a slew of TV game show games.

The most popular style of these games is a Wheel of Fortune style game. They are often delivered with lively presentation and can be branded, like Monopoly and Deal or No Deal.

Most live casino sites now offer studio sports of some sort, allowing players to bet on simulated sporting fixtures and related games.

And finally, things have gone full circle and you can now enjoy playing slots in a live environment with gameshow style presentation.

What should a live casino review tell you?

A live casino review should tell:

That a site is legitimate and legal, and cover the licensing of the site, which in the UK means letting you know that they have an up-to-date UK Gambling Commission licence.

It should tell you what payment options are available to fund your account: usually, banking; e-wallets (like PayPal, Neteller, and Skrill); mobile payment methods like BOKU, Pay by Mobile, and Apple Pay; pre-paid cards and vouchers; and maybe bitcoin or other cryptocurrency payments.

It should tell you what games are available, and the variants of them that you can play. Most live casino sites have relatively common sets of games, though because of the nature of the style you can play unique games at each site.

The review should tell you which provider is behind the games. Many casino sites have a single provider, though large live casino sites will possibly have more than one.

The review should also tell you how to contact the site and what customer services they have should you need to call for help.

Who are the live casino game providers?

Live casino games come from one of five big providers in most cases.

They are:

Evolution Gaming – probably the biggest (more of this later), and the makers of a huge range of live casino game titles and styles. Among their biggest hits is the massive Lightning series that throws jackpot mechanics into live casino games. Evolution makes more than 250 live casino games.

Playtech – Playtech are the largest casino software company in the world. To a massive catalogue of slots, they have now added live casino games, most notably and popularly the Quantum series, with its game show and sci-fi vibes. They also have lots of game show titles and have pioneered the live slots genre. They have made over 60 live casino games.

NetEnt – NetEnt are among the world’s biggest slots producers, with massive market power and a seemingly permanent lease on the UK’s number one slot in the form of Starburst. NetEnt has made a smallish selection of live casino games now, mostly classic games that you can find at some very big casino sites. They have 30-plus games on the market.

Ezugi – Ezugi have been around for a while, but have a relatively small set of very popular and high-quality games. Their top title is a baccarat game and they have a total of under 20 titles available at the moment.

Pragmatic Play – Another slot company going into the live arena, Pragmatic Play so far has just 11 games on the market. Many of them are marketing around their slot titles, like Reel King, and their Mega games. You can play all of the classic casino games in this series.

Now, we come to something that a good review site will tell you. Three of these companies are all owned by the same company: Evolution Gaming completed the purchase of NetEnt in 2021. Ezugi has been an Evolution Gaming company for a number of years.

Does this matter?

Probably not, though it is not inconsequential. Buying NetEnt gives Evolution Gaming an enormous catalogue of slot games – including the Red Tiger games. It seems pretty likely that the company will try to make the most of these by bringing them into the live arena.

Will games be differently branded? Probably not. In our experience, large slot companies are not keen to label smaller companies that they take over as their property. That helps to contribute to an atmosphere in which players believe they are being given more choice than is actually available.

How to assess live casino reviews

You are probably aware that there is no such thing as a free press. Anywhere. Full stop. Everyone has biases, everyone brings preconceptions to their work and their reporting, and all organisations have their own interests. This includes any commercial news organisation, just as much as it includes any news organisation run by a relatively controlling government.

And the same is very much true in the casino world.

Casino review sites are dependent on the casino industry for their income. They work by sending players from reviews to the sites, earning a commission of some sort from the site.

That immediately brings about a conflict of interest. If you need players to click on a link that is related to your review then there is an incentive to make that live casino review positive.

And there’s not a lot that you, as players, can do about this.

However, you should factor this in when you read reviews. And look for good quality sites that have good quality written content that isn’t too over the top.

It is possible to run honest review sites on this basis, if the writers are dedicated to providing honest, balanced reviews, and you should be able to spot the sites that tell you the truth.

I wouldn’t get too over-excited about this though. Any trade press is compromised to some extent because it is reliant on advertising from the industry it covers.

Should you wish to find completely bias-free media you’ll need to overthrow capitalism and create one of your own.

The Dangers of Live Casino Reviews

Having said that everything is compromised to some degree, there are some areas of compromise that are a step too far and that head into dangerous territory.

There is scamming in the casino industry, though there is a lot less than there used to be, and you need to be aware of some of the pitfalls and dangers of review sites and live casino sites before you get involved in spending real money.

There are a number of ways to spot scams, including:

• Sites that promise you a way to win – there is no way to win, live casino games are random,
• Sites that promise you too much – we all know how marketing works, and that includes making big promises, but some promises are too much,
• And sites that ask you to break a rule yourself – a foundational trick of many scams is to involve the “mark” (as the scam victim is called) in some sort of rule-breaking in order to get them to go along with a scam, and in order to prevent them from reporting it.

Review sites that are too focused – a review site that sends you to one place over and over again should be avoided. A good review site will offer you a range of casino reviews.

From Live Casino Reviews to Live Casino Games

Once you’ve read a few reviews you’re probably ready to try some live casino games. If you’ve never played before we have some more boring safety warnings for you – that a good review site will already have provided.

Live casino games are very simple in some ways. They are live games filmed and played over an internet connection.

However, most live casino games cannot be played for free on demo mode. So you need to know what you’re doing as soon as you start.

A review site will tell you some things, but there is no way that it can provide you with every detail of every game on the average casino site (most have over 1,000 slots and may have dozens of live casino tables).

So make sure you read the rules and the full instructions on every game that you play.

This should include checking what the RTP is. The RTP is the theoretical return to the player. It is a measure of how much money should be returned to players over the lifetime of a game. As it’s a very long-term measure it is not a prediction on a personal level, but you can use it as a comparative measure to weigh up which games to try.

You should also bear in mind that RTPs on casino games are not as straight forward as they are on slots. Different bets in live casino games have a different house edge (the flip side of the RTP), so please read up on the good value bets too.

Live casino games are also not always the same. Different branding on a classic casino game might mean more than just a presentation style. For example, some Evolution Gaming live casino games include progressive jackpots that come with a cost in the form of a levy on each bet – you need to know this before you start playing.

If you are able to you should check out a video of the game in action so you can see exactly what game play to expect.

Play at least a few rounds on a simulated version of the game (as close as you can get) before you play for real. You should be able to find these games at casino sites, where you can set them onto demo mode, or you can play at many review sites.

Don’t go from a live casino review site to a live casino site with a strategy in mind other than to play safely. If you’re going to read anything other than reviews then you should read a good guide on how to play live casino games safely, not just in terms of tech and site safety but in terms of your own personal safety too.

In conclusion:

Read the live casino reviews but take them with a pinch of salt.

Most licensed casino sites are relatively decent these days and there isn’t a lot to choose between them.

Don’t be swayed JUST by big, attractive welcome offers, make sure you assess a site as a whole and that the reviews you read also do that.