Online Poker Rooms
The game of Poker was the first to break through to the next level of what online casino play was capable of.
As the Broadband Revolution took hold, it was Planet Poker that emerged as the industry leader. Its poker room, launched in 1998, became an international destination for players. Although play would be tremendously slow by today’s standards, modern players would find themselves otherwise in familiar territory there.
Towards the Contemporary Live Casino Experience
From that point on, growth settled down and online gaming gradually moved towards today’s standards.
Much of the improvement has been made possible by improved internet and data processing speeds. This has allowed for vastly improved visual interface… at first, this meant richer 2D graphics, then video animations, then interactive video.
It was only a matter of time until a provider had the bright idea to put another actual human on the other end of a webcam.
In many ways, putting a live dealer at an online gaming table is the most obvious thing in the world. But from a different point of view, it’s the exact opposite of what gaming companies had been trying to do for years!
Designers were trying to build the most exciting software possible. The whole idea was that it was a one-sided affair, to be enjoyed by the players without any human capital investment on the side of the casinos.
Live dealer play changed all that.
With technology capable of live video conferencing, however, it was possible to give players the feeling of being in a brick-and-mortar casino without ever leaving their own homes.
From Beta to Alpha
It didn’t happen overnight, though!
The first live dealer offerings fell well below the standards of top casino croupiers and dealers.
It took many years to get to where things are now, where specialist academies like Malta’s Online Live Casino Academy have taken root. There, croupiers are prepared for a career in front of the cameras with training that is absolutely on par with what top brick-and-mortar dealers receive.
Not only that, but the streaming sights themselves have improved tremendously!
If today’s live dealer games look phenomenal, it’s because providers have learned a lot about top-tier production values. Lighting, camera work, and microphones are not quite at a Hollywood level, but they aren’t far below them either!
Today’s Live Dealer World
Looking at the incredible array of options available to today’s players, as well as their increasingly excellent quality, it’s hard to believe that there used to be problems just depositing funds!
Things have come a long way fast, and the future looks bright.
No one can know what players’ options will look like twenty years from now, but all attentive players have good reason to be excited.
Things moved fast from there.