Top New Live Casinos in the UK ᐈ A Complete Guide

Brits love their slots, there’s no doubt about it. The Gaming Commission says that over 70% of the money casinos make comes from slot machines. But some players in the United Kingdom prefer a different type of game - one where random number generators and unknown volatility don’t come into play.

They prefer live dealer games!

There are thousands upon thousands of places to place a bet at a table, over a desk, at a kiosk, or online in the UK, and no other nation bets as much online as England does. Players are always looking for new places to play for a variety of reasons.

We’ll take a quick look at the numbers as they relate to regulated online markets because that’s all we can “prove up”, so that is all we can compare fairly. Going by numbers pulled from H2 Gambling Capital, in 2021 the online gambling market in the UK saw punters leave over $12.5 billion in US dollars on the tables and in the virtual machines in 2021 while players in the US gave away about $11B.

We are including blackjack with roulette, baccarat, poker, and “gameshow” betting (no lottery, sports, slots, etc.). If 32% of that $12.5B was spent on tables, the live dealer online casino game market in the UK is huge.

The UKGC/GBGC (Gambling Commission) numbers are provided by regulated operators under the greatest of scrutiny and the H2 Gambling Capital numbers are a direct reflection, as always.

But where else can we look for confirmation of an assumption that as much as one-third of online gambling action in the UK happens on the actual dealer floor and studios rather than slot machines?

How to Join a Brand New Online Live Dealer Casino in the United Kingdom

Our Step-by-Step Guide

The first step is to find a trusted online live dealer operation. Any site bearing the Gambling Commission seal and holding a valid license is a good bet. On this page, you’ll also find other sites and lobbies licensed elsewhere. Each of our lists is ranked from the best to the least desirable using a variety of criteria. All sites are licensed and offer certified, audited games - some of the licenses will be from outside Great Britain such as in Malta, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, or even Curacao.

If you want to explore all of our reviewed offshore operations (as well as UK-whitelisted sites), you can use some of our unique filtering tools. Just choose one or more parameter that is important to you such as currency, the software provider (Evolution, Playtech, SA Gaming, Authentic, etc.), your preferred payment method, game selection, etc.

Once you have your choice whittled down you can use our Comparison Tool to pit two contenders against each other for your custom.

Read in-depth and unbiased reviews and stay away from known bad operators. Check the operator license to be sure it is valid. Stay with Gambling Commission-licensed operators unless you are willing to do your homework or rely on our guides, rank ratings, etc.

Keynote - In most jurisdictions, a site doesn’t need a specific license for live dealer games. For instance, a single license in Curacao covers all types of gambling games from slots and live games to poker, sports, and betting on lotteries.

Click the “Sign Up”, “Register”, or “Join” button - usually next to “Log In” (upper right) but can vary from site to site

Follow the on-screen prompts to complete registration. You will be able to key in the appropriate personal information and select the proper drop-down menu items for location, etc. Fields to populate may include your name and date of birth, city/postcode, and contact information such as email address and/or phone number.

Reply promptly to any SMS (text) or email message asking to verify your account or answer the phone if asked to personally verify your location for UK-licensed sites.

Pro Tip: Consider opting in for SMS and other solicitations if you like to use bonuses. You can always “Stop”, block, or unsubscribe later if you don’t find the “flash” offers to your liking. Operators are only allowed to send marketing emails to individual customers if you’ve given them permission.

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New vs. Well-Established Casinos for UK Players

Some players prefer to stick with a live dealer site that feels like an old brown shoe or a well-worn hat and others may want to try new things more often. It’s all a matter of personal preference. However, as with all things in life, beyond personal style and preference, there are advantages and disadvantages to each approach.

We’ll look at the potential advantages and benefits, as well as any downsides, drawbacks, or pitfalls of each choice.

Let’s start with the negatives of joining a brand new online live dealer lobby in the UK…

Taking a broad view, the site may or may not be licensed by the Gambling Commission. If it isn’t, you would give up the benefits of certain protections and know that the operator abides by remote gambling and software technical standards under section 89 and section 97 of the Gambling Act 2005.

Going outside the UK licensing realm, Malta Gaming Authorities still require operators to keep player funds safe - “ring-fenced” separately from operators’ business assets. Other jurisdictions such as the Kahnawake Gaming Commission (Canadian First Nation) or Curacao regulators may not have such a requirement. While it’s rare for an operator or provider to go out of business, it does happen - even with UK-licensed sites.

Wherever the operator is licensed, the certificate was only tendered after business liquidity and the ability to pay winners has been proven. With such a competitive business environment and different management styles (perhaps giving too many lucrative player bonuses) the liquidity of any business can change quickly.

Finally, depending on how the loyalty scheme is administered at your “go-to” gaming venue, you may risk losing hard-won benefits if you take your action elsewhere.

On the flipside…

In any highly competitive market, the latest contestant simply has to try harder to attract new customers. Sometimes this can take the form of “loss-leaders” to incentivize a first deposit.

While rare, players may be able to find far more “beatable” bonuses when signing up with a new live dealer operation or switching play from one site to another.

Even with socially responsible promotion rules in the UK, the informed consumer still has a chance to find the most attractive inducements in some cases. It may be possible to create an advantage for yourself that simply doesn’t exist at your current gambling hub.

Since it is not illegal for offshore operators to serve players in the UK and since punters are free to exercise their own judgment - weighing the risk vs. reward of playing at non-whitelisted sites - expanding your choices beyond UKGC-licensed operators may reveal substantially more new operations along with the attendant benefit of an expanded choice in sign up bonuses, user-friendly terms, etc.

What Type of Games Can I Find at a New Live Dealer Portal?

Generally speaking, there are really no games to be found at your local or regional brick-and-mortar gaming establishment that can’t be found online now.

In the infancy of live dealer gaming, providers struggled to present the time-honored game of craps with the only entrant using 2 croupiers at the same time - one was simply a designated “shooter”.

Now, Evolution has a full-scale experience in a “speakeasy” environment. The player-engaging croupier is dressed in period attire featuring dark trousers with suspenders, a crisp white shirt, and a tie. The dice are shot with a robotic arm for all players at the same time.

The provider even offers a 3D random number generator version of the game in its “First Person” series for those who prefer to not engage socially while learning the game. First Person Craps also offers a simplified limited betting range for novice players to get their feet wet without getting in over their heads. The rules and odds are the same as with the live game and the live lobby is only one click away when you are ready to play with others.

Many of your favorite gameshows have a live dealer version now and more are coming down the pike all the time. Playtech, Evolution, Pragmatic Play Live, and others have various titles including giant slot machines with community betting. Simply place your bet and the host or hostess will spin the giant reels for everyone at the same time. Look for augmented reality bonus rounds or other enhancements to bolster the social aspect of these games.

Look for Monopoly Live, Deal or No Deal, Dream Catcher (bonus-enhanced money wheel), Crazy Time, Funky Time, Side Bet City, and even Football Studio and Football Studio Dice among many other exciting and engaging titles.

Classic games

The most popular games are blackjack,roulette,baccarat, and poker. Each type of game is presented in a variety of formats (with or without side bets, on a timed schedule, bet-behind with unlimited players, etc.) and different rules.

The rules of live games like blackjack can determine the return to player percentage (RTP) and house edge or odds as much or more than a practiced strategy and optimal play.

In general, adding a side bet will reduce your long-term returns - the trade-off is that when you do win, you can win a lot more. The same can be said of games with bonus elements like Super Sic Bo where rare and occasional returns can be 1000x higher than in the regular game, but other rules skin off a little more house edge to pay for the bonus enhancements.

Games with less volatility often have the highest RTP. Choosing a low-volatility game like blackjack with no side bets can allow players to grind out a small bankroll for hours while waiting for a decent winning streak to catapult them into “quit as a winner” territory.

Try the following low house-edge games and forgo any side bets to experience the highest RTP and make a small bankroll last longer:

Oracle Live Blackjack from Portomaso (Italian but not UK licensed) has a return of 99.70% when using optimal strategy.

BetConstruct's Live Blackjack comes in at 99.60%

Evolution's Infinite Blackjack (99.55%) and Playtech's Unlimited Blackjack (99.50%) offer super high returns and allow an unlimited number of players.

Ezugi offers a live game with rules that allow players using an optimal strategy to grind all day at 99.50% RTP and ViG (Visionary iGaming) offers the same house edge of just one-half of one percent.

Games like 21+3 Blackjack mix a “regular” game of blackjack with a side bet focused on creating a 3-card poker hand. Payouts are made according to a fixed-odds table of ranked poker hands.

Of course, with the low volatility index of "straight" blackjack games you will rarely win more than 1:1 or 3:2 from a bet. At the same time, adding a side bet can reduce your odds and offer much higher returns.

Crypto Gaming

SOFTSWISS pioneered cryptocurrency gambling on the internet more than a decade ago. Each year, the company releases a report on Gambling Trends. The latest data we’ve seen is supported in spades by the following statement from the industry leader in crypto betting over the last decade.

According to the SOFTWISS clients, live dealer games are leading the way among the crypto audience. According to 2022 quarterly data, 1 to 4 games in the top 7 most popular games among players were live dealer games from Evolution.

There are a lot of variables and differences between UKGC-regulated online gaming hubs and those licensed in Malta or even the Caribbean, but the numbers still show a definite swing in gamblers’ interests from strictly slots to other forms of online gambling such as live table games and even game shows with betting elements.

Of course, all it takes for the layman to know the increasing popularity of online live dealer studios is to look at the games offered by any UK-facing online casino. Whereas it may have been rare to find Evolution, Playtech, or any other provider’s games one click away a few years ago, now almost every licensed and regulated gaming site offers a live dealer lobby.

Whether you are a player in the UK looking for a “new to you” gaming spot or you want to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of playing at a brand-new UK online live dealer gaming hub, we have the information to help you decide if that is the best move for you!

Bonuses Available at Brand New Gaming Hubs

Very few gaming sites will offer a stand-alone live gaming bonus and most won’t even let you use bonus funds to play live games. Use our unique filtering tools to search for the best bonuses for your style of play.

One of the best exceptions to that truism is the fact that new sites often have better incentives. Operators know that more enticing offers are bound to draw new players and they can be more creative in attracting players by offering a variety of bonus types.

Pro Tip: We always suggest jumping straight to the bonus terms to find out if live games are allowed with a sign-up bonus and if so, what is the game weighting and what are the wagering requirements (if any).

Game weighting refers to have much of each currency unit gambled is counted against the wagering requirements. For instance - many well-established RNG casinos may allow blackjack betting but each pound of betting might only count five pence. This would be (WR)x20 as it takes twenty £1bets to count as 1 quid of betting.

If wagering is 30x bonus, that means that you would need to place and play 600 £1 bets to clear wagering.

Some operators go to extremes by setting wagering requirements (via game weighting) even higher than that. By looking for the most attractive offers, the next step is to determine the bonus rules. A new operator is more apt to give you a crushable offer than an older more established operator who has already seen both ends of the “virtual footfall” spectrum and is comfortable simply making a profit and staying in business.

While well-established operators like 888 can offer very user-friendly bonus terms for live gaming, most tried-and-true sites simply don’t. Brand new operators can be much “hungrier” for new business and that means you can often find far better offers.

Pro Tip: If a new operator offers an attractive sign-up bonus for slots and other games, check the terms for payout times, etc., and consider using any winnings from a traditional bonus to fund a cash-only deposit to play live games.

Live Dealer Regulations for UK Players

layers at UKGC-licensed casinos are assured of remote live gaming operators sticking to a robust framework of rules. Maltese-licensed providers and operators also answer to well-known authorities. When venturing off the beaten path, players need to rely not only on the casino operator being licensed but on the games being tested and certified by the proper auditing and test labs.

Testing agencies and laboratories like eCOGRA, BMM Testlabs, GLI, iTechLabs, TriSigma, SIQ, and QUINEL test and certify game fairness among other aspects of fair play.

Live dealer games require a certain set of tests and inspections. In addition to the obvious monitoring of game results to prove their statistical probability and RTP, agencies make sure that trained staff is delivering the product.

The testing agencies also confirm that policies are in place to resolve any errors and irregularities in gameplay and to prevent any collusion between players and dealers. Due to the nature of the games, it’s simply impossible for players to cheat in any studio-generated game. The only possible exception would be collusion with a dealer or a mixed game from a live gaming floor with a set number of seats and no bet behind option.

While some tables and games may be streamed from live floors rather than a segregated studio inside the bricks-and-sticks property, we are currently unaware of any live games that allow players into a floor game at the same time remote players are punting. Live tables from the UK, Malta, and other land-based casinos are almost always dedicated gaming environments for the remote player.

UK live dealer providers operate under the same standards as bingo providers - after all, they are both live games!

RTS 17 – Live dealer studios

The following is taken from the Gambling Commission’s website (Last updated: 27 January 2021):

RTS aim 17

To ensure that live dealer operations are fair.

RTS requirement 17A

Live dealer operations must be fair and independently auditable.

RTS implementation guidance 17A

Equipment and consumables should be of commercial casino quality. Designated staff should be responsible for monitoring the integrity of all operational equipment.

Croupiers need to undergo adequate training to provide the gambling in a fair way according to documented procedures and game rules. Evidence of training and refresher training should be maintained.

Gambling provision should be supervised by staff responsible to oversee dealer activities and integrity. Video surveillance to record all dealer activity should be in place, enough to cover the predefined gaming areas with sufficient detail to confirm whether dealing procedures and game rules were followed.

Secure areas, gambling equipment and consumables shall be protected by appropriate access controls to ensure that only authorised personnel are allowed access.

Game logs should be maintained and game events collated into statistics which can be analysed for trends relating to game performance, staff and/or locations in the gaming area.

Licensing authorities elsewhere are less transparent about B2B (business-to-business) requirements with no easily found public access to a provider’s requirements. A “fair game” might be all that needs to be proved. Even the UKGC requires a Freedom of Information Act request to reveal more detail than is found in RTS 17.

In other jurisdictions, such as Curacao, an actual provider may not need to be licensed at all as the provenance of its games may come under the casino operator’s license.

In a nutshell, live dealer gaming is the mode of play least vulnerable to any type of cheating. The odds are written in stone, just as they are by the rules of an in-person table game, and safeguards have been taken to protect players and operators at every level.

Newest UK Online Live Dealer Casinos

How to Join a Brand New Online Live Dealer Casino in the United Kingdom

Our Step-by-Step Guide

Casino

Our Rating

Bonus

W/R

Game Selection

Software Providers

New vs. Well-Established Casinos for UK Players

What Type of Games Can I Find at a New Live Dealer Portal?

Classic games

Crypto Gaming

Bonuses Available at Brand New Gaming Hubs

Live Dealer Regulations for UK Players

RTS 17 – Live dealer studios

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