Why live gaming?

Below is another slide from the BoleVerde webinar on live gaming.  The presentation focused more on issues from an operators’ perspective but this slide in particular revealed some really interesting points relevant to players so I thought it worth posting on.

The positive thing from the perspective of players wanting to play real-dealer rather than RNG casino games  are the metrics on broadband penetration (1st dot point) and video streaming technology (2nd last dot point).

One of the major limitations (or requirements) for a quality live gaming session is just how well the video streams to players’ computers which is a function of both player connection speed and streaming technology. The dealer doesn’t  pause the deal when your video freeze frames, nor do they slow it down if your video stream starts to lag significantly behind the deal so these 2 elements are critical.

According to above, broadband penetration continues to grow rapidly, particularly in developed countries – up almost 50% since 2007 when major software developers started pushing live dealers.  Combined with improved streaming technology, typical latency (ie time time between card actually being dealt and the video showing it as dealt) now averages 3 seconds compared with 15 seconds 3 years ago.

A 15 second lag would make these games a waste of time.  You can still play them (the deal is presented in computer graphic format as it happens – and it’s dictated by real cards, wheel etc and not a computer random number generator) but you want to see the vision as it unfolds – that’s kind of the cool part that makes it more like a real gaming experience.

This genre of casino gambling was always going to need delivery technology to catch up to make it ideal – and this was always going to happen; but it’s nice to see this evidenced in the stats.

LD