2022: Live dealers in review

At the beginning of 2022 we ushered in the year of the Tiger, hoping it might help return the world to some semblance of normality. Or at the very least, a reason finally to bet Tiger on Playtech’s Bet On Dragon Tiger game.

It didn’t take long for the first new live games of 2022 to appear. First cab off the rank was Playtech’s Fashion Baccarat, which stretched the definition of a new game.

This was followed shortly after by Evolution’s Bac Bo. An actual new live game.

Pragmatic Play went all-in with efforts to grow their market share launching the promo of all promos. Drops and Wins would see €/£500,000 given away each month to players on their live tables for over a year. It’s still running by the way.

As for the most popular live games for 2022, Game Shows continued their dominance. This popularity only encouraged the providers to introduce more of them. More multipliers, more contraptions, more over-enthusiastic presenters.

There were variations on old themes:

XXXtreme Lightning Roulette, Quantum Blackjack Plus, x1000 Quantum Roulette, and Monopoly Big Baller.

There were the new themes:

Gold Bar Roulette, Boom City, and Dead or Alive Saloon.

Then there were slot games games with a presenter, trying to call themselves live casino games. Not sure about this one.

It wasn’t all about game shows. There were new table games too. More baccarat variations, Andar Bahar, Teen Patti, and and ever growing range of traditional 7 seat blackjack tables across all providers. For a little perspective, we established that the largest live online casinos are now more than twice the size of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas. That’s in terms of available tables (not buffet size).

Of course to accommodate all these tables, new studios had to be built. Old studios had to be expanded. Evolution open their Connecticut studio, Madrid studio and a 2nd studio in New Jersey. While newcomer OnAir Entertainment had plans to open studios pretty much everywhere.

OnAir weren’t the only new providers to make a splash. Stakelogic signed a few big name operators. They’re a cousin of sorts to Pragmatic Play, and like Pragmatic their games follow the Evolution blue print pretty closely.

Live casino awards season threw up a couple of surprises – Vivo Gaming taking EGRB2B live casino supplier crown of Evolution was chief among them.

Football Studio Dice made an appearance just in time for the World Cup. And what a World Cup it was – particularly for Messi fans. But also for those of us that like high scoring games.

And here we now are.  On the verge of 2023.

Have a great new year all!