Emerging trends in live casino: Good and Bad

Here are a couple of trends emerging in live games lobbies of major providers. There’s both good and bad. Lets start with the bad.

The Bad

A growing number of providers are starting to fill up their live games lobbies with RNG tables – particularly in the blackjack sections.

Live blackjack comes with a human dealer and real playing cards. These are the crucial elements that separate live blackjack from RNG blackjack games where graphics are computer generated and outcomes are determined by random number generators. A game of live blackjack offers a vastly different playing experience to its RNG counterpart.

In the blackjack section of Iconic21 live games lobby you’ll now find in addition to live tables, a bunch of ‘360 Blackjack’ tables.

Open one of them and you’ll find that it’s an RNG table. No dealer, everything computer generated.

Iconic aren’t alone in sneaking RNG blackjack tables into their live lobby.

Pragmatic Play have added their ‘Blackjack X’ tables…

Playtech have added their ‘Blackjack VZN’ tables…

Evolution have been including their ‘First Person’ RNG tables in amongst live tables for some time now.

The reason for the RNG blackjack table invasion comes down to economics. More live blackjack tables require more physical tables, dealers, cameras and studio floor space. These are all things that are expensive and time consuming to add. Even Evolution, who have the  largest number of available live tables available (1,700 at start of 2025), have conceded in the past that they can’t open studios fast enough to keep up with player demand.

Additional RNG tables can be added without the time, cost and complexity of live tables. The marginal cost to Pragmatic of adding an extra Blackjack X table is zero.

It’s a convenient solution (from a casino/provider perspective) to seat scarcity during busy times.

We’re also starting to see more live dealer tables without live dealers. Iconic’s Sic Bo table (above), and their newly released football themed dice game, ‘The Kickoff’ are examples.

The Good

Live lobbies are getting smarter, making it easier to find you’re preferred table by way of offering more filter options. Just as well too, because the number of tables to navigate keeps growing.

Take Playtech’s live blackjack lobby above, where you can filter tables based on a range of criteria including limit range ($1-$5, $10–$50, $100-$500, $1,000+), EU style deal, US style deal, speed deal, native language dealers and whether multipliers are included.

Baccarat players hunting hot roads will find this filter across more providers. First offered by Evolution then Pragmatic, this feature is now also offered by Playtech (they call it Good Roads).