Live dealer casino games are one of the most popular formats in the business today, and you'll see them at basically all good online casinos. But how did they get started, and how did they become the staple of the scene they are today?


This article will cover the evolution and history of the early days of live casino game streaming. It will then look at all of the biggest recent developments - HD streaming, game shows, broader legalization and regulation - that have turned. it into a multiple billion dollar market over the last two decades.


A Brief Timeline of Early Live Casino Developments


Early 2000s - The first online casinos launched in thew late 90s with virtual blackjack and roulette games. British developer CasinoWebCam launched in 2003. It streamed games from live casinos and then overlaid the results on a virtual display. However, internet speeds and camera quality kept it as a niche market because games were slow and clunky and the real cards or tables were difficult to make out. Early video streaming sites offered only around 10 to 16 frames per second at best.


In 2004 Playtech and a few other early adopters began streaming live casino games from rooms attached to existing casinos, with rudimentary betting overlays and limited features.


In 2005 - a British company called SuperCasino launched an interactive TV gambling channel in the UK. It used TV technology to stream games and players placed bets on roulette using their remotes. Others soon followed, although the market died fairly quickly when online live casino games took over.


In 2006 live video streaming technology was really taking off with JustinTV, a site that proved 24/7 reasonable quality streaming with live viewer chat and interactive elements was very much possible. That year, already well-established casino developer Microgaming started its live casino platform. However, the biggest event of that time for live casino was in 2006, in Stockholm, Sweden, with the launch of a little company called Evolution Gaming.


One Company Grew the Business Incredibly in the 2010s


Live dealer games continued to grow over the late 2000s, with Evolution quickly becoming the preferred provider for casinos in Europe. Its dedicated studio, high quality cameras and user interface proved more popular with players than the offerings of existing big online casino players at the time.


By the end of the decade, casinos started adding dedicated live casino tabs to their homepages. The early 2010s was when mobile casino gaming started to gain in popularity, and live casinos soon adapted to that environment as well. By the mid 2010s, Evolution was still the market leader but other developers were rapidly improving their offerings and catching up in standards.


The first live dealer platforms to launch in regulated American markets debuted in 2015, with operator Ezugi (later bought by Evolution) partnering with New Jersey casinos. By this time operators were running huge studios with hundreds of tables operating 24/7, all over the world.


It wasn't until 2017, that things would really shake up in the business again with the debut of a new format that would rapidly become incredibly popular with players. However, over that decade Evolution had grown from an unknown developer to a billion dollar company, while shares were up hundreds of percentage points. And things were only just getting started.


Game Show Titles are the New Standard of Live Casino Experiences


Evolution's 2017 Dream Catcher debuted a new kind of casino game - the live casino game show. This introduced a large physical prize wheel, high production value sets with costumes for presenters and potential big prizes (if the wheel hits just right). And it was a massive hit with players.


Over the the next few years Evolution would add dozens more of these kind of games, and other developers would also join in with their own. Evolution's Lightning Roulette in 2018 was also a gamechanger, adding slots-like bonus elements and live casino production to traditional casino game formats.


2020 was also the year that Evolution completed its $2 billion acquisition of Swedish slot developer NetEnt, which was one of the biggest corporate moves in the online gambling world at the time. Live casino games as a market has only continued to grow since then and it is now worth some $3 billion yearly in the US alone.


Just some of the hundreds of options available across the world today include:

  • Crazy Time by Evolution
  • MONOPOLY Live by Evolution
  • Sweet Bonanza Candyland by Pragmatic Play
  • Lightning Roulette by Evolution
  • Spin a Win by Playtech
  • Power Up Roulette by Pragmatic Play

Crash Games and Other Multiplayer Social Casino Titles Continue the Innovation

Live casino games today generate up to 30% of some online casinos revenues, according to research. But where are things headed in the future?


Well, for one thing the market is more competitive than ever. Players expect innovation and high quality from game selections, but also all other aspects of a casino operation. Gamblers might look for information through comparative resources such as onlinecasino.ca's guide to get great fast withdrawal casinos in Canada. Third-party reviewers help potential customers assess the best options from what live casino games are on offer, to how fast withdrawals are and what payment choices are available.


This creates pressure on the market, forcing operators into further innovations to keep up with most interesting titles. The live casino model of a live chat interacting while playing and watching the same gambling game is now being adapted into lots of different formats. Developers are adding virtual elements to titles or making live presenter versions of new casino innovations like crash games.