How Live Dealer Casino Games Work: Streaming, Betting Windows and Results

A live dealer game is a real table, with a real dealer, wheel or cards, filmed and streamed to your screen. You place bets through buttons on the screen while a timer runs. When betting closes, the dealer spins, deals or rolls, the physical result decides the round, and the game settles your bets automatically. The live rules we read at Loto-Québec and PlayNow describe this with traffic lights: green when you can bet, yellow when betting time is nearly over, red when it has expired. The result is produced by the dealer after betting closes, and a malfunction voids the round. Loto-Québec’s French Roulette rules add a validity check: the ball must complete at least six full revolutions before dropping, or the spin is declared invalid.

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What do you see, and what do you control?

You see the table through the stream and a betting interface laid over it: the layout or bet spots, your balance, chip values, the timer and the table’s limits. You control only your bets and, in card games such as blackjack, your decisions when it is your turn. The dealer handles the cards, wheel or dice. You cannot speed up or slow down the game, which follows a fixed rhythm set by the table.

How does the betting window work?

Each round opens with a betting period. In the Loto-Québec and PlayNow rules we read, the traffic lights show its state:

Green: bets are open.
Yellow: betting time is nearly over.
Red: betting has closed.

A bet that is not confirmed before the light turns red does not play in that round. In blackjack there is also a decision window when your hand comes up. Loto-Québec’s Speed Blackjack gives the next card to the fastest decision first, so the pace is set by the players.

Where does the result come from?

From the physical game. In roulette, the dealer spins the ball and the pocket it lands in is the result. Loto-Québec’s French Roulette rules require at least six full revolutions of the ball before it drops, otherwise the spin is invalid; its Immersive Roulette rules require at least three. In blackjack and baccarat, the cards dealt from the shoe decide the hand, and in craps, the dice.

Some tables add a computer-generated layer on top of the physical result. Loto-Québec’s Lightning Roulette, Gold Vault Roulette and Red Door Roulette add random features that change straight-up payouts, and their rules show a straight-up RTP of 97.10% at Lightning and Gold Vault and 97.09% at Red Door, against 97.30% on a standard single-zero table. The extra features are paid for with a slightly lower return on those bets.

What happens if something goes wrong?

The rules we read say a malfunction voids the round. A voided round means that round does not count. What happens to your bet when your own connection drops, rather than the table’s equipment, was not in the rules we recorded, so check the table’s rules panel for it.

How many people can play at once?

It depends on the game. BetMGM’s live American Blackjack in Ontario has seven seats. 888casino’s live lobby in Ontario shows seat counts, for example 4 seats at Sports Blackjack 1 and 8 at Speed Baccarat 1. Loto-Québec’s Infinite Blackjack takes unlimited players: everyone shares the same starting cards and makes their own decisions. Roulette and game shows are built for many players at once, because everyone bets on the same result.

Who runs the tables?

Several casinos we checked name a game studio as the provider. Loto-Québec’s Red Door Roulette and Gold Vault Roulette rules refer to “your Evolution game rounds”, naming Evolution as the provider; the other Loto-Québec documents we read do not name one. PlayOJO’s Ontario live page lists Craps By Evolution and Quantum Roulette Live By PlayTech. The same table names turn up at more than one casino: Red Door Roulette is in both Loto-Québec’s and PlayOJO’s lobbies, and Gold Vault Roulette at Loto-Québec and BetRivers (Ontario). Limits can still differ by casino, so read them where you play.

Are game shows the same as table games?

Not quite. Betty’s public lobby in Ontario has a Live Game Shows row with titles such as Crazy Time, Monopoly Live and Funky Time; we did not see live blackjack or roulette tables in its public lobby. Game shows are hosted and streamed like table games, but the result comes from a wheel or bonus round with its own paytable. Check their RTP in the game info like any other game.

Where are the rules before you bet?

Ontario sets a requirement. Standard 4.06 of the AGCO’s Registrar’s Standards for Internet Gaming says that before a bet, game rules or help pages must give comprehensive and accurate information on the odds of winning, payouts or returns to players, and elements that affect play such as the number of decks. Loto-Québec and PlayNow publish rules documents for each live table. At other casinos the rules open inside the game, after login, and logged-out lobbies may not match what you get after signing in: PlayOJO notes that games shown on its logged-out page are illustrative and some may not be available after login.

What we could not confirm

What happens to a bet when the player’s own connection drops: not in the rules we recorded.
Technical details of the studios, such as camera set-up and how results are read into the game: not described in the rules documents we read.

Check a live table yourself

Before your first bet, open the rules panel and look for four things: the payouts or RTP, the table limits, what happens if the round is voided or your connection drops, and any extra feature that changes payouts. Watch the timer on a round or two before you bet so you know how long the window lasts. Our guides to how to play casino blackjack, casino baccarat and casino craps cover the games themselves.