How Has Live Poker Gaming Evolved Over the Years?

By  //  December 7, 2024

The online casino movement is in full swing right now with new emerging markets opening up in all corners of the world.

The evolution of online casinos was initially accelerated by the recent global pandemic, which confined people to their homes for large periods of time and prompted people all over the world to search for alternative online entertainment to pass the time. 

Alongside online gaming, lengthy video calls and other household activities such as baking bread, online casinos managed to establish themselves in the entertainment mainstream. Poker is a game that has been played through the ages, with any household item fashioned into chips in the past. However, the days of turning match sticks or pieces of paper into chips can be consigned to the past. 

The introduction of the internet opened up a completely new realm for poker. Online poker rooms have slowly developed and improved and nowadays, there is one aspect of online poker in particular has captured the imagination of many online casino players.

Live the live experience

With additional advances in technology and software, online poker platforms have been able to innovate quicker than many players can keep up with. Since the first online poker room, Planet Poker, was opened in 1998, many others have followed its example, creating the ability to play poker from the comfort of your home with friends or other players within the online poker community. 

While the no-thrill platforms lacked any exciting interaction beyond the block card graphics, metallic shuffling sound effects and basic actions required for a game of poker, online poker set its marker on the evolutionary timeline of poker. The software sufficed for that time period, but in recent years, poker gaming has undergone a new facelift, that is providing poker enthusiasts with a more interactive way of playing poker online. 

Bringing the dealer to you

Online poker has delighted players that have been seeking a more convenient outlet to play the popular game for years. However, if you play live poker, one of the topics of conversation amongst those in the online poker community is how to bridge the gap to the real-life experience. The online world does a brilliant job of providing new avenues to play games on the full range of devices, but always lacked the physical, human touch. That perception has been significantly altered over the past years with the introduction of live dealer games.

Creating a real-life experience

The strides made in technology have provided online casino providers with the ability to offer live dealer games with players connected to human beings performing the art of dealing via video link. High-tech cameras capture and seamlessly feed the action on the table back to the player with the game play just as smooth on live dealer games. 

This interactive poker aspect is created with the use of casino software that facilitates the transfer of data between the live dealing table and the player, wherever they may be. Players still register their actions on their device by clicking on the desired play icons, but the live unveiling of cards adds an exciting dimension to online poker play and creates that suspense poker players have been used to for decades.

What can we expect in the future? 

While the use of optical camera recognition (OCR) and studio settings marks the next stage in evolution for online poker, there are exciting innovations to look forward to that will further the realism of online poker gaming. The implementation of Virtual (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) is being talked about more regularly and once online casino platforms and the software artists behind them get a full understanding of how to most effectively integrate VR and AR into their poker games, the online poker community will witness perhaps the greatest stride in poker playing history.