Live Craps Online

Online casino players who like to indulge in a game of craps now and again often complain that although live versions of blackjack, roulette and baccarat are widely available online, live craps games cannot be found anywhere. Whilst such an absence might seem strange to the casual craps player, more experienced players generally aren’t surprised by the lack of live craps at all. Why? Because craps is one of the few games that players would find hard to trust if it were offered as a live game in its current form.

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As regular readers will be aware, live online casino games are played using physical casino equipment and human dealers, and the game is broadcast live to the player using video streaming technology. That approach works extremely well in games like blackjack, roulette and baccarat, where the only thing that the human being is doing is dealing the cards or spinning a roulette wheel, but in a game of craps he or she would also need to act as the Shooter (the person throwing the dice), and that introduces all sorts of problems.

How would the player be able to tell if the dice were being thrown is a genuinely unbiased fashion? Could the Shooter be trusted to throw the dice fairly and in a uniform way? These are just a couple of the questions that players would start asking themselves, and when there is that kind of doubt in the mind of the player, the online gaming experience is obviously a lot less enjoyable than it could be.

Some players might argue that someone else is often acting as the Shooter at a regular craps table at an offline casino, and they would of course be right. However, the big difference there is that the Shooter at an offline game is a fellow player, and not someone who works for the house as an employee.

For all of the reasons outlined here, it is doubtful that – in its current form – any game of live craps online would ever prove to be as popular as live blackjack or live roulette. Having said that, we do think that craps has the potential to become a popular live game if the questions surrounding the Shooter could be eliminated.

And how might that be achieved? Well, why not have a machine throw the dice instead of a human being? That approach would go a long way to alleviating any trust issues whilst still allowing players to see real dice bounce around the table.

Whether that kind of idea will be implemented at some point in the future remains to be seen, but for the time being online craps game look set to continue as they are. The good news for players is that modern online craps games are incredibly realistic as well as hugely enjoyable, so we won’t have to worry about getting bored as we wait to see if live craps online ever becomes a reality.

Michael Hastings

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