Live Dealer Poker Online

Play your favorite casino games such as Blackjack, roulette, Super 6 and Baccarat with any of our Casino Live Dealers right your home at Ignition Casino. The best casino to play live Three Card Poker (Three Card Brag) is William Hill. Not only are they one of the most trusted names in the online gambling world, they also offer an extremely.

Poker games of any kind are old favorites among casino goes, but games like Texas Hold’em poker in particular have seen an explosion in popularity over the last decade. There are tournaments on major television networks and online poker which has brought every imaginable kind of poker game into the homes of millions. These standard poker sites are still incredibly popular because their members have been around for years, but if you are going to play poker online, you need to play it in the best way possible.

As such, you should quit relying on a computer to deal your cards and start playing live games – the premium option for modern poker players. Live games have already revolutionized casino gaming for all types of table game enthusiasts and now they are doing the same thing for poker players.

If you want to know more read on, but if the thought of live online poker has already grasped your imagination, check our favorites site now in our toplist below:


Live casino games are so simple that it is amazing they were not introduced earlier. Basically, these are games that exist in the real world, with the action unfolding on a genuine poker table and with a physical deck of cards. Most importantly, there is a human running the game. To an observer, all that is missing is a group of poker players. This is because the players are actually playing remotely from their computers. Betting and folding is handled just as if they were in a normal online poker room, but the rest of the game is played in real life. You actually get to see real cards on the table, and all games operate under video cameras. These send high quality audio and video to your computer screen via the latest webcam technology.

Part of the reason that live casino games have been accepted so much more quickly is the fact that regular poker sites already offer one of the big perks of live gaming – interaction. Poker players are pitted against each other, not the house, and a kind of community naturally forms. The shift to playing live games is less revolutionary for poker players than it is for casino enthusiasts, but live dealer poker does have a lot to offer.

Why Live Poker Is Expanding

Cheating is a legitimate problem within online poker rooms. Sure the poker site itself does not have any motivation to cheat, but the individual players and employees do. The scandal at Ultimate Bet’s poker room is a perfect example of this. A number of player accounts were able to see all of the hole cards at their table and, obviously, these players could win on an extremely regular basis. This kind of cheating is theoretically possible at live casinos as well but since the cards are out of the reach of hackers, there are at least fewer vulnerabilities when playing live online poker games.

Most of these live poker games operate on live online casino sites using the same advanced software packages. This kind of streaming software allows you to play on all kinds of computers without downloading anything because the game is completely contained within your web browser. The combination of live video and a powerful digital gaming interface makes for an efficient final product. Games can be played at a fast pace even though there is a real dealer conducting the game.

Famed for its world class live casino, DublinBet.com is fast becoming one of the premier providers of live poker online. Like the site’s name says, this live gambling website operates in Dublin. More specifically, the company is located within the Fitzwilliam Casino and Card House. This is Dublin’s largest casino and it falls under the government’s jurisdiction. They are a licensed gaming company that offers daily Texas Hold’em games in the evenings, and as live online poker becomes more popular, this is probably the live poker site to keep an eye on.

Types of Live Dealer Poker Available

Players will be happy to discover that online live poker now comes in several variations, so you’ll never be bored of playing the same game over and over again.

Here’s a list of the most common poker variations found in most live dealer online casinos and how they differ from each other, in terms of rules, payout and more.

One tip to keep in mind with live dealer poker is that you are playing against the house rather than against other players, so you don’t have to worry about bluffing here.

Live Caribbean Stud Poker

Caribbean Stud Poker involves playing against the dealer directly rather than against other players, adding more than a little excitement to this poker variant. The dealer must show one of his cards throughout the game while the rules of gameplay are otherwise similar to that of 5-card stud, with both sides playing with 5 cards. There is also a progressive jackpot in play making for some thrilling gameplay and the possibility of hefty wins!

Live Texas Hold’em Poker

This is the most popular of online poker variants and you will probably have come across in movies and tv shows too. The game comprises 5 community cards and 2 hidden hole cards face-up and makes for an action-packed, high strategy variant that’s perfect for both beginners and experienced players alike.

Live Pai Gow Poker

Players must try to beat the banker in this poker variant, who is represented by either the house or another player at the table. A joker is thrown into the mix here too, which can be used as an Ace or to fill in a straight or flush. Players are dealt 7 cards which must then be divided into 5-card hand and a 2-card hand. In order to win the game, both your hands must beat the dealer’s.

Live Casino Hold’em

Casino Hold’em is similar to Caribbean Stud Poker, since players must form the best 5-card hand to win. The only difference is that both parties are only dealt two cards.

Live Online Poker Tournaments

Online poker tournaments have garnered extreme popularity in recent years due to several factors. The Return on Investment is significantly higher for starters and losses are not too big either.

Best Online Casinos Providing Poker Live

So the only question that really remains is where exactly can you play poker live online? Well, you have no need to fret as we’re one step ahead of you. Here’s a list of the best current online casinos that offer live dealer poker to their players.

This list is updated regularly so you can always tune into the best deals that are on the market at any given time. These casinos also offer some pretty great bonuses to get you started in style… another awesome plus of playing games like poker online!

Pros of Playing Poker Live

The advances in technology have made live dealer games in online casinos a real possibility and more common than ever before. There are several pros when it comes to playing live dealer games online but most players will list convenience at the top of list.

You don’t need to buy expensive plane tickets to Vegas or Atlantic City and fork out more money to book a hotel just to get some pure unadulterated gaming entertainment. Live dealer games have made it possible to get the same awesome gaming thrills that you can get at a physical brick and mortar casino from the comfort of your own living room!

The possibilities are endless when you consider how much time and money you could be saving by playing live dealer game online.

Playing Live Dealer Poker on Mobile

Did you know you can play poker live on mobile too? Once again we have technology to thank for making it possible for online casinos to transfer their user experience to the smaller screens too. Nowadays, the convenience of live dealer games extends to playing from other devices such as smartphones and tablets too, as well as you pc or laptop. This means you can get tune into to all the entertainment these games have to offer from wherever you are, whether that be at home or on the go. Mobile live casinos make playing games like poker easier than ever.

Pick a card. Any card.

Okay, now pick another, but don’t look at it.

Now, bet me that the card you haven’t looked at is better than the card you have looked at. Oh, and you can make a side bet that the next card in the deck will be a face card.

Guess what. We just invented a new poker game. What’s it called? Um, how about “Up and Down the River Snake”? That name work for you?

Seriously, sometimes it seems like there are more games of poker than there are cards in an 8-deck shoe. Even online, the many faces of poker abound, from Casino Hold’em to 3-card Poker to Caribbean Stud. There seems to be a poker game tailormade for each one of us.

Okay, maybe that’s not entirely accurate, but you are certain to find your flavor of poker among the many live poker tables online. Here’s a list of some of our favorites:

Why Live Poker?

First of all, let’s define what we mean when we say “live poker.” In fact, let’s look at the word “poker” itself.

A contemporary definition of poker would be that it is a game played with a single 52-card deck, and a group of players (from two to eight or nine) bet one another that they have (or will have) the best hand, with “best” being pretty consistent with standard poker hands.

Live poker is a special subset of that definition. When people say “live poker” they’re generally talking about the table games found at a casino—poker as it might be played heads-up against a single opponent: The dealer. And the dealer is “live” as opposed to being “on tape” or “pre-recorded.” The Revolution may not be televised, but your next Caribbean Stud hand will be.

Anyone who has ever played Texas Hold’em heads-up knows the adrenaline never stops flowing. Every hand is the very epitome of excitement as it somehow simultaneously promises to reduce you to penury or to make your fortune.

Casinos liked the idea of customers looking for a thrill ride, and table games featuring streamlined versions of popular poker games began to appear in the pits. Games with oddly familiar names like Casino Hold’em and Caribbean Stud began to gain in popularity.

And then the Internet happened. In just a couple decades, gambling on the Internet proliferated until it was hard to find a corner of the earth where someone was not crowing about the time they were dealt a natural royal at the 3-Card Poker table, or sadly musing that they should have paid more attention to the dealer’s outs before they made that disastrous raise.

And then—just when you thought it couldn’t get much better—live streaming hit the streets.

It was simple, really. Anyone could have predicted it. All it took was a combination of the higher transmission speeds afforded by DSL and fiber networks, along with a significant reduction in the price of professional quality video cameras, and the development of even tighter compression algorithms used in data streaming.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t all that simple, but the effect was still delightful, and now all of us can have a pretty lady with a delightful accent dealing Casino Hold’em to us at 3 o’clock in the morning while we eat cheesy-poofs and sip another Red Bull.

Before we get into the various differences you will find between a specific live poker game at an online casino and its counterpart at a table inside a brick and mortar casino, let’s talk about the interface.

The interface is that part of the online live poker game you actually see on your screen, and which you interact with in order to ante, place a bet, call, stand, or fold. You also use it to deposit more money, tip the dealer, and chat with the dealer as well as other players who may be at the table.

Yes, there may be other players.

Depending on the game, they may be sitting at the table with you (meaning their cards and betting actions are visible to you), or they may be “play-behind” players, meaning they are actually playing the same hand you are playing.

It’s important to be aware of “play-behind” because it can be disconcerting to see a folded hand you deemed a losing proposition draw another card. No, you didn’t accidentally raise with a 7-2 offsuit, but somebody doing play-behind did.

In any case, the onscreen interface changes only slightly between the various live poker games for the simple reason that after all is said and done, all live poker games involve a 52-card deck, some chips, a dealer, and lastly, you.

The camera’s perspective is usually what a relatively tall person would see sitting directly in front of the dealer at a casino gaming table. The dealer facing you is almost always a woman for the very simple reason that the vast majority of online live poker players are men. Sorry, we don’t make the rules; that’s just how it works out.

On the right side of the table is a shoe containing a recently-shuffled deck of cards, while the left side is either a card-shuffling machine or a second pretty lady manually shuffling decks of cards for later use. We personally favor the second pretty lady to the shuffling machine. But that’s just us.

The table itself will be marked with the various bets and side bets that can be made, and sometimes with the payouts for various winning hands.

Along the bottom of the screen will be your chips (your bankroll is broken up into various denominations) as well as a few icons you can click to read the rules of the game, adjust the sound volume, or set various options that may pertain to that specific game. Additionally, the total amount you’ve bet this hand should be displayed, along with your winnings (when they happen).

Elsewhere, but most likely to the bottom left, you’ll find a chat window. Now, while the dealer will speak during the play (which is good, since this contributes greatly to the “live” feel of the experience), you and the other players are limited to typing comments via the chat window.

Also on the screen will be a timer, which shows how long you have left to place a bet or make some other wagering decision.

During play, you’ll often see text superimposed over the image citing your hand’s current value (“One Pair,” for example). You might imagine the production studio streaming this particular game has employed someone whose sole job is to evaluate and text you what the hand’s value is, but you would be wrong.

Next to the one-deck shoe that the dealer draws cards from is a slot in the table’s surface. As each card is drawn from the shoe, an optical scanner reads it through the slot and records it. A computer takes note of all the cards, then—after it does some calculations—generates an image alerting you to the best value of your hand.

This can be helpful if for some reason you noticed your pair of aces but failed to see your flush.

One important note: Live streaming poker (or anything else live streamed, for that matter) is expensive to produce. Bandwidth costs alone are huge and represent a significant expense to the production company. To that, we can add the expense of professional-grade video cameras, top quality sound equipment, stage lighting arrays, and electricity to keep it all running, 24 hours a day, every day.

Online casinos, at one time, were basically niche software developers. Instead of designing a word processor or a spreadsheeting program, they instead fine-tuned random number generation algorithms and designed graphic representations of the king of hearts.

Live streaming of actual dealers at real tables playing real-time games (with nary an RNG in sight) changed all that. It gave the online casino an entirely new way to generate revenue—er, to serve more honored guests, we mean—but at a price. To offset this price, the online casinos turned to other software developers, who quickly set up entire studios filled with nothing but dealers and tables and cameras and lights and—well, you get the idea.

Long story short: It ain’t cheap to stream live poker, so don’t expect to find much nickel-dime-quarter action out in cyberspace.

At least spare a moment to admire the majesty of such a magnificent, complex system representing the continuing efforts of thousands of people—and all so we can enjoy the aforementioned cheesy-poofs and Red Bull at three in the morning while being dealt Casino Hold’em by the aforementioned pretty lady in an evening gown.

There are a few different poker games featured live online, and most of them are variations on the galactically popular Texas Hold’em.

This modified version of Texas Hold’em is not quite indistinguishable from the three players/one dealer version that first appeared in actual brick and mortar casinos a couple of decades ago. It’s you (not counting play-behind) versus the dealer.

It requires the dealer to have a qualifying hand of at least a pair of 4s; otherwise your ante is pushed, and a new hand is dealt.

Additionally, there is typically a side bet on the screen for [a pair of] “aces or better.” The other two betting areas are “call” and “ante.” No opportunity to bet is offered after the turn or the river.

This is similar to Casino Hold’em, except that the dealer’s hand qualifies with any pair, and betting at the turn is permitted. There’s also a side bet for trips, which can be won irrespective of the dealer’s hand. In fact, the bet is settled as soon as the dealer’s hand is revealed.

One streaming producer calls their version Ultimate Texas Hold’em, while another may call theirs Texas Hold’em Bonus or even Single Texas Hold’em Bonus. But in most cases, the differences are cosmetic. Still, read the rules carefully.

Generally, there will be four betting circles or areas on the screen: One for the side bet “trips,” one for “ante”—which is usually paired with “blind” because both bets are made at the same time (prior to the deal) and are of equal amounts.

The final circle is “play,” which is, ironically enough, used to raise at various times during the play (you’re only permitted one “play” bet per hand, but it’s a big one: four times your ante bet).

Live Caribbean Stud Poker may not be the spitting image of Casino Hold’em, but they’re probably second cousins. In live dealer Caribbean Stud poker, the dealer needs an ace-king or better to have a qualifying hand. As with all forms of live dealer hold’em, an ante bet is required prior to the deal.

After the ante, you and the dealer are dealt five cards each. Yours are all face-up, while the dealer’s are all face down—except for the fifth card, which is dealt face up.

The rest of the play proceeds almost like a regular game of poker. You are afforded the opportunity to bet or fold after the deal. Once you’ve raised (this is confusingly called a call bet, although it is usually required to be double your ante), all cards are turned face up, and a winner is determined.

Live Caribbean Stud poker’s distinguishing feature is the 5+1 side bet, which requires you to build a five-card hand of your five cards and that one card the dealer dealt to herself face-up. As with the trips bet in live Texas Hold’em, winning the 5+1 side bet is irrespective of the dealer’s hand. It is won simply by having trips or better, and the win is paid in accordance with a chart of payouts that should be printed on the table itself, or immediately available via an icon.

The layout of the live Caribbean Stud poker screen is similar to all the others, with the three betting areas marked as “5+1 bonus,” “call,” and “ante.” You’ll typically be afforded the opportunity to call or fold with a pop-up once the cards have all been dealt.

3-Card Poker is actually a recent invention, but its acceptance into the hallowed halls of poker fame has been nothing short of phenomenal. Created and patented by Derek Webb in the mid-90s, 3-Card Poker is a clever combination of the familiar with the novel.

3-Card Poker features two (two!) side bets: The pair plus bonus bet, which pays even money when you draw a pair, and the 6-card bonus bet, which uses both the dealer’s three cards and your three cards to make the best five-card poker hand possible.

The live 3-Card Poker layout onscreen should be pretty familiar by now, with the three betting areas marked as “5+1 bonus,” “call,” and “ante.”

Four Tips for the Live Dealer Poker Player

Live Poker News

Some of the live poker games offered by online casinos are proprietary to specific software developers. While the game itself may appear to be identical to another, that often isn’t the case. For example, one form of Texas Hold’em requires you to ante, while another requires the dealer to do so, as well. Seems minor, but it changes your RTP (Return to Player).

Some identical-looking games may offer jackpots others do not. These jackpots are usually progressive and can be quite impressive—but you must place a specific bet prior to each hand to qualify for it. Some games may even feature a bad beat bonus—just another good reason to always read and understand the rules of each game before playing.

All reputable online casinos will post the rules of each of their games prominently. Read’em or weep.

Poker Dealer School

Every online casino that plans to be around more than a month or two offers many bonuses to gamblers who will play at their tables, and, —more importantly—keep returning to play at their tables. That’s why you can actually get paid to sit down at one of their live poker tables and play a few hands.

Welcome (or sign-up) bonuses can range from 50% to 200% (and sometimes even more) of your initial deposit amount and reload bonuses (which are exactly what you think they are) can also be quite generous. Always remember, however, that the online casino will expect playthrough from you equal to a multiple of your deposit as well as the bonus before you can consider the bonus truly yours.

Live Poker Online For Money

A typical formula used by the online casinos is 30x your deposit plus bonus. Always check the online casinos special “promotional terms and conditions” for specific rules governing payout of bonuses.

If you started out playing Caribbean Stud poker in a brick and mortar casino, you might be taken aback by how much faster the live game is at an online casino. It seems counter-intuitive. After all, both versions feature a live dealer, the same 52-card deck dealt from the same plexiglass shoe, and the same sequence of card-bet-card-stand-showdown.

You forget that a significant portion of the game is the evaluation of the cards at each stage of the game. This is all handled online by a computer, which is even faster at spotting a winning hand, mostly because the computer hasn’t downed four margaritas prior to sitting down to play.

It’s also because there’s a timer run at each stage of the hand’s progress. Time is money to the online casino.

The biggest surprise to players who have experience with regular Texas Hold’em and other communal poker games is that bluffing has absolutely no part in live dealer poker games. It’s you versus the dealer. The dealer’s actions are limited and permit no variations, and your choices are restricted to anteing, calling, raising, or folding.

Ditto for bullying. You can’t bully the dealer with a series of aggressive bets. Frankly, the dealer couldn’t care less.

While this may be disconcerting at first, it can also free you to pay more attention to other aspects of the game, such as the actual odds each hand might have for winning, or even the number of outs the dealer might have. As with the rules, you should prepare yourself for online live poker by learning the odds. Also, knowing your outs—and the dealer’s possible outs and how they affect your hand—can sometimes make all the difference.

Live Poker Online Real Money

There are many companies producing live dealer poker software as well as actually streaming video, and each company has its own take on odds, payouts, and side bets. Be sure you have educated yourself thoroughly before anteing up. A good start would be to tour the top live dealer poker tables at any of the top casino sites we listed earlier.

Live Poker Online

Good luck!