Games
Live dealer tables, real cards on a screen, and the rules that set the margin
A live dealer table puts a real person, real cards and a real wheel on a video stream, with the bets placed through the screen. It feels closer to a land-based casino than any slot, and in one respect it is kinder to a player's budget, while in another, the newer game shows, it can be considerably harsher than it looks.
How a live table works
A live table is filmed in a studio, where a dealer shuffles real cards or spins a real wheel in front of several cameras (one close, one wide, sometimes more), and the "stream" reaches the player's screen with the betting interface laid over it. The results are read by the studio's systems (cameras and "recognition software" that identify each card or pocket), so that the game can settle every bet automatically, and the same table usually serves many players at once.
Live dealer tables are among the products that registered sites in Alberta may offer under the province's rules, and most lobbies carry them from one or two "studio providers" (the companies that build and staff the studios and license the tables to casinos). The operator chooses which tables to offer; the rules of each table are set by the studio and printed in its "help screen", which is where we would look first.
Why the pace matters
The biggest difference is speed. A software blackjack game can deal a hand every few seconds, whereas a live dealer needs time to deal, to wait for decisions and to collect cards, so that a live table typically plays far fewer hands in an hour (and the cost of an hour depends on the number of hands as much as on the edge).
Take a hypothetical player who bets 10 a hand at blackjack with a "house edge" of about half a per cent, which is roughly what good rules and "basic strategy" allow. At a hundred hands an hour the expected cost is 5, while at three hundred hands of a fast software game it is 15, three times as much for the same bet and the same rules; that is the respect in which live tables are kinder, and it is worth knowing before choosing between them!
The rules still set the margin
A live table does not change the arithmetic of the game it shows. Live roulette on a single-zero wheel keeps 2.70 per cent of every standard bet (the arithmetic of the wheel is the same), exactly as the software version does, and live blackjack keeps whatever its rules allow, which depends on the payout for a blackjack, the number of decks and what the dealer does on seventeen.
Those rules, which are printed in the help screen of each table, differ from table to table even at the same studio, as far as we have seen. We would check the blackjack payout first (3 to 2 is the standard, 6 to 5 takes noticeably more), then the dealer's rule, then the options for doubling and splitting, as explained on the blackjack page.
Multipliers and game shows
Newer live games add "multipliers" to classic tables, such as roulette variants in which a few numbers are struck at random with a "multiplied payout". To pay for those multipliers the ordinary payouts are usually reduced (a "straight bet" that pays less than the classic 35 to 1, for instance), so the excitement is financed by the bets that do not win the multiplier, and the help screen states the return of each bet. Nothing is free.
"Game shows" go further, with wheels, bonus rounds and "presenters", and their returns vary widely from one bet to another, even when the bets sit on the same screen. We would read the published return of each bet before placing it, since in our reading of such games the most colourful bets are rarely the cheapest ones.
Disconnections and interrupted rounds
A stream can freeze or a connection drop in the middle of a hand. The table's rules say what happens then (usually the round continues and the bet is settled by the result, or a default decision is applied), and it is worth reading that paragraph before the first hand rather than during a disconnection.
Seats, limits and time
Live blackjack tables have a limited number of "seats" (seven is common), which is why some studios offer "bet behind" (betting on another player's hand without a seat of your own), and every table has its own minimum and maximum stake. The limits are printed on the table, and if your budget sits near the minimum, you will feel the swings far more than the stake suggests.
Time is the other thing a live table manages quietly (and the thing players notice last), since the conversation, the dealer and the rhythm make an hour pass quickly. Registered sites in Alberta must offer time limits as well as deposit and loss limits, and we would set one, if only for the first evening, before sitting down; the self-exclusion programme described on its own page covers live tables like every other product.
Where to go next
The two classic table games, which most live studios offer, are explained on blackjack and roulette, and our own demo hand of software blackjack, with its screenshots, is on BlackJack MH. The arithmetic of the margin, and why no pattern of bets changes it, is on betting systems.
By the Alberta Casinos Online editorial team · Last updated: November 13, 2026 · Online since 2026
