Welcome to Live Dealers Australia
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Top Australian Live Dealer Casinos
Top 5 bonuses for Aussies!
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Live Dealer Software Providers for Aussies
The Laws and Regulations
Gambling has been an integral part of Australian culture for more than 200 years. The very first horserace occurred in 1810 in Sydney’s Hyde Park, the first Australian lottery took place in 1881 at the Sydney Cup, 1956 saw the first legal poker machines, and in 1973 Wrest Point in Hobart was opened as the first Australian casino.
Nowadays there are 20+ casinos operating all over the country, plus hundreds of smaller establishments offering pokie machines – the most popular type of gambling among local players.
The regulation of gambling activities in Australia is done on two levels, with the central government responsible for the supervision and adding or amending laws, and several regional authorities regulating the market at the state and territorial level.
For decades, gambling laws in Australia have been rather liberal. However, seeing that over 80% of Australian adults participate in gambling activity of one type or another (the highest gambling rate in in the world!), and hundreds of thousands experience related problem behaviour, the Government has decided to take certain measures with the intention of protecting their residents from harmful effects of online gambling.
The Interactive Gambling Act, passed by The Australian Commonwealth Parliament in 2001, made it an offence to offer and advertise real-money gambling services to Australian citizens. The Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill of 2016, primarily aiming to stop unlicensed sports betting operators from servicing Australian customers, had the unfortunate side effect of banning online poker.
However, the limitations deal mainly with gambling operators and the Act does not prohibit individuals from wagering online. Even if the available options are not as plentiful as they once were, one can find quite a few foreign operators willing to offer their services to Aussie gamblers, and playing their games with real cash is completely legal.
Most Popular Games In Australia
It’s definitely online pokies, but table games do have some following too. Sadly due to the current legislative state you won’t be able to play live dealer games from many of the top providers.
However, there are a couple of casinos like BitStarz, that seem to offer the very best live dealer games from EVO, Vivo Gaming and Lucky Streak to Aussie players.
Payment Methods Frequently Used in Australia
Players from Down Under will normally fund their online casino accounts either with credit cards such as Visa or MasterCard, Bitcoin or Wire Transfer.
Visa / MasterCard – are two of the most trusted and frequently used online payment methods. Both are listed as available deposit and withdrawal options at gaming sites around the world, they’re simple to use, and exceptionally secure.
Transactions are fast and reliable, limits often higher than with other payment options, and withdrawn funds instantly accessible via ATMs.
Bitcoin – is a digital currency with multiple benefits which make it many of online gamers’ favorite option. Transactions take place faster than with the more traditional banking methods, and the user remains completely anonymous. There’s no need for currency conversion, and no waiting for an international transaction to go through.
One has to start by opening a Bitcoin Wallet and topping it up at a Bitcoin Exchange, a process which is fairly quick and straightforward. Having registered at an online casino, the player will be asked to provide a wallet address and deposit the desired amount at a specific address.
When they win, winnings are automatically transferred to their accounts. More often than not, gaming sites will process Bitcoin payments without charging any additional fees.
Wire Transfer – is basically a transfer of funds from a bank account to another account, and can be used for making both deposits and withdrawals. This is a good option for players who either don’t have a credit card or dislike using it for online payments.
Wire Transfer will save you from having to give out personal and bank account information to an online vendor and thus risk identity theft. It may be a somewhat slower alternative to those mentioned above and will more frequently have a fee attached, but is highly secure.
Frequently Asked Questions
They are actually located all over the globe, but market leader Evolution Gaming currently have studios in Latvia, Malta and Canada. They are apparently now looking to open up some in the US, following the recent legislation changes.
PlayTech, another major player, just opened a huge studio in Riga, Latvia as well. This seems to be the most popular location for main studios of large providers. Lucky Streak is another company with studios here.
Then you have some providers with studios in Costa Rica, such as Ezugi. Extreme Live Gaming stream from the UK, while NetEnt have a large studio in Malta.
For a good live casino games selection and access to just about all studious in the industry, we recommend joining Unique Casino. They offer tables from Evolution, Vivo Gaming and Lucky Streak under one roof.
Absolutely. We have a couple of favorites in the BTC niche:
There are a few notable live games with very high payout potential. For the record, we only list the ones without progressive jackpots here.
Double Ball Roulette from Evolution Gaming has a 1,300 to 1 payout if both balls land in the same number.
Three Card Poker, also from Evolution Gaming, has a 1,000 to 1 payout on the 6 card bonus side-bet offered when you get a Royal Flush by combining your own + the dealers cards.
Dream Catcher also offers a very high payout potential, at least in theory. The base game pays up to 40x, but you can theoretically get unlimited multipliers of 7x on that. Get one and you’re at 280x, get two we are at 1,960x already. That’s big money!
To protect the operators from risk of ruin though, Evolution Gaming have set a max payout of 500k per player.
Lightning Roulette is also a worthwhile mention, as you can win up to 500 times your bet from a straight up wager.
Live casino games are definitely fair as long as you stick with licensed casinos and game providers.
When I say licensed I mean in a jurisdiction that has a reputation for protecting it’s players – such as Isle Of Man, Malta, Gibraltar or the UKGC. These licences are all quite good signs that a casino is legit.
Curacao license is much easier to obtain, so we are generally more skeptical about live casino sites that hold a license in this jurisdiction.
Safety of playing online is much alike. Stick to casinos that have positive feedback and are well known.
Sites like Mega Wins and BitStarz have been around for a while and have solid reputation in the players community.
Evolution Gaming is definitely the best mobile live casino provider out of all. BitStarz is a good option for this.
However, we also liked what Vivo Gaming had to offer, so they come highly recommended. Their tables are offered at Ma Chance Casino.
It’s true that there are many software providers that don’t really live up to the expectations, but there also are some that provide game streams insuper HD quality.
Have a look at Evolution Gaming and Lucky Streak for some top quality streams.
In our opinion these guys offer a great quality experience. Why not open a free account at Unique Casino and see for yourself? No need to make a deposit.
Sure. Live dealer blackjack is by far the best game to play, after you master the basic strategy of it.
Actually you can just use a perfect strategy chart (that we provide, of course) while you play, to ensure that the house edge on you will be less than 1%.
Visit our live blackjack comparison section to see which software provider offers the best odds. At the moment NetEnt live blackjack is best, having a 0.50% margin followed by Ezugi at 0.61% and Evolution Gaming at 0.61%.
Other than blackjack, live dealer baccarat offers reasonable odds and if you bet on the banker, the house edge is roughly 1.05%.
We’d definitely recommend taking a look at Baccarat Squeeze from Evolution Gaming for an outstanding playing experience.
Recent reform of the Australian Interactive Gambling Act saw many of the top live casinos exit the market, but some are still accepting Aussies and let them play live dealer games.
We recommend taking a look at mBit Casino, which is a SoftSwiss powered brand offering $AUD and also accepting Bitcoin deposits & play.
Their live game portfolio is built from top tier games provided by Evolution Gaming and recently they also added Ezugi.
Not at the moment – although Vivo Gaming actually had a real product for live dealer craps dating back to 2013. It seems it was discontinued though, as we could not seem to find it at any casinos offering games from their portfolio.
It also seems like the interest in this product is mainly coming from the United States, whose residents aren’t allowed at many live casino sites.
Perhaps when more states, apart from Nevada and New Jersey, legalize online gambling, we’ll see a major player like Evolution Gaming introduce this popular dice game.
We currently have reviewed 19 live dealer software providers – each with different offerings in terms of stream quality, dealer training, languages offered and user interface.
Below you’ll find links to the expert review pages that we have dedicated to each live games provider currently in the business. Please note that not all of these are available to players in Australia. We’ve linked those that are currently offering tables to Aussies.
– Evolution Gaming
– NetEnt
– PlayTech
– MicroGaming
– Ezugi
– Visionary iGaming
– Vivo Gaming
– XPRO Gaming
– Wirex/Portomaso Gaming
– BetConstruct
– Authentic Gaming
– Media Live Casino
– BetGamesTV
– Asia Gaming
– Opus Gaming
– Lucky Strike
After receiving multiple questions of this nature we have created what should be a very useful live casino comparison tool. Use it to compare two different live dealer sites based on a handful of metrics like game variety, special licensing, betting limits, payment methods and speed of transactions.
If you think we are missing something or your idea could enhance the usability of our tool, make sure you let us know!
To begin with, PayPal deposits to live casino sites are only permitted in certain countries – where online gambling is legalised. These include Canada, UK, The Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Italy and New Zealand.
Australia used to be one of the countries as well, but that seems to no longer be the case.
There aren’t really any similar alternatives to PayPal for Aussies. Most of the players we talk to seem to be depositing via Bitcoin or bank cards like MasterCard and Visa.
With over 1,000 online casinos available right now, and plenty more launched every month, many live casinos are pretty similar to each other.
What generally differs are the designs, languages offered and the level of service.
Having that said, there are some casino sites that have managed to distinguish their operation from the crowd and do have something unique to offer.
For players in Australia, this will generally be related to VIP reward systems and
Yes. We have some useful pages on the subject of live casino bonuses and also on promotions. We have done all the work for you on these – reading through the terms & conditions and providing detailed calculations on what your expected value is going to be when playing certain games.
Some casinos will also offer risk free bets for new players in certain locations. We can recommend these if you’re trying out the live dealer games, but since they usually carry a very high wagering requirement, it’s much easier to just make a deposit if you want to be able to withdraw your winnings quickly and avoid restrictions.
In general – yes. The top live casino providers let you play for real money only. We’re talking about Evolution Gaming, NetEnt, PlayTech, Authentic Gaming, Lucky Streak and just about anyone else.
However, if you sign up to Drake Casino, they have free play live dealer games from Vivo Gaming. These are available to players in Australia and actually worldwide too!