When it comes to new casinos, almost all of them will have their own custom live dealer lobby – but some even have custom dealer uniforms, custom tables, and unique backdrops that make the gambling venue’s brand obvious and instantly recognizable. What might seem like a simple enhancement can create a sort of sense of “home base” for many players.

When a new site opens with experienced, professional dealers, the number of new visitors might be small at first as the brand grows through marketing efforts or simply by word of mouth – this can give customers and croupiers the opportunity to become more well acquainted on a first-name basis. Of course, it’s always up to the customer just how much conversation to have and a pro will know right away by your responses and other cues what level of familiarity you are most comfortable with and will strive to meet your desires within reason

A Step-by-Step Guide to Joining a New Live Dealer Site

In order to play real money live games at a new gaming site in the US you’ll need to create an account or “join”. There are exceptions to the rule but those few operators that allow “anonymous” crypto-cash play are most likely not licensed. Establishing your gaming account at a reliable gaming venue is easy and it only takes a few minutes to get set up and ready to play.

The basic information needed to open an account might include your name, address, and phone number along with a verifiable email address.

In order to deposit and win real money you will either need a crypto-currency wallet or another financial instrument such as a payment voucher, eWallet, or debit card/credit card.

Please keep in mind that the information you provide when setting up a new account must be real and verifiable. American and international law requires gaming operators to verify your identity and other easy-to-provide details in order to cash out your winnings.

This is done to stop any potential for money laundering or funding “bad actors” through random accounts – it also prevents minors from gambling and protects victims of identity theft or even those who might have misplaced a debit or credit card from financial harm if their financial instruments have fallen into the wrong hands.

A step-by-step guide to opening an account includes the following actions:

1. Identify a trusted live dealer operation that accepts players from the US. Use authentic unbiased reviews, know the signs of a bad operator, and make sure the operator holds a valid gaming license.
2. Find the “Sign Up” or “Register” button – it is usually located in the top right corner next to the “Log In” button.
3. Follow the prompts and fill in the appropriate personal information that will include your name and birth date, general or specific location, and contact information such as email address and/or phone number.
4. You might need to reply to an email or to an SMS (text) message on your mobile phone to confirm the information and gain access to the cashier section. In some cases, you may be able to go straight to the cashier to look at deposit and withdrawal options right from the initial sign-up page.

Pro tip: Complete account verification as early as possible. International and US laws require that operators confirm your account through KYC (know your customer) and AML-CFT (anti-money laundering/combating the funding of terrorism) procedures. Many operators will not ask for this information until it comes time to pay out winnings.

Taking care of this bit of housekeeping can save a lot of frustration later on when you decide to cash out winnings. It’s simply nicer to breathe easily once you submit a withdrawal request rather than to sit on pins and needles waiting for documents to be approved especially if you have a big payout coming.

In order to verify your information with the operator you may be required to provide certain documents like a utility bill in your own name, a copy of your government-issued ID, a bank statement sent to your registered physical address, and a picture of any credit cards or debit cards used to deposit.

The information is safe and secure and most operators will encourage you to block out all but the last four digits of the card number as well as the three-digit security code (CVV) usually found on the back of the card.

Some crypto-currency casinos may require less information but please keep in mind that your crypto exchange, such as Coinbase will report activity over a certain level to the IRS so the best practice all around is to be as transparent as possible and provide true and verifiable information over secure socket layer encrypted (SSL) channels offered by the operator – the same level of security your online bank uses.

While there is a lot to be said for playing live games at a tried and tested brand, new live game lobbies are opening all the time – sometimes a whole new operation is launched and sometimes a live gaming lobby is simply added to a well-known gaming site.

There are pros and cons you might want to weigh before deciding between new and established operations. Some of the considerations might seem obvious and others might not be as plain to see.

We’ll take a look at the potential downside of playing at a new live casino and then we’ll examine some of the upside.

• Unless a new live gaming lobby is launched by an established and trusted operator it can be difficult to assess the potential risk involved in playing there – especially if a player relies mostly upon other players’ experience and trusted reviewers’ analyses. Mark Twain is credited with saying: “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” This adage is often true when applied to operator behavior – good or bad.
• If a player is heavily invested in a loyalty program they could lose progress, depending on how points and bonuses are awarded and maintained.
• New online operators can offer several lobby providers or just one. Some lobbies only have games like basic blackjack, roulette, and baccarat which might not be enough for visitors who prefer side bets with greater volatility or a bigger selection of games like poker, dice, bingo, or live keno.

Some things to look at on the upside might include:

• Bonuses and promotions for live game players. Bonuses for live play are much harder to come by than deposit incentives for slots and digital table games. When a new venue opens they need to attract customers and bonuses are a proven way to get new players through the virtual doors.
• Game variety. More traditional suppliers might not offer poker played against the dealer, progressive stud poker, or even dice games or specialty games like Sic Bo, Andar Bahar, or bilingual dealers for Spanish speakers.
• Cutting-edge game selection. New live lobbies for US players are more likely to feature cutting-edge games that let players choose between traditional gameplay and options for side bets that could turn a simple win into a 1,000x payout or even more on a lucky day.

• Expanded banking options. Newer operators might have their fingers closer to the pulse of today’s online gamblers and offer more mobile payment options, eVouchers, eWallets, and other choices than older operations that might only offer credit/debit card deposits and bank wire or mailed check payout options.

• Instant payouts. More established operators might be “stuck in their ways” and not offer instant cryptocurrency payouts or even 24-hour turnaround times on withdrawals after document verification. A newer operator can enhance services like these as a cost of doing business in a competitive marketplace.

• Gamified loyalty schemes. Newer operations are more likely to offer players modern incentives like leaderboards, badges, and competitions while still rewarding all loyal players.

All US-facing operations offer support for American players. A small handful will only accept cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals but they are few and far between and easy to identify.

While all licensed and certified online live dealer lobbies offer fair games, the operators who host the lobby and provide customer services like banking services, bonuses, and other support, not to mention digital game curation for slots and other virtual games might not have the same level of integrity. That’s why it is so important to only trust your deposits and withdrawals to a reliable online platform.

On this page, we provide players with a list of vetted and certified new online live dealer hubs that have recently been launched in the USA. We maintain the list for veracity and accuracy, adding trusted new sites as they open for play and removing or demoting sites that might not be up to our standards.

We also provide readers with the tools they will need to make their own informed decisions such as a rating and ranking system, a filtering tool with more than half a dozen ways to winnow and sift, a comprehensive FAQ to help build player knowledge and confidence, and a unique feature comparison tool to help visitors deepen the contrast between top contenders and choose a winner based on qualities that they find most important.

In order to explore this fascinating aspect of playing live games online, let’s start in the middle and explore the spectrum of possibilities!

While all gaming floors have certain things in common, they all have their differences. A blackjack pit at Peppermill in Reno with bells, whistles, and side bet win celebrations will have its own vibe, ambiance, and energy just like member’s only tables under bright lights, but segregated from the mass gaming floor by a series of red velvet ropes will in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or Macau.

And then, you have the approachable tables, just sitting there in the middle of the floor with low minimum bets welcoming almost everyone. Sure, there might be happy hour specials on Wednesday afternoons in a tribal gaming venue and you might have $20 minimum hands or higher on weekend nights when market forces allow it. But they are still simply “mass gaming” tables with straightforward basic gaming.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg when you gamble at a sticks-and-bricks establishment. When you play online, the differences can seem far more subtle. Remote platforms seem to still be struggling to find a balance between attracting traditional players and offering an absolutely unique and profound experience to new and seasoned players alike.

Depending on your location you might find a “local” PlayTech, Evolution, or other Euro-based company offering games from a brick-and-mortar operator with a physical location in your state. For most USA players, the games will come from remote studios that serve players in every state.

What that means from a tech standpoint is that the lobby’s focus will be on the whole United States rather than niche markets in Europe or players in individual American states so the games are more generic in general.

Live gaming studios for players in the USA are almost always just that – a studio. Even those located inside bricks and mortar locations that are situated within a state with its own regulatory framework, such as Michigan or New Jersey (Atlantic City) are not part of the regular gaming floor like they might be at Portamoso in Malta – but segregated from other live in-person players.

However, the games are executed in such a way that you might never notice that other live players are not actually sitting at the tables. One reason for this is game integrity and player security – an unscrupulous in-person player simply can’t influence the game in any way to favor or handicap any online player’s fair game or gaming experience.

This feature also makes it possible to provide games to multiple operators at the same time. Players in diverse states or even different countries might be playing at the same table at the same time even if I am into Casino XYZ from state ABC and you are logged into Casino ABC and are physically located in another state.

Knowing that it’s now easy to see how a live lobby can simply be a “plug-in” module enhancing any given online gaming platform’s software. The game provider can deliver any type of game such as an augmented reality-enhanced version of crowd-play Monopoly or a giant slot machine with a host or hostess pulling the lever for a community spin. They can also offer fast-paced sessions of roulette or comfortably-timed rounds of blackjack – either to a maximum of seven players at the “seats” or with a “bet-behind” capability that allows an unlimited number of players for each hand with nobody holding up the game’s progress for other players.

Some lobbies, especially those with multiple providers, will usually provide a way for players to choose the provider they want to play with. This can be done through filtering (choose games by provider) or as simply as allowing players to hover over a game icon to see the provider.

In some cases, especially at gaming venues with only one provider, you might not know who that live lobby provider is before you log in. That’s one area LiveDealers.com is glad to help!

Let’s say you want to play live games at Casino Extreme because you’ve heard it’s been around since 1999 and pays winners within 15 minutes… You could simply read our review and you’d see that the games are provided by ViG or Visionary iGaming; the studios are in Costa Rica and all dealers speak English; there are 11 tables with a mix of roulette variations, blackjack, and baccarat including Super 6, and you can play on your mobile or any other device because there’s no need to download a desktop software client.

Talking about sign-up bonuses and other deposit incentives can be a bit difficult – mainly because these types of offers can change quickly, especially as newer operations fight for a foothold in a competitive market. That being said, we can say that generally, live gaming bonuses are harder to find than sign-up promotions for other types of games like slots but they do exist, they can pop up at any time, and they can be more generous and easier to “beat” than digital random number generator-based table game bonuses.

New live dealer lobbies are more likely to offer creative solutions including mixed bonus offers. Some might come with a preset number of extra spins on slot machines, a sportsbook might offer a match bonus for live table play along with a “free bet” on sports, or even a multi-stage bonus offer in multiple phases. These can be percentage matches, extra loyalty points, or any other number of enhancements.

Since this article is focused on new online dealer lobbies rather than simply all live dealers available in America, we can confidently state that you are much more likely to find bonuses at a newly minted gaming venue than you will at one that has been around for years or even decades.

Pro Tip: Look for a fast-paying new lobby that also offers free chips or generous sign-up bonuses for other games. Take your winnings and create your own “sign-up bonus” for live dealer play with no terms and conditions. A fresh deposit with “their money” might be all you need to create an advantage for yourself!

The vast majority of new live dealer lobbies in the US are licensed in and regulated by gaming authorities in Curacao. A gaming license there covers any type of gambling game from those based purely on chance or luck like slots to skill games like poker or mixed skill and strategy games such as blackjack and video poker, to live dealers, sportsbooks and even betting on lottery outcomes. This simply means you don’t have to look for a specific live gaming license – if the operator is licensed in Curacao for any sort of gambling, live dealer games are automatically included.

The balance of operators in the USA are usually licensed and regulated by individual state gaming commissions or lottery commissions, depending on the state. Most states that have their own regulations only apply those laws to operators located within the state’s borders – not to offshore operators. Most states still don’t have any specific laws dealing with remote live dealer games or even online slots for that matter – but some do. Less than a handful of states have laws on the books restricting or limiting online casino gaming.

A good rule of thumb to follow is that if you don’t know if online gambling is legal in your state, you should find out before taking any risks. We are not aware of any restrictions on live dealer gaming at the federal level. However, interstate or any type of out-of-state sports betting is illegal under the Wire Act of 1961. Several US Attorneys General as well as a more recent federal ruling have determined that the Wire Act only applies to sportsbetting.

More to the point, IGT sued the US DOJ to clear up any potential misunderstandings and a federal judge delivered a Declaratory Judgement in late 2022 confirming that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting. If you play live games in a lobby accessed from an offshore sportsbook, your funds could be at risk of a delayed payment if enforcement actions such as payment blocking are executed on the sportsbook itself.