If you’re new to playing live casino games online, you might wonder: Are live casino games rigged? It’s a common concern—and a fair one. Understanding how RNGs (random number generators) work is the first step to knowing whether your favorite live dealer games are genuinely fair.
You might erroneously believe that casinos rig games. For the most part, this isn’t true. It’s important to have an understanding of what RNGs are and how they work to ensure casino fairness. We hope to unravel and straighten this bag of snakes for you here today to help you understand what’s going on when you start playing live casino games online.
What Are RNGs?
RNGs, otherwise known as random number generators, ensure fairness in games. They represent algorithms that ensure each turn or hand results in a random outcome. RNG technology prevents you from predicting how each bet will go, but it works the other way, too, ensuring live casinos can’t rig games in their favour.
The basic principle involves seeds. Each possible outcome in a game features a seed number. The RNGs generate random seed numbers with each bet, ensuring that there’s no way for manipulation to take place by any parties.
Are Live Casino Games Rigged? How to Know for Sure
Naturally, you want to know that your live games are fair. RNGs guarantee that. Knowing how RNGs work in table games is one thing, but you also need to verify that the RNGs themselves are fair. You’ll find several ways to check this:
- The Word of the Software Providers: Taking the word of the software providers behind the games is usually enough. The more reliable the developer, the more likely they are to have fixed RTP rates and RNGs, which live casinos can’t manipulate.
- Ignoring In-House RNG Certification: One thing you shouldn’t do is trust casinos that perform in-house certification. Any live casino will always say that its games are certified, even if they aren’t. You can’t trust their words alone.
- Independently Tested and Certified Games: Independent, third parties and organisations actively engage in casino testing to ensure live games are fair. Groups such as eCOGRA, iTech Labs and Technical Systems Testing provide casinos with certificates if they check their live dealer games and approve them. You can take this proof to the bank.
- Provably Fair Games: Provably Fair games allow you to check the seed results of each bet. While complicated, this process allows you to actively check each result to ensure fairness. Of course, this only applies to live casino games that feature cryptocurrencies.
Seeing RNGs in Action
The way RNGs appear in fair gambling games varies. Next, let’s explain how typical RNGs generate random outcomes in two of the most popular types of live casino games online.
- Card Games: RNGs in most live games generally ensure that continuous shuffling occurs. It’s the digital equivalent of a dealer shuffling the deck after each hand. How often RNGs “shuffle the deck” is a secret, though.
- Roulette and Dice-Based Games: Live roulette and dice-based games have RNGs that randomly select outcomes using random number generation. For instance, in live dealer roulette, the algorithm picks which pocket the ball lands in ahead of time. In dice games, random number generators decide which number combos appear on the dice.
House Edge vs. RNGs
House edge is something many players often confuse with RNGs. They’re quite different. RNGs ensure digital gambling integrity via random outcomes on each bet. Software providers fix house edges in the game so that the casino is guaranteed income from every bet. Fair live casinos can’t adjust house edges, so you know what they are long before you play. Everything is transparent and crystal clear.
It’s also important not to confuse volatility with rigged games. Volatility is something else the software provider determines, not the casino. Volatility merely stipulates how often the game pays and what sort of winnings it delivers – it isn’t a sign of rigged games. Highly volatile options pay infrequently but deliver big wins, while low variance games offer regular winnings but with reduced prize values. At least, that’s a general take on the topic.
How to Spot Rigged Live Casino Games
Let’s end this blog by looking at RNGs and explaining how you can spot the tell-tale signs of dodgy sites. Follow this advice to discover if live online casinos really are fair. Here are three things to look for:
Unregulated and Unlicensed Casinos
Immediately ignore any unregulated and unlicensed casinos. It is these types of live casinos that manipulate games. You’ll notice that many won’t support big, mainstream titles, the types of games where software providers lock in the RNGs, RTP rates and house edges. Instead, they feature games from less reliable partners, who might be open to game manipulation. You won’t know for sure, so it’s best to avoid them.
Pirated Games
Unsafe casinos may pirate games. Pirated games are titles supported at sites that the live casinos have no right to offer. They aren’t legitimate live dealer games, and these games will almost certainly be rigged.
Rogue and Blacklisted Live Casino Sites
Finally, never sign up and play at rogue and blacklisted casinos. You’ll find these live casinos heavily listed on awareness websites, giving you ample warning to avoid them. These aren’t just unlicensed live casinos and unregulated sites but domains that third parties have spent time proving that they are unreliable.
FAQ
Can I crack RNGs by identifying clear patterns?
No. RNGs, as their name suggests, generate random outcomes on every bet, so there’s no way to track them and cheat, either for you or the casino.
Do live casino games really use RNGs?
Yes. Many live casino games do, especially those with bonus rounds. Live dealer games use human dealers to ensure random outcomes, such as shuffling cards, but with so many human players involved in a game, RNGs are naturally used to generate cards and outcomes in many titles.
Can live casinos alter RNGs, and do they need to notify players?
The best live casinos can’t alter RNGs, as those algorithms belong to software providers. However, if dodgy casinos alter their RNGs, they aren’t likely to share that information with you.
Can live dealer casinos manipulate RNGs during rush hour?
Again, this doesn’t happen at tried and tested, safe and secure casinos. Casinos manipulating RNGs during rush hour is a myth.
Curious about which casinos you can trust? Check out our list of live casinos that aren’t rigged and verified by third-party testers.
