Explaining the technology behind mobile casinos

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Going to the casino used to be a major event. You’d have to get all dressed up, travel to the casino and then eventually head home. All the fuss involved made it feel like you had to stay for several hours or else it felt like a bit of a waste of time. Playing at online casinos is the more accessible and convenient alternative. 

Alongside desktop online casinos, we’re currently seeing a rise in the number of mobile casinos. Looking at the mobile casinos for Irish players, it becomes clear that this is the future of online gambling. Below is a breakdown of the key technologies that make mobile casinos possible. 

What are mobile casinos?

Mobile casinos are online casinos that are either optimised for mobile, designed exclusively for mobile use or an app. Now that online casinos are so well established in the gambling industry, mobile casinos are the next step forward. 

Oftentimes, mobile casinos won’t have the full library of games available on the desktop site, but this is gradually changing. Mobile casinos allow players to enjoy casino games from wherever they are, just like any other mobile app.

Live casino games

Live casino games are the most exciting advance in online casino gaming of the last decade. Live table games let online players enjoy the feel of being in a traditional land-based casino. These table games have a live dealer that is running the game that the player can interact with. In some cases, there are even chat options for players to interact with one another. 

In order to make live casino games work, mobile casinos need to use a lot of different technology. Optical character recognition (OCR) software is an essential piece of the puzzle. OCR software converts the images from a camera into data, and is the same software that lets us convert scanned documents into editable PDFs. The data can then be converted into a format that the player can interact with. This is what enables a player to ‘handle’ the cards that the dealer deals. 

The other technology required to make live casino games work smoothly are multiple cameras to capture a stream of both the dealer and the cards on the table. The dealer also needs a monitor so that they can see what the players are saying or doing and respond accordingly. There also needs to be a secure and steady streaming set up because lag or a drop in the feed would ruin the game.

Blockchain 

Blockchain is one of the buzzwords associated with the cryptocurrency world. The blockchain has more uses beyond just serving as the ledger for cryptocurrency mining and transactions. Blockchain technology can be used to ensure that payments are secure and that all gambling transactions are logged and protected. 

The blockchain is also used in cryptocurrency casinos. Mobile crypto casinos use the blockchain to facilitate payments and help keep player identities anonymous. The blockchain can also be used to make sure that games are fair and that they use random number generators rather than patterns or biased algorithms. 

Random number generators

Every gambler knows that the house always wins, and you just have to accept that the house’s cut will almost always be bigger than yours. There is always a worry, however, that something underhanded is skewing the odds in the house’s favour. Many people worry about this in relation to online casinos because there’s no way to see what’s going on inside the games. 

Random number generators (RNGs) used by mobile casinos can ease those worries. RNGs are built into the software of each mobile casino game and these guarantee that all the games are fair. They are used to determine everything from how dice rolls land to which numbers are landed on in roulette and which cards are dealt.

Let’s use slot machine games as an example to show how they work. Every time a player clicks the spin button to set the reels going, a ‘seed number’ is generated which is then fed through an established algorithm to create a random number. Each possible result on the slot reels also has a number. The result is then calculated using the random number and the possible results.

The only games at mobile casinos where RNGs aren’t used are live casino games. This is because there is a person involved who is in charge of shuffling the cards or spinning the roulette wheel, keeping things random and fair in the traditional way.

Encryption

Keeping their players safe is one of the main jobs of mobile casinos. Players trust the casino with their financial and personal information and that data needs to be kept secure or players will no longer feel comfortable playing there. 

The best way for mobile casinos to protect player data is to use encryption software for all transactions. You’re already most likely familiar with encryption software. When a website is protected by encryption, the little lock icon appears in the search bar. SSL encryption is the industry standard for financial data and is what the majority of top-level mobile casinos use.