Live Casino
Most online casinos will host free-to-play versions of the games listed above on their site, but you won’t find the equivalent for live casino games. Live dealer casinos can be seen as a hybrid between online and brick-and-mortar casinos, where players use video streaming technology to place themselves in an authentic casino environment from the comfort of their own homes. Live casinos follow the customs of a physical casino, with professional croupiers running the games at a slower pace than you’d find at a regular gambling site.
Evolution Gaming is widely regarded as the best and most prestigious live dealer software provider. Fortunately, most real money casinos in Canada offer exhilarating titles like Lightning Roulette or Crazy Time. Other highly regarded live casino developers include Pragmatic Play and Playtech.
Baccarat
Another table game that dates back centuries is baccarat. While it became popular in the 19th century among the French noble classes, some sources suggest it emerged much earlier than this. Today, it’s a popular game both at real money online casinos and land-based casinos.
There are several variants of baccarat, including punto banco, baccarat banque and baccarat chemin de fer, but punto banco is the simplest and most common form of this card game. In this variant, the player bets on which hand will result in a score closest to nine — the player’s, or the banker’s — or they can bet that the round will be a tie. Tens and face cards have a value of zero, aces are worth one, and the rest of the cards score at their usual value. Baccarat is popular not only due to its simplicity, but its low house edge of 1.06% to 1.24%.
Players can choose from various baccarat games at Canadian real money casinos. Live dealer versions from the likes of Evolution Gaming and Pragmatic Play are the most popular, especially the former’s Golden Wealth Baccarat.
Craps
In craps, players bet on the outcomes of rolls of a pair of dice. The game dates back to the late 18th century and first developed in London, before making its way over to New Orleans and the rest of North America. In casino craps, players bet against the house, while in street craps players bet against each other.
The first roll of the dice is called the comeout roll — here, players can make a pass or don’t pass bet. If the roll adds up to 7 or 11 in this phase, the pass bets win, while 2, 3, or 12 means the don’t pass bets win. Any other number becomes the ‘point’. Players then keep rolling so long as they don’t roll the point, in which case pass bets are paid out at even money. There are lots of other types of bets that come into play, helping to make craps one of the most unique and exciting table games at Canadian real money casinos.
While video craps titles are available at some real money casinos, you’re more likely to find live dealer versions. In our opinion, these are far better anyway, as faithfully replicating a dice roll with video software can be challenging. Check out Evolution Gaming’s Craps for the best example. We’re huge fans of the professional croupiers and old-school speakeasy aesthetics.
Video Poker
Video poker is based on the poker variant five-card draw. The game shares similarities with slots, although there’s a degree of skill to video poker, whereas slots are purely luck-based. That said, video poker is very different to the complex bluffing and betting of Texas Hold’em and other traditional poker games — in video poker, it’s just you against the machine.
The game is played on terminals at real money casinos and online, and starts by pressing the deal button. You’ll receive a five-card hand before choosing to discard as many cards as you wish ‒ these will then be swapped with new ones. The aim is to form a five-card poker hand — there are higher payouts as per the traditional poker pay tables, so if you can land a royal flush then it’s happy days. The key is to be shrewd about which cards you discard, although there are different strategies — some players may go for the big payouts while others will look to sure up a pair.
NetEnt is arguably the best video poker software provider, with top-of-the-range options including Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, All American Poker, and Joker Wild.
