Every detail from the food on offer in the restaurants to the shops trading in the resorts is managed to maximize the chance of attracting the right people to play. Even more important is the need to encourage repeat business. The top spenders must not only generate good word-of-mouth among their circle of friends. They must also return to play as often as possible. The key to this process is making friends with you, the gamblers. Everyone from the bellhop to the croupiers to the hospitality management team must get to know you, make you feel good and build loyalty with comps and other inducements. The more you feel at home, you more you are likely to spend on the tables and machines.
Strip all this away and the glamour disappears. The magic spell is cast by the place and the people who work there. When you sit down in front of a PC in the comfort of your own home, the magic dies on the screen. No matter how well designed the graphics, no matter how smooth the animation, no matter how convincing the background noise may be, you cannot forget you are still in your own home. Yes, there is the convenience factor. Gone is the need to make the sometimes expensive journey to a distant casino. The next can of beer is only a few paces away in your kitchen. But the atmosphere and social benefits of meeting people is reduced to a live chat facility. On the positive side, technology never stands still and online casinos are evolving to meet more of your expectations. That way, you will spend more time playing and everyone wins.
To produce greater realism, the best online casinos now offer live dealers. This depends on the latest video streaming technology and whether you have enough bandwidth. Assuming you can accept the stream, you get a real person dealing live on a virtual table. Needless to say, the dealers are usually attractive young ladies and they deal blackjack and baccarat. Some casinos also provide live roulette. Up to now, this feature has been provided by casinos based outside the US. But November 2009 sees the launch of this service in the first online casino based in the US. JustBet Casino is offering live dealers for several hours every day. Now, people who play blackjack online have the chance to sit down with live feed from a US studio and enjoy their blackjack with a US dealer. This is not going to match the real world experience, but it's getting better.
