Live casino gambling involves video footage streamed in real time to players' computers, along with an associated bet interface so that they may engage in the deal. The computer generated graphics associated with the bet interface is nothing new and akin to what you will see on typical random number generated online casino games. But the live video stream of the dealer and game being conducted add a whole new dimension in terms of both game offering and also bandwidth required to play the games.

Most people are familiar with internet videos. The advent of sites like YouTube means that we are exposed to video footage on the web all the time. When you find a page with a YouTube video or any other video embedded in it and play it, following a delay for the video load it will usually play smoothly and clearly. But these aren't live streams. The footage you see at live casinos is not loaded on you PC and the played once loaded'it is being played real time as the footage is streamed to your PC.

If your internet connection speed isn't fast enough you will experience annoying freeze frames or buffering. If your connection is slow, you'll see intermittent frames that look more like an animated give than a video, and the game will be completely unplayable as a live game (you can still play to the corresponding virtual interface game but his makes the live video redundant and defeats the purpose of the game. So how fast does your connection need to be in order play to these games effectively?

Well, a nice guide comes from a well known online betting exchange that also happens to provide live streaming of sporting events. They recommend a connection speed of at least 750 kbps to view their high quality streams and suggest speeds in excess of 1 Mbps are preferred. This is probably a reasonable guide for live casinos. I have found that playing at anything below 1 Mbps you start to get a really noticeable lag between the video deal and corresponding virtual deal. Of course those annoying freeze frames become more prevalent as speeds move below 1 Mbps. Anything over 1.5 Mbps and your vision at most live casinos will be pretty smooth and impressive.

So how fast is your connection? There are many types of internet connection, from dial-up and ISDN through to DSL, cable, satellite and various wireless options and each category offers wildly varying speeds that are often considerably different to what your ISP advertises as applicable to your service. Cable for example can range from below 1 Mbps to over 50 Mbps, and if you have a wireless connection you'll be familiar with the enormous speed fluctuations from hour to hour depending on network congestion levels.

To test your actual connection speed at any given time, you can visit any one of dozens of speed check websites that will tell you your actual bandwidth, including both download and upload speed, in a matter of seconds. Try speedtest.net or speakeasy.net or simply do a search for "connection speed check" to use one of the many of others out there.

Armed with your actual connection speed you'll be much better placed to know whether or not live casinos are a gaming option for you.

About the Author:

Milton Shaw is a staff writer at live dealer casino information site Live Dealer Casinos. Further live gambling news and articles may be found at Live Casino News.