Casino Games With a Social Element (and How This Works Online)

When you think of Las Vegas you might think of a weekend away with friends, and loads of activities besides casino games that let you connect with other people. Casino games have always been linked to a social element and a lot of us have the image of a lively roulette table like those portrayed in the movies when there’s a scene in a casino.

When people used to have to go to physical casinos to join a poker tournament or play slot machine games, they would usually be surrounded by people, but that side of casino gaming could have been at risk when so many people moved to online gambling. Instead, the social aspects are just changing and being included in some creative methods.

How Casinos Are Evolving For Social Play

There’ll always be the breed of player who likes to go to an online casino and play some slot games without chatting to anyone or being connected to another human, and that’s not a problem, as casinos facilitate this kind of play.

Modern casinos with a big online presence try to cater to pretty much every player though, as you can see when you check out just how many different slot and table games there are at an online casino. In recent years, more social aspects have been added to certain games like blackjack and even roulette, as players can connect to a live casino online and have the cards dealt to them by a real human dealer rather than just an interface. This is a more faithful replication of the old-fashioned experience people would have had in a casino where they would communicate with a croupier or dealer to play the game, something that loads of Las Vegas traditionalists still enjoy.

Casinos also include more social aspects like chat boxes in some games, something that is similar to the way that online bingo works, with people chatting to each other, but often the interactions people can have are pretty limited on these sites, especially when compared to a video connection or sitting around the same table in a real casino.

Poker

Poker doesn’t work as a live dealer game due to the number of players involved, but it is an example of a game with a big social element and those who have played the game around a table of friends or strangers before know that the way people talk and read each other is a part of the game itself. There are terms like “bluffing” and “poker face” that relate to the way people interact while they are playing, and good poker players try hard to mask their tells, which is a social or body language cue that may give away the fact that they have a good or bad hand.

Traditionally poker has also been played with a dealer, and tournament play is huge, so there is a whole social side related to the mechanics of the game, partially replaced during online play (you have a button to call or raise rather than talking to the other players). But now, there’s an effort to bring a lot of this back and casinos have done a pretty good job, knowing that some people will always prefer playing in person and others will always prefer logging in on a device.

Blackjack

Blackjack, also called 21 or Pontoon depending on where you’re playing, is probably the ultimate one-on-one casino game, taking the dynamic of player versus the dealer, and some people miss the social side of the back and forth with dealers in casinos. Online gamblers can choose to play a live dealer game if they’d rather have this feeling of connection.

Roulette

Roulette can be played with a live dealer too, and though it might not be the first game you think of when you think about a “dealer” this is the correct term for the person taking the bets and spinning the wheel. Players would oftentimes just rather see a real physical wheel when playing.

Summary: Why People Enjoy The Social Side of Games

Even though so many people now prefer to play games online, a lot of mobile and online games have a social element attached, and some even play with this social mechanism. In the game Among Us (which normally has hundreds of thousands of concurrent players), people are allocated the role of a crewmate or an imposter, and if they are an imposter they need to try not to get discovered by the other players, making the game social by nature.

Simply put, we’re social creatures, and while some people see gaming as something they want to do alone, some have the urge to include it in their social schedule, so it is a good idea for casinos to allow people to do both.