“Movers and Shakers” is a dynamic monthly column dedicated to exploring the latest trends, developments, and influential voices in the iGaming industry. Powered by GameOn and supported by HIPTHER, this op-ed series delves into the key players, emerging technologies, and regulatory changes shaping the future of online gaming. Each month, industry experts offer their insights and perspectives, providing readers with in-depth analysis and thought-provoking commentary on what’s driving the iGaming world forward. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the scene, “Movers and Shakers” is your go-to source for staying ahead in the rapidly evolving iGaming landscape.
With the Live Casino landscape continuing to evolve in new and technologically exciting ways, Avanti Studios’ Jonas Delin explains how the use of digital clones is helping a traditionally costly vertical remove its adoption barriers and supply a much more scalable experience for operators
As a multi-billion dollar industry, Live Casino has long been one of the most prized product categories in online gambling. Built on a simple proposition of delivering the trust and spectacle of authentic, dealer-dealt games through the small screen, it’s one of the few verticals that can recreate the thrill of a bricks-and-mortar casino experience in an online environment – but until now, offering such engaging entertainment to players has come at a high price point for operators.
With recent advances in AI and MetaHuman technologies, however, this is starting to change. The movement to replicate real dealers using sophisticated digital clones or replace them entirely with real-time avatars and large language models is gathering pace; and while there are certainly arguments to be made for the benefits of both approaches, Avanti sits firmly in the former camp. In this article, I’ll look to explain why and outline the benefits that our unique approach can bring.
The Suspension Of Disbelief
For Avanti, choosing to work with clones rather than avatars was an easy decision. In our opinion, the moment a player perceives something to be artificial or uncanny, the trust relationship that makes Live Casino so valuable in the first place begins to erode. As such, in order for them to become fully invested in your product, all dealers need to be ultra realistic and completely human-looking. AI-built dealers aren’t quite there yet, but, by their very nature, digital clones are.
In our sophisticated motion capture studio, we record the performance and mannerisms of professionally-trained dealers and use this as the basis for our clones. Brought to life using Unreal Engine and the MetaHuman toolset, they’re then streamed directly into games, providing an experience that’s virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. Cards are also dealt in real time rather than being simulated, with every outcome being shared and dictated by provably fair RNG.
This second point is particularly key to the structural integrity of the live format itself. Real-time dealing – where multiple players make independent decisions against a shared dealer hand – is something that’s not easily replicated by a pre-rendered character, and this constraint currently puts a meaningful ceiling on what pure AI can deliver. At Avanti, there are no such concerns about our approach, helping us provide an authentic experience that all players can truly participate in.
Lower Costs, More Flexibility
Among those in the pro-AI camp, I’ve seen it posited that one of the biggest advantages of using this technology is that it substantially reduces traditional Live Casino costs for operators. While it’s certainly true having generated dealers eliminates set-up fees, removes the need for fixed-term contracts and reduces ongoing overheads, I’d argue Avanti’s approach is equally capable of delivering these competitive benefits without having to compromise on realism or visual fidelity.
Just like AI providers, we also offer a revenue share-only model; and the fact that we use a motion capture studio to create our clones doesn’t have any bearing on the that price operators pay. As opening one table costs just the same as opening 100, we provide an infinite level of scalability that comes with no studio rental, no staffing and no risk of sick days – and the fact that dealer language can be localised at the flick of a switch makes it easy for operators to enter new markets.
In a country like Brazil where Portuguese localisation will be legally mandated, this obviously provides a significant competitive advantage. Rather than scrambling to recruit Portuguese-speaking dealers at pace, we can simply change both the language and appearance of our existing clones to suit local requirements. We can also give operators the scope to open tables at any limits they require, creating a flexible product that can easily adapt to any market conditions.
With Avanti’s games providing the same benefits as their AI-generated counterparts in terms of software economics and scalability, there’s no doubt in my mind that the use of digital clones will have a big role to play in shaping the future of Live Casino. By removing the adoption barriers for operators and giving players a reliable and authentic experience they can trust, our unique approach offers the best of both worlds, helping make the vertical more accessible for everyone.
