Live casino differs from the rest of the catalogue in one structural way: the round is not computed by software, it physically happens in a studio and is streamed to players. That places it closer to television production than to game development, and the cost structure follows.
What a studio consists of
The technical perimeter covers gaming tables, multi-camera shooting with shot changes, designed lighting, sound and video encoders. On top of that sits a recognition layer: sensors in the roulette wheel, optical card reading out of the shoe, chip position detection. The outcome of a round has to reach the system automatically and with no human interpretation — otherwise the stream and the accounting cannot be reconciled.
Above the video runs a data layer: table state, open bets, timer, statistics. The player's client receives the stream and the events separately and assembles the picture locally.
Why it is expensive
The fixed share of the cost does not depend on load. A table runs around the clock, which means shifts of dealers, supervisors and technical support. The premises are certified, access is controlled, recordings are retained for the review of disputed rounds. Bandwidth and transcoding into several qualities add infrastructure cost that grows with the audience.
How the cost is recovered
Hence two basic models: shared tables, where the load is spread across many operators, and dedicated ones, branded for a specific site but paid for in full. Choosing between them is a question of expected occupancy, not of taste.
For an operator, live is not simply a section of the lobby but a service with standing obligations on connection quality and response time.