Should Casinos Offer Backgammon Online?

Backgammon has been around for over 5,000 years—but it’s yet to find a home in most online casinos in Canada. In this blog, we explore whether backgammon deserves a spot in digital casino libraries, how it compares to other skill-based games, and what Canadian players might gain from this timeless classic. With strategy and luck combined, the question isn’t if, but when.

To understand why you can’t play online backgammon at online casinos, you need to understand how to play backgammon in general.

At its most basic level, backgammon is a dice game where two players race to move their pieces off the board. Players have to navigate obstacles and traps set by each other along the way.

In short, backgammon blends the luck and randomness of the roll of the dice, along with strategic thinking and planning.

Backgammon is a strategy game

Most casino games are fairly mindless. The top sites have thousands of online slots where you pretty much just press a button. Backgammon, on the other hand, is an engaging game requiring skill, attention, and patient strategy.

It’s less stressful than online poker

Right now, online poker is the only thing that even comes close to the type of game that backgammon is. However, poker isn’t for everyone. It can be a high-pressure game and peer-to-peer and live dealer poker can be very stressful if you don’t know what you’re doing.

It’s for casual and sophisticated casino gamers

Backgammon online doesn’t have the same stakes as poker, but it appeals to the same types of sophisticated Canadian gamblers. It also appeals to casuals. If you’re an older player or even just someone who likes board games, backgammon is a low-stress game you can enjoy.

I love logic-based casino games but honestly don’t always like the pressure of playing for real money at trusted poker sites. Backgammon would be a great, low-stress game to play instead, so I hope more sites consider adding it to their games libraries.

As much as I’d like to be able to play backgammon online at my favourite Canadian online casino sites, there are plenty of reasons why it probably won’t be available any time soon.

Low demand for real-money backgammon online

For one, there’s not a lot of demand. Poker is the most popular real-money skill-based game and it’s not even that popular. In my experience, blackjack and roulette are the most popular table games. Baccarat even has a strong collection of die-hard players in Canada. The same isn’t true for online backgammon.

It’s complex to develop

Another issue is that it’s just flat out hard to make a good backgammon game online. The most common online casino games are fairly straightforward with clear Return-to-player (RTP) percentages determined by Random Number Generators (RNGs) and other algorithms. It’s harder to implement these things in a game like backgammon where player strategy has such a big effect on outcomes.

Issues can be solved, but the demand’s not there

There are also practical issues with designing real-time PvP platforms, but those probably could be resolved quickly if there was enough demand. Overall though, the demand isn’t there so solving these kinds of issues just isn’t worth it right now.

I think backgammon would fill a real niche in the online casino industry. There aren’t enough real-money games for the “thinking man”. With that being said, like in a game of backgammon – there are a lot of obstacles on the path right now. Until those obstacles are addressed, real-money online backgammon games probably won’t happen soon.

What do you think? Should casinos offer backgammon online?

Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear from you!