There’s a fact that’s quietly accompanied the tech-enabled rise of online casino games:  Artificial Intelligence (AI) bots have transformed the world of casino gambling. As the New York Times Magazine put it in a fascinating article, not all players are happyabout this. AI-based approaches, some believe, have altered the casino game experience, with one seasoned poker player telling NYT journalist Keith Romer, the author of the piece, “I feel like it kind of killed the soul of the game.”

Yet it’s not all bad news. If anything, it’s a tech-powered continuation of the intense study of player behavior that land-based brick-and-mortar casino operators were doing years ago. So it’s hardly surprising that when established brick-and-mortar casino operators developed online versions of their gaming experience, they’d embrace the latest available technology and research to help refine their product.

For example, an originally land-based business, Resorts Casino is now one of the very best online operators, offering visitors a state-of the art NJ online casino that draws on decades of experience as well as the latest technology to provide thrilling, “intelligent” online casino games.

Even so, it’s still worthwhile for prospective customers of online casinos to do a little research, from seeking out the online casino games that have the best payouts to the thorny question of how do you tell if you’re playing against a human or an AI bot?

There are, in fact, some clues – some digitalized ‘tells’ – to be aware of.

Take poker as an example: it’s true that online poker is often played at a much faster rate than live table poker. But there are times when the dizzying velocity of the online game is so high that it’s a fair hypothesis to surmise that your fellow player isn’t a human.

Humans, even the most experienced veterans of online casino games, take a little time to arrive at a decision – and the time taken may vary depending on the complexity of the predicament. But bots are often set to run on a standardized timer, so that human variation in decision-making hesitation is often absent: every decision takes precisely the same number of seconds.

Another clue is the time a player spends at a game. Now, to complicate things, human players (in, say, live action poker games) can invisibly harness Real-Time Assistance (RTA) technology, either manually or automatically. Yet even the most experiencedgamers will tire after a few hours. But if a player stays put at a table from one day to the next and never seems to need sleep, you can probably safely assume that an AI bot is at work.

One more “tell” to keep in mind is that ingenious as it is, AI tech hasn’t quite mastered the sheer intricacy and subtlety of human speech and language. It doesn’t have the spontaneity, humor and even the ambiguity and error that accompanies real human talk. So, if you suspect that a fellow online player is, in fact, a bot, it’s worth interacting with them: if the social communication seems clunky and stilted, you have another “tell” that you’re dealing with algorithms, not flesh-and-blood fellow humans.