Why Online Casinos are the Future?
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During the last decade, the gambling industry has seen an immense surge in popularity, development and technology. We have seen how gambling has gone from the physical world with real-life slot machines and table games with dealers to a digitized equivalent in a very short time span. Not only has this made online gambling more popular, but it has become a lot more accessible.
The barriers to entry in the casino industry are so low today that all you need is a smartphone and a decent connection. If you rewind just 10 to 12 years, the situation is very different. Granted, there were online casinos present, but they were not nearly as sophisticated as what the industry offers today. Furthermore, being able to seamlessly gamble on your smartphones and real money earning games seemed like a pipe dream.
We Have Gotten Far, But Where are We Headed?
When considering how far we’ve gotten in this industry in such a short time, the thoughts naturally start to wander and evolve towards, “what does the future for online casinos hold?”. At this point, we can all deduce that the casino industry isn’t going anywhere; it is the future.
But figuring out precisely what the future looks like is tougher. It’s a great question that does not necessarily hold the correct answer. Moreover, it’s impossible to predict the exact future for such a fast-paced industry with a lot of moving parts. With that said, though, we are starting to see some signs of what the future of casinos may hold.
Improvements and Gamification of games
When we look back and consider what slot games used to be, they were conventional, one-dimensional and lacked oomph. For their time, it was, of course, groundbreaking, but once this concept got adopted online, it wasn’t a whole lot to be excited about.
Technology has completely reformed the way we look at casino games, namely slot games. Today’s games are filled with exciting functions such as bonus games, different symbols that trigger mini-games and other things. To a large extent, Casino games have become gamified, with a competitive element to them.
Initially, slot games were more or less characterized by the monotony of putting coins in the slot, adjusting the betting amount and pulling the lever over and over again. Today there are so many other dimensions to gambling. With things like leaderboards, bonuses, loyalty rewards and more, it has and continues to evolve way beyond monotony. This attests to the future of slots. It has evolved into a genuine and legit pastime hobby with all its advanced and engaging functions.
Digital currencies/Cryptocurrencies
With digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, XRP and more becoming prevalent outside of gambling, we have already started to see how casino sites are becoming early adopters of using and treating these as real money. This is significant as cryptocurrencies remove intermediaries such as banks, payment providers and financial institutions. As a result, it democratizes money.
Why is this of importance? For several reasons, but namely, it puts the power into the hands of the people, and they can do whatever they want with their money. If some jurisdictions worldwide look down on gambling, financial institutions, banks, and payment providers, hands may be tied, and you can’t make any deposits.
However, by utilizing cryptocurrencies, you don’t need to be bothered. Furthermore, the benefit of using these types of currencies can ensure faster, more reliable and transparent transactions. All transactions can be inspected and tracked on the blockchain with currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. They are also fast as there’s no payment processing method. As a result, your transaction will, on average, take 10 minutes. If you compare these with a bank transfer, you are instead looking at 2-5 business days.
The Metaverse
Ever since Facebook formally decided to change their name to Meta Platforms and explained the future with the metaverse, there has been a lot of extra buzz about the virtual world and how it could tie to various industries. The gambling industry has been strongly linked to the metaverse as the transition would become quite natural.
We have already seen signs of this today with our current gambling platforms. When entering the casino site, we have access to a live section that is a digital replica of the brick-and-mortar casino. In the future, it would probably not be too far-fetched to assume that we will have the option to walk around in a digital casino and walk among the different tables and slot machines.
Presently, online casino sites allow us to get a similar experience to a physical casino, but we are still not there in many aspects. However, we might get a lot closer to the real deal through the metaverse. We are still in the early stages of this world, but with the gambling industry’s commitment towards VR, we might end up there a lot sooner than expected.
The Mobile Growth
This is, to date, the most potent catalyst for the growth of the online casino industry. Before online casinos became widely available to smartphones, the barrier to entry was significantly higher. Everyone didn’t have access to PCs or laptops. It’s been imperative to reduce gambling borders by allowing the opportunity to gamble from anywhere, whenever they want. The smartphone essentially set the bar for the entire gambling industry, and we are likely to continue with this bar in mind. The next logical step would be to anticipate VR integration for the cell phone as the smartphones have reached a level of advancement and power that could support this. Moreover, VR headset attachments to smartphones have become increasingly more popular and not as expensive as it once was.
Concluding Remarks
At this point, it’s evident that the online casino industry is part of our future. It has had such a substantial impact on society that we have far exceeded the point of no return. The only question we have to consider now is, how will the future of online casinos look? We have already gotten a glimpse of the growing presence of VR, digital currencies and the evolution of mobile gaming. As for the rest, all we can do is just patiently sit and watch as it plays out in front of us.
