Casino games are entering the modern era. Yet it is social features, not flashy mechanics and graphics, that are driving it onwards.
Scan any topic about the future of online casinos, and you will find mentions of augmented reality and virtual worlds splashed about. Yet the real innovations are coming from something much more human: A desire to play socially. From new game formats to mechanics, it is connections that are pushing the industry forward.
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The Growth of the iGaming Sector
Innovation is at the heart of the iGaming sector. Across the globe, it is expected to have a growth rate of 11.6% in the run-up to 2030, with an annual turnover that will be around $159.6 billion. These growth areas are not always where you expect them, either, with emerging markets leading the charge. In Africa, providers like Jackpot City online casino are bringing table games and betting to countries such as Ghana where mobile adoption rates are just beginning to pick up. This lets people engage in all the exciting titles available to those elsewhere, along with bonuses and offers.
Yet this growth has not happened randomly. The industry has been working on everything from better payment methods to enhanced security. Yet its gaming provision has been paramount, and social features are playing a huge part in this. These have mainly come from two areas: Live casino and crash gaming.
The Growth of Live Casino Gaming
When you play a game online, you lose some of the social interaction you would get from visiting a casino. You don’t speak to hosts and hostesses, order refreshments from a waiter, and you definitely don’t talk to croupiers. Yet live casino games bridge that gap. Players connect to hosts in a studio, who beam the entertainment and game from there. Players can then choose to bet, wager, and do everything they would at a real casino using the integrated software.
Behind the scenes, they also have a fundamental difference in their mechanics. The outcomes of these games are not determined by a random number generator. Instead, it is down to chance as a person spins a ball on a real-world roulette wheel, or deals from an actual deck of cards. This makes games much more transparent.
A look at the top ten most played live casino games shows just how many people interact with these titles. Games at the top of the list have an average of 14,640 players an hour, with most others averaging around the 3,687 mark. Late afternoon on Friday seems to be the key time many people log on, as they finish work for the week and want to let their minds unwind with some entertaining titles.
So popular have live casino games become that they soon evolved from table games into their own game show-style events. These allow people to step into fantastic bonus rounds, where they become the star of the show. There are even ones that use licensed properties from real game shows like Deal or No Deal, or Hasbro’s famous Monopoly.
The Meteoric Rise of Crash Gaming
On paper, crash gaming seems to offer very little to the player that is new. In fact, these games are actually quite simple, much more so than table games. They grew in popularity with the seminal Aviator, which involved betting on the path of an aircraft in flight. As people remained in the game, their bet would increase through a series of multipliers. Yet if the plane crashed before they withdrew their bet, they lost everything.
This game now has 5 million monthly active players worldwide, though it was not the game itself that many people came for. It was the way in which it was presented. Aviator introduced a social lobby before games began. This allowed people to look at leaderboards and see who had big wins, or even for people to show off their amazing feats. In many ways, it was like a social media for casual gaming.
Since then, further features have enhanced this. Unlike other casino games, everyone bets on the same event. This produced a kind of camaraderie usually reserved for sports games. Some titles have capitalized on this by introducing pooled betting, where you and friends can all place your money in one pot and devise a winning tactic.
Crash gaming now has hundreds of iterations, from games where you have to guide frogs across roads to pachinko-based variations. Yet at their heart, they have one aim: providing social gaming.
Thus, casinos and sportsbooks are now pivoting to a more social-centric approach. In certain US states where online gambling is forbidden, this has literally been embodied in social casinos. Yet for everyone else, this makes the casino more enjoyable. They no longer become a closed-door world of playboys and James Bond characters, but an open door where people can interact and hopefully have a lucky win on the way.