Entertainment is a cornerstone in all of our lives, and among them, gaming and gambling are giant segments. According to Statista, the gambling market represents well over $400 billion in value, with the online gaming making up its fair share of that.
Gambling online is actually forecasted to reach $94.4bn by 2024, which represents far more than just old fashioned slot machines. Online gambling is helped along by its sheer convenience but also growing variety in the ways people can game compared to inside a casino.
Above all, some of the innovations we’re starting to see commonly in the eCommerce sector have a welcome place in the gambling industry, with their inclusion helping to bring whole new generations and revenues into the industry.
So what can we expect to come from the digital gambling and gaming world this year? Well, let’s take a look!
Digital Innovation: VR/AR, Mobile and More
One of the unique things about online gambling is that there’s a bigger split down the middle between users on mobile and desktop; with gambling on a laptop or computer being the most popular.
Why? Immersion, for one; with the bigger screens, users can be immersed in the quality that comes with online games and machines as opposed to having to navigate it on a smaller mobile device.
Even though there is this divide, technology like Virtual and Augmented Reality are making their way into the space.
It’s far more than a distant idea, with a growing number of Virtual Casinos already in operation, with Virtual/Augmented Reality being one of the fastest-growing areas of the industry as a whole.
That’s according to Research And Markets, which found that Virtual and Augmented Reality was set for Compound Annual Growth Rate of 6.9% as a conservative estimate.
The advantages to it are pretty clear; being online, there’s already a far higher level of social interaction between players, and more of incentive to get involved with it on social media channels.
Long Hand of Regulation
While there’s been some impressive growth experienced by the gambling industry over the past few years, which is thanks, in part to the kind of regulations in place over the world at the moment.
But with 2020, organisations like the European Organization for Gaming Law will be rolling out new legislation in order to curtail money laundering.
For online casinos, there’s every possibility that this will force them into obtaining further licensing, which would have a knock-on effect on how they obtain and retain players.
The long hand of regulation also raises questions about just how businesses can hold onto the players they have, while also encouraging a new and very active population of younger millennial players.
Gambling Over Generations: Millennials and Beyond
The lure of the Blackjack and Poker tables may have worked for generations past, but as new-age groups come to the forefront, businesses have to wrestle more with a demographic that is shuffling the cards and spoiling the (traditional) games.
But with every challenge, opportunity follows closely behind. And some of the rapidly growing areas of gambling are already showing businesses where their energy needs to be going towards.
Virtual Reality is one of them, but a very close second are the joint worlds of eSports and betting. In particular, eSports managed to bring in $138bn on its own back in 2018, and that’s only going to get bigger, so it’s safe to assume that where sports go, betting follows.
This combination is expected to carry a valuation of more than $12bn by the end of 2020, so there’s every incentive for gambling companies to find their footing and feature this growing area as part of their suite of games.
We’re getting a firsthand demonstration of just how lucrative that combination is with Midnite, an online betting platform for eSports and gaming, which raised $2.5m in December/January.
Cryptocurrency and Blockchain: the Game-Changer or Streamliner?
While there are plenty of buzzwords thrown about when it comes to the use of blockchain technology, there are some real and immediate needs in the gambling world that can easily be fixed when it’s introduced.
There’s certainly a perceived issue of trust between casinos (on and offline) and the betters that use them; with betters seeing them as a vested interest that has every incentive to rig the games in some way.
Casinos on and offline do have some hurdles to overcome in order to really shatter the trust barrier and offer users transparancy in payments, and its gaming machines are ways to do that.
Blockchain does have the potential to solve some of these issues; being a distributed ledger means that a blockchain-using casino carries a ledger of transactions and activities for both parties to see.
As a result, preventing either side of getting away with foul play, by making it simply impossible to do so.
That said, Blockchain is no cure-all, but it can provide its fair share of remedies.
Hittin’ the ICE in London
We’re happy to be attending ICE on February 3-8th in the ExCel in London.
For those of you that don’t otherwise know – ICE is an international gathering of minds and entrepreneurs from the Gaming, Gambling and Casino industry.
It’s a must-go event for anyone that’s involved or intrigued by the industry and the current trajectory it’s on. We pride ourselves on helping companies within the gambling, betting and casino industries really flourish, so it’s safe to say that we’re really excited about coming along!
So, if you’re around and looking to find out just how Unlimint can help supercharge your gaming business in 2020, come and say hi!
