Online casinos are increasingly leaning towards social interaction as a development tool. This includes gamification, increased competition, and live streaming elements.
Read any article about the future of online casinos, and talk of virtual reality and artificial intelligence will abound. Yet the truth is much more human: The real change in online casino gaming is coming from interaction. The global market is now expected to reach revenues of $78.66 billion, and future growth will not come from new technologies, but from connecting people who like to play in casino environments.
The Importance of Live Casino
A live casino is a form of online gaming in which the action is streamed to players from a studio. A host or hostess will spin the wheel in roulette or deal the cards in blackjack, as they would in a real physical casino. Players can view them and bet on the events using the integrated software. Not only does it add a social element, but it fundamentally changes the game. Outcomes are no longer determined by a random number generator. Instead, with live casino, the game’s outcomes are created by chance and probability.
What is so social about these games is that players can talk to others using a chat function. The host can speak to them with an audio device, creating a two-way communication stream. Players no longer have to use a digital representation; they are essentially in a live casino, though with all the convenience of being behind their device.
In the early days, these live offerings simply used existing table games. Slowly, as their popularity increased, games with side bets and variations were added. What is most spectacular is that live casino has now developed its own titles, very similar to television game shows. They often start with a chance element, such as a wheel spin. Yet when players access a bonus round, they can be transported into unique social environments in which they are the star.
The Rise of Gamification
This drive for interaction and competition is not just an iGaming one. It has been seen across the world, with gamification becoming a huge industry. Around 70% of Global 2000 companies use gamification in some shape or form. These have been implemented in many different ways, from learning experiences to increasing productivity.
At the heart of gamification lies friendly competition. It means taking part with others to see who can score the most points. Going onto leaderboards, people often win prizes or rewards in the shape of digital accolades and badges. When it comes to online casinos, this has primarily been seen in the popularity of one genre: Crash gaming.
The Crash Gaming Genre
Nowhere has social interaction been as popular as crash gaming. In fact, on the surface, crash gaming titles are pretty ordinary. Take Aviator, the flagship game in the genre. You basically wager on the path of an aircraft, and your bet increases the longer you stay in. If you don’t cash out in time, then you lose your funds.
What makes these titles so appealing is the social elements. Players enter a lobby before a game begins, which shows daily, weekly, and all-time high scores. People can chat and discuss tactics or the previous round. In some instances, people can even pool bets and play together.
Unlike other casino titles, everyone also bets on the same event. All of this makes a social atmosphere in which people share the wins and losses as a group. Unique in casinos, this opened up lobbies to a whole new generation and demographic of players who wanted low wagering, quick turnaround wins, and payouts.
The Future of Casino Interaction
Online casinos are often extremely forward-thinking in their drive to attract new customers. Yet the world of social interaction is one yet to be applied to other titles. While crash gaming has shown that these leaderboards and lobbies are in demand, they have not yet appeared in games such as poker, blackjack, and others.
There has also been little drive to bring these elements to other concepts. One of these could include ideas like communal slots, in which people pool bets and make decisions together. There has been a huge increase in the types of games that can be bet on in this context, though.
One of these includes a possible title in which the player will bet on the movement of traffic in the real world. Taking footage from junctions in Tokyo, Paris, and France, players will be able to wager on how many cars pass certain areas, which colour they are, and which types of vehicles. All this will be tracked by AI, and it will provide a wealth of opportunities for communal wagering.
Thus, the drive for new technologies may be big in other sectors, but iGaming could be ahead of the curve once again, by realising that technology has reached a peak. There may be very little else that can be done to enhance table games or slots. Instead, it is human elements that are pushing casino gaming forward.
