Casinos have been on a journey over the last 70 years, from the dusty deserts of Nevada to the sprawling, vivid, eye-catching designs we see all over the internet today. As casinos have gone from conventional floors to modern mobile ones integrating digital assets and the latest tech, it hasn't happened overnight, nor would it have without input and influence from other parts of the gaming industry.
Consumer demand plays an enormous role in changing the shape of any industry, and when an industry is as profit-driven and user-facing as the gambling market, it’s those casino gaming platforms that are able to measure consumer demand and adjust their designs that stand the best chance of success through time.
The Impact Of Mobile Casinos
Online casinos brought in a new level of convenience to the online gambling market. Instead of having to travel to a conventional casino and spend time and money, players could access their favorite games without leaving home.
Despite how groundbreaking this was at the time, as evidenced by the market's sheer success, online casinos did not rest on their laurels and sought further innovations, such as mobile casino games, to continue fuelling their aggressive global growth into what was, at the time, a burgeoning market. Mobile casino gaming options covered the same innovations; they kept the framework of convenience and security while allowing people to play on the move.
Instead of sitting at a PC desk and playing casino games, players were given the option to not get off the couch and play, and while it might seem like a minute detail, it’s something that added yet another chapter of growth into the casino gaming market.
Casinos incentivized sign-ups via mobile devices, attaching them to their promotional ideas, and riding the wave of a broader trend that saw mobile games like League of Legends challenge the conventional mould of what a popular game looked like, almost single-handedly shifting the focus from home video console gaming to free-to-play mobile gaming by the mid 2010s. This shift in demand gave casinos the green light to aggressively pursue mobile gaming initiatives, knowing that consumer demand for this medium was rapidly growing.
Embracing The Digital Switch
For mobile casinos to become a significant player in the casino gaming ecosystem, they had to expand and offer more than what conventional casinos do. Of course, this hasn’t made conventional casinos redundant, but they've moved to an online model to avoid falling behind the global market, and if that isn’t a testament to how successful the online market has become, then I don’t know what is.
Online casinos have become the spearhead for a market that has collectively moved online. Free sources, strategy guides, influencers, and gambling podcasts, every facet of the market is now online and free to access.
This ranges from players looking to find out more about games like Caribbean Stud Poker, to detailed podcasts that deep-dive into all things about the industry, and with billions of people spending hours a day on their phone, it may seem like the obvious move in hindsight, but back in the early 2010s, it was technology that still hadn’t showcased its full potential.
The resources now available to problem gamblers are another factor that has helped mobile casinos flourish. Those who believe they are developing a problem can access a multitude of problem gambling services online, making it much easier for those with an issue to seek out help compared to the days of the conventional market.
Smartphone Society
When casinos realized just how much money could be made in the vastness of the online market, mobile gaming was the next logical step. However, in the early 2010s, smartphones were not what they are today. Accessing the internet was fairly slow and expensive, especially if you were not using a WiFi connection, and mobile apps were still an unknown quantity.
Gaming absolutely obliterated your phone's battery life and drained it within an hour of playing a game that required a lot of bandwidth, which live table games do. The move from 3G to 5G has created a new dynamic: these games are seamless to play, the internet is not only faster but also cheaper, and so long as you are using a reputable casino provider, it is rare to encounter latency issues, even during peak usage.
The upgrade to 6G will further the potential of mobile casinos, with some believing this could open the door to AI holographic, ultra-realistic live dealers and 3D gaming that integrates 6G.
Again, it depends on how the consumer demand changes. It’s hard to see a world where smartphones become less influential and people spend less time on them, but with more people becoming screen aware, then mobile casinos may see their interest plateau - nobody knows what the future holds in this regard, and while the technology is impressive, it’s the integration and the level of consumer demand that will ultimately dictate the market value.
