What’s Next for iGaming?
The global iGaming sector has come a very long way since the early days of online casinos. Initially dominated by simple digital versions of classic casino games, the industry quickly evolved, integrating new technologies to enhance user experience.
A number of innovations have brought about several key developments in the market, chief among them the rise of mobile gaming. As it’s done so with many other gaming verticals, mobile now dominates the iGaming sector, making it possible for players to enjoy their favourite slots, card and table games anywhere, anytime.
Live dealer games, meanwhile, brought the genuinely immersive brick-and-mortar casino experience online, but we’ve also seen an increase in the quality of casino gaming titles occur in recent years. In the ubiquitously popular online slots segment, individual titles like Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead fuse slots gaming mechanics with detailed, video gaming quality gameplay. Even more traditional card and table classics have become much more gamified in the digital realm, with increased elements of competition and high-quality graphics and audio adding to their realism.
With the industry already poised at the edge of innovation, you might be wondering how much further it can be developed. Well, iGaming is on the cusp of several groundbreaking trends that promise to redefine the landscape for the years and decades to come.
Let’s take a closer look!
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Integration
We’re currently on the cusp of the blockchain and crypto era in iGaming - two innovations that promise to enhance not just the gaming experience, but also the efficiency of iGaming platforms and their transparency and security. Blockchain, in particular, is able to address several of the challenges faced by operators in the sector, particularly when it comes to ensuring provably fair play and securing customer data and transactions.
Projects like Ethereum, Polygon and, more recently, Polkadot (DOT) and Cardano (ADA) are currently making their mark in the online real money gaming space. Ethereum is known for its smart contract functionality, which operators can use to automate several processes, such as payouts and bonus distribution. Polkadot is an interoperable network, which allows for communication and data sharing across different blockchains, in turn, enhancing multi-platform gaming experiences. Meanwhile, Cardano has a focus on security and scalability, promising to deliver robust and efficient online casino gaming networks.
Cryptocurrencies are also becoming more widespread across iGaming, particularly as new crypto casino start-ups emerge into the space. Even incumbent online casino and poker brands are becoming more receptive to crypto as a valid payment and withdrawal methods, accepting leading tokens like BTC (Bitcoin) and ETH (Ethereum), as well as the new wave of stablecoins.
While blockchain technology can secure and improve the functionality of an iGaming platform, the decentralised nature of crypto coins offers players a level of anonymity and security that traditional payment methods can’t match. Using Bitcoin to play casino games, for example, reduces transitions and processing times, while its underlying blockchain ensures transparency by recording each and every transaction made.
Expanding Real Money Gaming on Mobile
Mobile is certainly a major iGaming market, with plenty of mobile casino, poker and sports betting apps offered by established operators. Things have been a bit more fractured on the app store front, with real money gaming (RMG) apps and mobile iGaming platforms typically only being accessible to iOS users (via Apple’s AppStore). The Google Play Store has been more restrictive with RMG apps, meaning that developers have had to segment out different Android users, such as Samasung owners with access to the Samsung Galaxy Store.
Since 2021, Google has been onboarding RMG apps via pilot programs in “markets with pre-existing licensing frameworks”. As of 2024, the company has announced that it will be supporting more apps, expanding its trial programme to permanent initiatives in Brazil, India and Mexico. Although this expansion is initially focused on these three countries, the tech giant has plans to roll out the programme across more countries “in the future”.
Not only is this great news for gamers in the short term, giving a wider demographic of Android gamers access to the same apps that iOS users have long been able to enjoy, it also points towards a more diverse selection of gaming experiences in the future.
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