Like any other lucrative market segment, online gambling is a commercial sector that rarely resembles a safe haven. The amount of money people spend on online gambling has risen steadily every year since the numbers first began to be counted.
In 2005, the total annual amount spent on different types of online gambling was almost $14 billion. It is estimated that in 2015 this amount will exceed $40 billion for the first time. By comparison, this is twice as much as the world spends on music – live and digital.
There are many companies each trying to get as much of that $40 billion as possible. The world leader in online poker, PokerStars, makes more than $1 billion a year for its parent company, Amaya. Gambling software group Playtech has a net annual revenue of over €140 million, and gambling website group 888 Holdings earns $50 million annually.
Along with the big companies that are at the forefront of the industry, there are many smaller players who would like to gain a good name for themselves. In this regard, they are developing new strategies. For example, the little-known Swedish software company NetEnt has added cinematic animation and game effects that simply didn’t exist before. When it comes to online slots, NetEnt is considered to be the leader among companies in the gaming industry.
Our OnlineCasinoHub.com experts have compiled innovations in online casinos that may come in the future. You will learn more about this below.
Live dealer casino
Data speeds are constantly increasing as superfast broadband and fiber optics become available to most people.
Some countries have already invested enough in communications infrastructure – the average connection speed in South Korea is 25.3 Mbps, as opposed to 11.5 Mbps in the U.S. and 2.0 Mbps in India.
Such connection speeds mean that dedicated high-resolution streaming is quite possible, and virtually every major casino now offers a “live dealer casino.” Instead of sophisticated software that provides the degree of randomness required in gambling, real gambling tables are used and video is streamed to the player’s device. Decisions are made by the player and transmitted through an interface to the dealer.
Once a novelty, such casinos will replace their software counterparts – it’s only a matter of time, experts believe Right Casino. Already more than 30 casinos are streaming video around the world, most of them in Costa Rica and the Philippines. The interactive casino market in Asia is growing particularly fast.
Betting in cybersports
It won’t please traditionalists, but the sports world is transforming. Video games are ceasing to be a casual pastime and increasingly becoming a permanent choice – especially for the millennial generation.
Three online games – Defence of the Ancients, League of Legends and StarCraft – are setting the tone for “video game competitions,” or cybersports (terms by which they have become popular). Top cybersports players like Saahil Arora and Peter Dager are as famous within the gaming community as Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi are among soccer fans.
Of course, any element of rivalry opens up the possibility of betting, and several online sports bookmakers, including William Hill, bet365 and Pinnacle Sports, are already offering players to bet on their cybersport favorites. Similarly, Russian bookmakers have implemented such an app in their operations.
Virtual casinos
Virtual reality is no longer just a cliché from science fiction. It is already a profit-making business. Sony released Project Morpheus, Oculus released the Oculus Rift helmet, and Microsoft said it has joined the general trend with HoloLens goggles.
Of the three devices listed above, the HoloLens goggles are creating the most excitement when it comes to online gambling. Microsoft’s device complements reality; it’s transparent, like 3D glasses, but what you see is augmented by holographic projections. That is, the 3D images appear fully integrated with the rest of your environment.
The impact of this technology on the gambling industry can be huge. Imagine playing roulette at your dinner table, putting holographic chips on the gaming table and watching the ball spin inside the holographic roulette wheel. Just as live dealer casinos can completely replace digital casinos, virtual reality can do the same.
Big Data
Sports betting houses can both win and lose money – and so can players. In January 2013, William Hill lost £13 million in a single day when all the Premier League favorites won. That’s why many big betting companies want to make sure that the data they collect can be analyzed and made to work in their favor.
Big data analysis can be driven to very precise metrics, facilitating personalization at an extremely detailed level. Similarly, marketers use big data to personalize the retail experience for their customers.
More variety
Gambling in online casinos abroad like seen on online-
Leading gambling company Microgaming did an experiment with one of their games in 2012 that wasn’t very successful. In fact they used the graphics of an old game to create a typical online slot game only a year later. Other companies have tried similar tactics, but usually go back to the reliability of the profits that online slots provide.
There will come a time when online slots will start to lose their charm and companies will have to find something to fill the gap that has formed. The next novelty in the world of online gambling may appear very soon – just as video poker suddenly filled all the casinos in Las Vegas in the late 1970s.
However, on the Russian market online casinos still remain illegal. Only social casinos are available at the moment. Other forms of gambling are available only in gambling zones.