What Does the Future Hold For Casinos?

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If you only recently made your first foray into casino gaming, what’s up for grabs right now will all seem perfectly normal. If you’ve been gambling for decades and have plenty of casino experience from the eighties and nineties, you’ll know just how much things have changed over the years.

The average bricks-and-mortar casino is now practically unrecognisable in its modern guise, compared to what you’d call the ‘traditional’ casino experience. They’re still pretty similar in terms of layout, styling and so on, but technology has radically transformed the way the action plays out. 

Whether or not this is a good thing depends on who you ask, but it’s the reality of things, nonetheless.

Online casinos have only been around for a couple of decades or so, but have quickly created one of the most popular and lucrative gaming markets in recent history. But it’s not just in the online space that technology has sparked a gambling revolution.  

Slowly but surely, gaming halls are being taken over by new-generation gaming experiences that would once have seemed far-fetched concepts. To such an extent that you’d be forgiven for thinking that the whole thing has reached a plateau, when nothing could be further from the truth.

With this in mind, here’s a brief rundown of what the industry’s closest watchers expect to see much more of over the years and decades to come:

1 – Electronic Gaming

Where the traditional bricks-and-mortar casino is concerned, electronic games are the future…period. The beauty of electronic games (from a casino’s perspective) is the way in which they are fully automated and require no human intervention. You basically install them, switch them on and sit back as they make you a fortune on a day-to-day basis. 

They’re less likely to go wrong than mechanical gaming machines, they can be regularly updated by way of new software and they’re also proving more popular than traditional machines. They even have the capacity to serve as fully automated classic casino table games, such as roulette, blackjack, poker, baccarat, and more.

Given the fact that they satisfy the demands of customers and make casinos masses of money, they’re here to stay. 

2 – Skill-Based Games

Speaking of customer demands, it’s become apparent over recent years that punters are getting into the idea of skill-based games. From surveys to studies to simple in-house questionnaires, there’s more demand for skill-based casino games than ever before.

Realistically, there is only one classic casino game that involves skill – poker.  Even then, you’ve technically no way of predicting what happens next, so there’s a degree of luck involved. But when it comes to all other casino games without exception, absolutely everything that takes place at the table is 100% chance. 

The odds are fixed, the outcome is random and there is not a single thing you can do about it.

With skill-based games, you have the opportunity to turn your knowledge, experience and acumen into a prize. You practice, you become more competent at the games of your choosing, and you ultimately tip the odds in your favour.

Skill-based games will never take over entirely, given the fact that casinos need to ensure there’s a house edge in place. Nevertheless, they’re in such high demand that it’s inevitable we will be seeing much more of them in the future. 

3 – Esports

The esports phenomenon came out of nowhere to transform the world of sports betting. It started out as a relatively niche pursuit, wherein some of the more innovative bookies began taking bets on video game tournaments. After which, it didn’t take long for the idea to catch on, resulting in a spectacularly popular and highly lucrative arm of the global gambling market.

What’s great about esports is the way in which anyone can participate. You don’t have to be particularly fit or even remotely good at the real-life version of the game in question. From FIFA football games to Mario Kart and more, it’s all about how well you play on-screen – not in the real world.

Plus, you need next to no physical infrastructure to set up an esports tournament.  They can be held anywhere in the world (even remotely) with just a basic equipment set up. Nevertheless, the popularity of video games in such that it has already become a phenomenally successful market in its own right.

4 – Virtual Reality 

Slowly but surely, virtual reality is beginning to make headway at some of the world’s biggest online casinos. As it stands right now, just the tiniest proportion of games available support VR hardware. Nevertheless, those designed with VR in mind deliver the most incredible 360-degree experience, making online casino gaming more immersive than ever before.

The more engaging the online experience becomes, the more its popularity is guaranteed to grow. Particularly when combined with live-dealer gaming, virtual reality has extraordinary potential to transform the way we play online.

Plus, given the fact that VR technology is becoming more affordable all the time, it will be making its way into more homes over the coming years. 

5 – Sports Betting

Last up, sports betting is one of the oldest forms of commercialised gambling.  Nevertheless, it’s guaranteed an important place in the future of gambling (online and offline) for one important reason. 

If online sports betting isn’t currently legal in your jurisdiction, there’s a strong chance it will be soon enough.

Authorities that have long prohibited online sports betting are finally waking up to the potential benefits of legalisation. Along with being able to take control of the market out of the hands of criminals, there’s also the massive tax revenues sports betting generates.

Truth is, anyone looking to gamble on sports can and will find a way of doing just that. So, instead of letting criminals control the market and pocket the proceeds accordingly, it simply makes sense to legalise it. 

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