As the gaming industry has continued to expand over the years, the online casino category has emerged as a surprisingly dominant influencer. Once viewed largely as a niche haven for casino enthusiasts, this category is now incredibly popular and very active all over the world. And there are four ways in which it’s truly come to dominate the gaming market.
1. Mobile Access
Online casino games have been around for many years. But it was when they became available on mobile platforms that their popularity truly exploded. Android Headlines revealed just this year that mobile is now considered to be the most popular gaming platform around the world, and at this point, that’s hardly surprising. It does, however, explain how online casino titles have come to represent such a massive and influential corner of the gaming market.
The point isn’t just that there are occasional one-off casino gaming apps either. Rather, it’s that reliable, high-end internet casino providers with massive player bases can now be accessed via mobile devices. This has made existing casino gamers more active and has made it easier for new gamers to find and try these titles.
2. Ease of Entry
Speaking of new gamers, there’s also ease of entry factor to mobile casino titles. Specifically, many online and mobile casino providers have features built-in to make newcomers more comfortable trying things out. The welcome bonuses on Gala Spins are offered to new players experiencing their digital slots for the first time, meaning these new gamers don’t have to be too mindful of the real-money aspect of things. They can simply try the slots, and deposit more if and when they’re ready.
This separates online casino games distinctly from their more-traditional counterparts. After all, when you walk into a real-life casino, you don’t get any sort of bonus for sitting down at the poker table. For that matter, you don’t get to sample most paid mobile games before you buy into them either! All of this amounts to smooth ease of entry to this entire category.
3. Range of Titles
The range of available titles is perhaps the greatest advantage that the online slot category has over other types of gaming. If you haven’t explored these types of games before, you might expect something fairly basic (and frankly, boring) based on traditional, in-person slot machines. That is, you might envision a slot machine with three reels spinning to turn up lucky number 7 emblems, sets of cherries, and similar images. Classic games like these can be found at online casino sites — but they are by no means representative of the main offerings.
The main offerings are slot games bursting with themes from all corners of fiction, pop culture, and developers’ imaginations. At a single online casino site, you might find games based on figures from classic literature, films from DC Comics, and history and legends. You’ll find original animations of monsters, heroes, aliens, and animals. And among all of these themes, you’ll find a dizzying range of animation styles, slot reel icons, side games, in-game bonuses, and story elements. It truly is a whole category of games built into one genre, which is a rare thing even in today’s gaming world.
4. Gaming Security
Security is of the utmost importance to gamers online, particularly where transactions are concerned. In our article on ‘How to Stay Safe with Your Online Transactions’ we covered a number of things people do today in order to keep these dealings secure: keeping an eye out for SSL certificates, using secure systems like PayPal, and so on. And these same ideas certainly apply to online casino gaming.
When people play video games that invite real-money deposits, security has to be considered. For that reason, it’s also important to note that online casino platforms have come a long way in this regard. In the early days of this category’s emergence, it was sometimes harder to tell if a given site was secure. Now, however, the professional game providers offer a range of assurances. They make their security practices and certifications clear; they welcome payments from secure card processors; and in some cases they even accept cryptocurrency deposits, which many gamers view as inherently secure options. Because of all this, more gamers have become comfortable engaging with this category.
All of these factors have combined in recent years to turn online casino titles into a truly dominant gaming arena. They handle immense amounts of activity and money and satisfy gamers around the world. And they’re probably only going to get better from here.