Casinos draw on emerging technology to broaden their appeal
The online gaming scene is evolving at a breakneck speed, particularly in the online casino market, which continues to grow and generate increasing revenues on both sides of the Atlantic. A major part of its success is that it has drawn a new demographic of over 30s into a sector that has traditionally been designed for those in their teens and early 20s.
But could that very strength prove to be the sector’s Achilles heel? With casinos seen as the gaming of choice for baby boomers and generation X, are the operators missing a trick by ignoring the millennial market that is core to other forms of gaming?
More casinos every day
The sector continues to grow, whether it is in the UK, continental Europe or North America. The casino database at https://www.thecasinodb.com provides a snapshot of just how many UK sites there are to choose from and the recent news that Pennsylvania has legalised online casinos means that we can expect a whole host of new US-based entrants, too.
Every casino is looking to provide a unique selling point, theme or twist, and while offering bigger and better bonuses for new members is good news for gamblers, it is not the most sustainable business strategy. Appealing to a specific demographic makes far more business sense, and a growing number of sites are seeing the largely untapped millennial market as the perfect target. Here’s how they are doing it.
Virtual Reality (VR)
VR hardware is likely to be this year’s “must have” for Christmas. Apple and Samsung have been swift to jump on the bandwagon, producing headsets that work with their latest smartphones as a cost effective way into the market.
With the technology still at an early stage, casino games are a perfect platform for a relatively simple VR experience, providing gamers with a realistic spin of the roulette wheel or turn of a card.
Big data
Advances in big data analytics and machine learning have helped businesses learn more about their customers wants, needs and habits than ever before. This can be used to delivered carefully targeted marketing and service offerings to gamers, and to focus on developing and refining the type of casino games and experiences that most appeal to the millennial market.
A handy side effect of the big data revolution is that it can also provide enhanced security by identifying suspicious patterns that could otherwise be lost among millions of other transactions.
Business process management
It is easy to dismiss games as a frivolous diversion, whether they are of the casino variety or take some other form. However, it is important to remember that the online casino industry is one that generates billions every year. It is comprised of organisations that have accountants, contract managers, business development teams and all the other functions you would expect to find in a large service company.
Here, as in any other successful but highly competitive sector, the businesses that succeed will be those that use the most effective business processes, such as Enterprise Content Management.