The online casino industry is often considered by online business and marketing experts to be one of the most successful niches on the web. In fact, several recent studies and reports rank the online casino industry amongst the top five most successful online industries in the world today. So, would the online casino industry make for the ideal modern online business model? Let’s delve a little deeper into the online casino industry and unpack its inner workings and methods.
Online casinos first began to appear in the mid nineteen nineties, launched under the power of new online casino software brands including Microgaming and Playtech, with Net Entertainment short on their heels. These three casinos software providers still provide the backbone to the entire online casino industry, although many new brands have since emerged.
Admittedly the first online casinos were nothing to write home about. The games were basic, the graphics still underdeveloped and the range rather limited. However, they did create something incredible, the gave ordinary people who would otherwise possibly never experience a real casino, at least a taste of that kind of excitement. The best part is that, as long as you had a computer and an internet connection (dial up in the early days), you could sign up and play a few virtual casino games.
It did not take long for the online casino revolution to spread, and soon online casinos all over the world began to pop up on the internet. Even seemingly remote countries like New Zealand began to benefit from the online casino boom. According to Real-Money-Casinos.co.nz, dozens of New Zealand casinos began offering virtual casino games to Kiwis, a nation known for their love of gambling, sports betting and horse racing.
Flash forward a decade or so and the online casino industry begins to expand its scope to include a much wider selection of online slots, jackpot games, virtual roulette, blackjack, baccarat, poker, keno, and many other games too. As top casino software providers including the old guard consisting of Microgaming, Playtech, and NetEnt continue to push boundaries, newer brands begin to appear, adding new life to the industry.
Microgaming begin to dominate the progressive jackpot market, with top titles like Major Millions, King Chashalot, and Mega Moolah making waves all over the web. Progressive jackpot slots offer players the chance to crack an ever-increasing jackpot, thanks to a unique structure where every participating player contributes a percentage of their wager to the jackpot total. The result is a jackpot which can grow with dizzying speed, especially if the slot happens to be a popular one.
Towards the end of its second decade on the web, the online casino industry once again evolved, creating an even bigger and better service to its players. While slots may appear to be the king of the casino, we all know that the table games, including blackjack, roulette, baccarat and poker, are the real stars of the show.
However, virtual table games, despite the best efforts of top software developers, remain somewhat unrealistic and ‘robotic’. Until the concept of a live dealer game, streamed in real time to every players computer became a reality, thanks to strides made in live internet video streaming and broader bandwidth capabilities. Fans of table games could now enjoy real live versions of their favourite blackjack, baccarat, roulette, or poker games, complete with sexy dealers and interactive gaming features.
Finally, we arrive at the world of the mobile online casino gaming, considered by many to be the future of the online casino gaming industry. Mobile casino gaming allows players to take their favourite online casino game anywhere they please, provided they have access to secure Wi-Fi or a bigger data package. Thanks to HTML5 mobile browser technology, most of the top online casinos now offer app-less mobile casino gaming, allowing anyone, on virtually any mobile device, a crack at some of the world’s best casino games.
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