We can say that the pandemic process has affected all businesses and caused many to shrink: Social distance rules negatively affected the way many industries operate and caused them to suffer. However, businesses that have already implemented social distance rules were hardly affected by COVID19: They even started to grow their businesses and offer additional services.
Online gambling is at the forefront of these industries. You can play thousands of casino games from the comfort of your home without getting together with other people and enjoy slot machines even if you have a limited budget with bonuses like free spins slots. This sector was not affected by the pandemic, and on the contrary, it grew even more during COVID19: Online casino operators had to change and adjust their way of working according to the increase in customer numbers. So, what do these changes include? How has the pandemic process affected online casino operators? We answer these questions below.
All-Inclusive Gambling Packages
It’s hard to find a website that only offers online casino games anymore. In the past, there was a clear distinction in the online gambling industry: Casinos and betting sites offered different services and would not interfere with each other. So you had to use a different site to play a game and a different site to bet. Even the online betting industry was divided into two as esports and regular sports, and these services were offered on different sites. Truth be told, this was not a practical approach, and over time, all these services would come together on a single address. However, the pandemic accelerated this process and ensured that what we expect to happen in the near future will happen in a very short time. Online casinos have begun to offer bets and betting sites to offer casino games. In other words, you no longer have to use different sites to play and place bets: Almost every big name in the industry offers these services at the same time from one address.
It is possible to see this situation in company mergers. For example, DraftKings started offering more than fantasy sports betting by acquiring SB Tech. Flutter bought The Stars Group and became the owner of the Sky Betting brand. All these developments show that all services included in the iGaming sector will no longer be provided by small and independent companies, but by large companies from central points. You will be able to make a sports bet right after playing slot games, and you will not need to use a different account for this.
Live Dealer Games Are on the Rise
Live dealer games have been around for a long time, but their importance has become evident during the pandemic era, and casino operators have begun to take them more seriously due to increased demand. Before the pandemic, live casino games were seen as a kind of “side service” and were thought to cater only to a specific player base. So online operators mainly focused on regular casino games and did not take live casino games very seriously. But when casinos closed due to epidemic measures, the demand for these games increased dramatically: Players began to have difficulty finding empty tables. In this respect, we can say that live casino game developers were caught unprepared for the epidemic because even they did not expect such an increase in demand. However, like every digital service, it did not take long to adapt, and both the number of tables increased and new live casino games appeared. We expect this change to be permanent: Operators will no longer see live dealer games as a “side service” and will focus more on them. We even expect to see casino sites dedicated solely to these games.
Mobile Devices Are More Important Than Ever
The epidemic period allowed operators to clearly see how important mobile devices are to free games and slots. Obviously, compatibility problems were very few before the epidemic due to HTML5 technology: Almost 90% of casino games were running smoothly on mobile devices. However, their interfaces were still designed for desktop devices and could not offer a practical experience on touch screens. Operators saw more clearly how many players preferred mobile devices to play during the epidemic period: Even those who played from home preferred to use mobile phones rather than computers or laptops. This situation revealed that casino games should be made suitable for mobile devices not only in terms of technical aspects but also in terms of gaming experience. You can be sure that you will soon see an increase in the number of games with interfaces suitable for touch controls. In fact, we expect many new games to have their world premieres first on mobile devices.
