The world of gambling has come a very long way since the days of the aristocrats in Monaco and the unruly parlours of the wild American west. The now-global industry has fully embraced the advances of the 21st Century and boasts an impressive collection of technology to keep it all running.
More than just technology though, online casinos are creeping more and more up to the standards of the top casinos in the world, competing with them in unexpected ways.
What exactly is iGaming?
Online gambling, in the industry collectively known as iGaming, is the evolution of traditional gambling, with many extras you wouldn’t find in physical casinos or betting shops. Many of the biggest gambling providers are represented in the digital world now, and it has opened up a lot more options for them.
Take Paddy Power for instance. They now offer games that you couldn’t find without being online, such as live remote casino shows or slingo bingo, a combination of slots and bingo made possible digitally that just wouldn’t work offline. Digital slots have designs that are only possible through advanced software, and these go a long way in increasing a game’s appeal.
How high-tech is online betting?
There’s already a lot of technology that goes into online casinos that the average player will never even see. Aside from digital slot development, the standard casino platform includes everything from state-of-the-art encryption systems for security to integrations for payments from numerous sources including multiple cryptocurrencies. In fact, crypto has become so ingrained into the online gambling world that some casinos are dedicated to just using crypto, and crypto gambling has actually more than doubled in value over the last year.
To go back to the games themselves, designs are by no means the only impressive factor. Many slots now feature gameplay and special extras that wouldn’t be out of place in a modern mobile video game, and they’re integrating all the latest features you’d find in those, such as VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality). These two technologies are growing quickly, with 170 million people using VR alone as of 2022, and game developers like Evolution are rapidly working both features into their new live casino games.
So what separates a high-end online casino from the rest?
Just like with physical casinos, there are the ones that everyone use, and then there are ones tailored to the top end of the scale. From the start, online casinos can’t go about things in the same way as the casinos of London or Monte Carlo. There’s the atmosphere of physically being inside a casino with dealers, waiters and other players, and real-life VIP rooms and service for high rollers.
That’s why online casinos go for the high-end approach in a different way. Where dedicated service in person can’t be provided, there will instead be a personal contact. This contact will be a casino VIP liaison, often available 24/7, who can arrange all manner of extras, such as restaurant trips, transport and even flights if you’re high enough up the VIP scale.
Event prizes from online casinos can regularly provide a taste of the high life too. Even more everyday casinos can arrange things such as Vegas holidays as prizes, so it’s only natural that the top end of the online casino world can offer much more extravagant prizes. Things like two-week tours of London’s Michelin star-rated restaurants, or skiing holidays in a luxury resort hidden amongst the Swiss Alps are all on the table.
Will there ever be a fully-virtual luxury casino?
While it’s still some way off, the time when we could see all the trappings of luxury casinos in virtual form is closer than you may think. Between the VR technology mentioned earlier, and the rise of projects such as the Metaverse, we could easily be seeing virtual luxury casinos, that you can ‘walk’ around in, with completely AI hosts and staff, and even other players in one form or another.
More than that, we could be seeing the groundwork for it as soon as within the 2020’s. How well it matches up to the real thing will be left for the players to decide, but you can be sure the quality will be at the top level.
