Casino

When designing a new gambling location, developers consider casino colors to be very important. One of the strong selling points for a “live” casino is atmosphere : the bright colors, the sounds and the buzz of people being entertained and challenged by their favorite games.

In the early days of Web casino development may of the site owners and operators were striving to recreate the atmosphere of the big-house gambling centers. Since online casino play takes place primarily at home, designers felt they needed to make the experience as much like a live experience as possible.

Only in the past few months have gambling-industry insiders started to rethink how they present their online sites. Some have even suggested taking a few of the “bells and whistles” away because these extras might distract the online player from the task at hand. For some in the business, this will be a difficult concept to grasp, much less to accept. Casinos have always been well-lit, colorful, fascinating, and even a bit noisy – all by design. Now, a handful of people are suggesting taking this in a new direction.

Much of the argument for making online casino sites a bit more conservative comes from those who style themselves as “serious” players who don’t need the color, lights and bells that a recreational gamer might desire. A couple of industry watchers have suggested a serious survey/research study to determine just what it is players want in their online gambling. Are rich colors and full-motion video the most important details, as opposed to challenging and potentially lucrative games?

For years the belief has been that the atmosphere mentioned earlier – lights, bells, conversation buzzing around us – is what brings players back. If this is true, then online sites would need to recreate this, literally making the computer screen look and sound like the inside of a live gambling hall. There is little doubt that the world of Web-based casinos has grown rapidly, exploding into a major industry in a matter of years. All of this has happened without the familiar surroundings, sights and sounds of those big rooms.

So what is it that has drawn millions of people to the world of online gambling? Is it just the thrill of blackjack, craps, slots and poker? We certainly haven’t enjoyed the camaraderie of other gamblers or the efficient service of a cocktail waitress. Even without these amenities, gamblers seem to be gravitating toward online play. A British study shows that while gambling overall decreased a few percentage points from 1999 to 2007, the number of players online actually increased.

Are players showing a strong desire to play slots, roulette, blackjack and other games at home, without having to deal with the travel and expense of going to a live casino? Is the economic downturn we’re experiencing reaching into the world of live gambling?

In the past, Web-casino designers and managers have had little choice but to provide the same atmosphere as a player would get in a “brick-and-mortar” casino. These designers and managers will still have to provide almost-perfect software and game variety to keep players coming back. But will they have to concentrate so much on casino colors, lighting, graphics and sounds as they did in the past?

Some in the industry say no. As the legendary songwriter Bob Dylan said, “The times, they are a-changin.”

By: Jim Hale

Back in the late 1990’s when the internet casino industry was still in its infancy, bonuses of $20 to $50 were the norm. Anything approaching $100 was considered a stand out offer. Fast forward to today, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a casino offering less than $100 and some casinos are handing out upwards of $5,000 to new players.

The online casino industry has always been a very competitive one. From 1997 when Intercasino (laying claim to the first casino online) started taking bets to 2000, around 1,500 casinos flooded onto the internet in something akin to a gold rush, and competition for new players was fierce. But the carrots that are now being dangled are a quantum leap from those offered back in the ‘old days’ and a good portion of the increases have occurred in just the last 2 years.

For those uninitiated with the industry, bonuses as the name suggests, are real money contributions made by a casino to a player’s account. They come in many forms and sizes, but the most common is the new player sign up bonus. That is, a player opening a new account with a casino and depositing real money, will have his or her account credited with additional cash following the deposit of their own cash. So if a casino is offering a 100% match bonus capped at $500, for every dollar deposited by the player to $500, the casino will match it dollar for dollar. Some offers are structured to include multiple match bonuses with varying percentage matches for each.

The bonus money is real and belongs to the player, although there are strings attached. In order to prevent players signing up and then immediately withdrawing bonus funds, there are always ‘times wagered’ conditions attached. Usually you will need to turn that cash over 15 or 20 times playing one of the casino’s games before you are eligible to withdraw it.

Currently, a handful of casinos are offering an astronomical $5000 in multiple deposit sign on bonuses. This is a lot of money for any business to hand out to customers as an inducement to try their product, and one has to question whether casinos are reaching a point where their bottom lines are being severely impacted by these promotional strategies.

It also indicates that the industry is having to compete harder than ever before for new players. This is despite the fact that after quickly reaching a saturation point, the number of casinos online has not changed significantly over the last 5 years. So the market is either becoming more discerning, shrinking, or being cannibalized by other gambling options.

One likely contributing factor is the US government’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Law. Passed in late 2006, the legislation aim was to prevent US residents from accessing offshore gambling operators by rendering it illegal for payment processors (Mastercard, VISA etc) from facilitating payments from Americans to these operators. While many US players continue to gamble online despite UIGEA, its impact on the world’s online gambling market size must be considerable when you consider that prior to its enactment, Americans comprised half this market.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains – bonus amounts are now at ridiculous levels.

By: Milton Shaw