Expanding the audience for live dealer
Live casino games, which have become a must-have offering at any online casino, are a fantastic tool to create an atmosphere similar to what a player would feel in a real casino.
Live Casino is one of the comparatively new products on the market. This ‘new breed’ of casino games has swiftly gained enormous popularity and continues to attract people from all walks of life. As soon as the product appeared on the market, online casinos instantly saw these games attract a unique type of player – typically loyal, long-lived and of high value.
The popularity of live casino can be explained by the fact that when playing games, people are eager to compete and take risks. Competing and risk taking are part of human nature: once a person comes to know the rules of a game and finds even the smallest possibility of winning or discovers just the tiniest advantage, they will seize the opportunity. Live casino games stir the same emotions in people. Moreover, the absence of AI, and with the involvement of real people and objects on the other side of the screen, full immersion in the game encourages the customer to an even greater extent. This product also contributes to other related products via cross-sell and brings a significant profit. However, in its original state the product has quite a limited audience.
Currently, the major challenge a live casino manager has to address is to find the correct balance between cost, reliability and profitability for each live casino product.
A lot of live casino suppliers have tried to enlarge their audience by developing a huge number of live dealer casino games. Lotteries with live dealers are extremely popular, and new hybrid games have begun to appear that combine betting with other popular games like Texas Hold’em, Mini Baccarat, Wheel of Fortune, etc. In some cases, RNG games have been combined with live casino games, and the majority of live casino operators offer low betting limits to attract customers with smaller bankrolls to invest in the games. Live dealer games are licensed and certified for availability in all possible jurisdictions, user interfaces have been vastly improved to provide customers the best possible experience, new technologies give the possibility to play live casino games on an enormous range of internet-connected devices. So the question remains… What else can be done?
The direction of innovation
Generally ‘innovation’ is the key word in the casino industry, but which direction should the innovation proceed in?
There are fascinating debates about whether creating new features and/or improving existing ones builds the stronger attraction for new players, or indeed whether stabilising the current product attracts the greater number through positive reputation – we believe the answer is both! The team should work in both directions to develop the most complete strategies possible, while also taking into account all aspects, including social interaction.
Actually, the real advantage live dealer games have over ‘traditional’ RNG casino games is the level of social interaction, which cannot be matched. Our likes and dislikes, the possibility to exchange thoughts and ideas, to express our emotions, to find like-minded people, or just the desire to follow people who inspire others, these all encourage millions upon millions to spend their daily lives interacting on social networks.
Socializing is one of the main features that makes live casino games popular and profitable. In live casino games, people can communicate with one another as well as with the dealer. Recent studies show that the social aspect makes people come back and play the game. That’s why the idea of social communication has to be developed and improved.
It is my belief that the way live casino games are presented and the level of interaction are both going to change dramatically in the coming years – the vastly improved social aspect married with the incorporation of new technologies will bring live casino games closer to players and their emotions. This increased accessibility will further expand on positive elements of the live game and allow an unprecedented level of immersion.