Stemming from a discussion at SIGMA, Malta, I walk you through the evolution of online gambling and how it now benefits land-based casinos. (Image by
gstudioimagen on Vecteezy)
The answer to the title of this blog is an astounding yes. Land-based casinos today do benefit from online gambling.
With widespread access to gambling online, today, more people know how to gamble. They can play poker thanks to online poker rooms, understand slots and understand how to play roulette and blackjack with a bet sizing strategy, all thanks to online gambling.
The fear of entering a land-based casino and looking stupid, because they don’t understand how to play is a thing of the past for many people.
Online gambling has almost been the school of how to gamble in today’s modern era.
SIGMA Discussion and My Personal Experience
I am going to give you the reasons why land-based casinos benefit using my experience of online gambling. I saw the beginning of the iGaming and online sports betting market, as my experience dates back to between 1994 and 1996.
Yet, I am not alone in this line of thinking because I got the idea to write about this topic from the latest SIGMA event in Malta.
It was from a discussion by trio Oliver Debono, Joe Pisano, and Daniel Gunba, who are CEOs of Quantum Gaming, Jade Entertainment and Gaming Technologies, and Trion Gaming, respectively.
The three sat down and discussed how land-based casinos are benefiting from online gambling. However, they began by discussing how the early 90s and 2000s created fear amongst land-based gambling operators. You can read more about that discussion here – Blending online and offline gaming.
The trio concluded that land-based gambling venues benefit from online gambling, and I have to say, from my experience of gambling, I tend to agree.
Let’s Rewind
We have to rewind a bit to see how the evolution of online gambling affected land-based gambling before creating what is now almost a symbiotic relationship between the two.
Online gambling first came online between 1994 and 1996, with Microsoft as the leading brand delivering games to online casinos.
This was the time when land-based casinos, high-street bookies, and slot shops were only just beginning to worry about the future of digital tech. In particular, how the internet would take business from them. Gambling companies were not alone.
High street stores and one I can particularly give a good example of Blockbuster videos were all about to come under the Kosh from an invisible force.
My Experience of How Online Gambling Evolved
In order to understand how land-based casinos today benefit from online gambling. I need to set the background from my personal experience. Without revealing my age, I was around before the internet existed.
There is a twist in this tale! Initially, online gambling did negatively affect land-based gambling. Yet, fast-forward to the present, online gambling and land-based gambling happily operate in tandem, benefitting from one another.
So, to set the scene! Before the internet, I was living in Canada, where I grew up. The best we had was cable TV, in which we could place bets on Roulette games and horse racing. This was around 1994.
For information, I would use the pixelated Teletext info channels on the TV. I would check Ice Hockey and football league tables. Plus, the latest horse racing events myself and my pals used newspaper sports columns to decide on my next bet.
To give you an example of how TV’s Teletext worked, I even used it to look for holiday deals. That was our internet of the time, and it was slow!
When I moved to London in 1996, we already had the internet in my family home in Canada. It was a clunky dial-up modem that you had to connect to the net manually—no permanent 24/7 connection like we have today.
However, it was when I moved to London, I was in a house share rental arrangement. There were five of us, and we used to bet the horses regularly and play poker. I still remember my William Betting number when I used to bet by phone. 89144790.
The main point to absorb here is that this was an era when high-street sports betting shops were in fashion, but casinos were not so popular. There were more places for high-rollers. If I wanted to play slots, I’d go to a slot shop, not a casino.
The Change That Now Benefits Land-based Gambling Entertainment Venues
Broadband was the next big move for the internet. It gave us a 24/7 connection to the internet. Plus, WiFi routers were becoming the rage.
You could use your laptop or a wireless card on your PC and connect to the WiFi router from anywhere in your home. It was ingenious and something very new for us. In the beginning, you can imagine this did have a negative effect on land-based venues, but there is a reason.
Only people who knew how to gamble were really playing online instead of going to the high street bookies or a casino.
Smartphones
Bearing in mind smartphones still didn’t exist when broadband and WIFi were coming online, we were betting online and playing poker versus players across the globe from our laptops or PCs installed with wireless.
Then came smartphones and casino apps, and the gambling industry became accessible 24/7, no matter where you are. Mobile ads, downloadable casino and sports betting apps, and other gambling applications have further created awareness of how to gamble. Today, online gambling has made more people aware of games like slots, poker, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, and others.
Advertising and apps now mean more people understand how to gamble, and as a result, more people take a trip to land-based gambling establishments for a live, upfront and personal experience.
The Scare For High Street Bookies and Casinos Has Turned Into a Marketing Miracle
Faster broadband and smartphone gambling were a huge scare for high-street sports betting companies, but not so much for land-based casinos. Most people played home poker games, and it was only ever so often did we went to the casino to play poker.
Very few people played blackjack, roulette, baccarat, live game shows, or any of the games we popularly see at online casinos today. Even slots were not overly popular, you would see them in a pub with a single game.
Also, when it comes to poker, aside from Las Vegas and Atlantic City, most land-based casinos across the globe didn’t have a multi-player poker area because the rakes from the games were not as profitable as using the space for slot machines or table games. Yet, today, we see plenty of land-based casinos hosting poker tournaments and cash games.
There are also more people visiting casinos to play slots games or play slots in bars and pubs. As a result, land-based casinos and other gambling entertainment venues are now benefitting from online gambling. The scare of the early 1990s and 2000s is becoming less of a factor, and the land-based casino industry is now targeting a general public that knows how to gamble!
The reason is because so many people have learned to play online. They also like to play physical games of cash or tournament poker, and they go to the casino to play!
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