Live casinos are a welcome boon for professional and recreational punters alike. It enjoys the largest share of the iGaming pie and is loved by players for its innate transparency and player engagement. This niche has captured popular expectations, and there are whole communities dedicated to live casinos and social gaming.
The pace of transformation is also incredible. It’s hard to believe that live casinos went mainstream just five years back. Evolution Gaming is the brand that spearheaded this trend and brought charming live dealers to our screens. It was later joined by the likes of NetEnt Live, Extreme Live, Playtech, Ezugi, and Microgaming.
The hype surrounding the live casino will soon evolve into the wonder of social gaming. Online bingo has seen a massive breakthrough in popular demand and we predict a bright future for this niche. This can be best judged through the fact that promoters are now giving out more online bingo bonus than ever before. Social gaming has been a dominant trend throughout the year and we saw new chat features, bonus games, in-game leaderboards, and introduction of mobile bingo in a big way.
Since those humble days of the first live casino games, we have come a long way. We can now place remote bets on offshore casinos video-streamed directly to our smartphones. More importantly, the games offer feature-rich side bets that make the player-edge better than most brick-and-mortar casinos. Here are some of the hottest live casino trends in 2021.
Social Gaming
The social trend is strong in the online casino niche. Several sub-communities were formed on different social media platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and casino review websites that pass on valuable feedback from the gaming community to game developers. These are also ripe places to scout for live casino bonuses since there is a massive community of social gamers ready with the latest promos. Casino operators include different social side-gamers, introducing interactive chat boxes in bingo rooms, and organizing festive tournaments to promote social gambling.
AI Live Casinos
At the recent Global Gaming Expo, punters got to see some glimpses from the future where you can automate betting strategies, backtest popular betting strategies, get loyalty bonuses in the form of NFT casino tokens, and check the authenticity of provably fair casino games through blockchain. Artificial Intelligence is going to be a cornerstone in the future of online live casinos.
VR Live Games
The next defining technology in online casinos will be virtual reality. NetEnt Live and Microgaming have announced big plans to develop casino games on the Oculus Rift platform to make them ‘feel’ the real Vegas. We also foresee 3D casino games in a whole new world as many traditional PC game developers have also shown interest in the booming iGaming industry. The lines between regular video games and casino games are also getting blurred, and we can find storified avatars taking on a world full of possibilities. Imagine turning your head to see your opponents while punting at a virtual table. Imagine punting at live casinos inside 3D recreated Pyramids, or the Royal Court of Caesar, or inside the deep underworld of Atlantis.
Live casinos have redefined our bets. However, we believe that the best is yet to come, and big brands are investing big on betting technology to amaze the next-generation punter. We can foresee a utopia where you can remotely visit online casinos in a virtual world with your friends in avatars, buy chips like a standard casino, and bet with real dealers with gamified side-bets. These might pass off as gamblers fantasy a few years back, but the iGaming achievements over the last few years make these promises believable.
