How iGaming is putting the needs of the players first
Most modern businesses are designed around keeping the most uninformed, unappreciative, and underprivileged customers happy. For this reason, mobile apps are built with technophobes in mind, support lines always begin with the basics, and good stores are versatile enough to accept niche payment options.
The obvious benefit of this approach is that it opens a business up to a much wider audience, inclusive of different age groups, nationalities, and skill levels. The downside is that it can be an expensive and time-consuming process.
As a bit of a case study, here’s a quick look at the online casino sector, a part of the internet that is trying to please everyone.
A Deal Breaker
Over the past few decades, casino games have made the leap from physical table to games console, website to mobile app, and finally to virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR.
From a business perspective, a drive to port a game or service to every platform under the sun is synonymous with good customer service. In a 2015 survey by FollowAnalytics, 38% of businesses surveyed believed that complementing their online offering with a mobile app would keep their members or customers happy.
What’s interesting is the fact that the above figure correlates with what customers want from an iGaming brand. To borrow a figure from the UK, a third of online casino users (36%) cited a mobile app as a deal breaker when choosing a new brand, behind reliability, website accessibility, and overall security.
It’s perhaps a combination of the above that’s behind a forecasted 11% annual growth in online gambling to 2020.
Cryptocurrencies
One of the hallmarks of the iGaming sector is a willingness to accept niche and/or unusual payment methods. For example, mFortune, a website that offers classic casino games like roulette, allows players to make a deposit by phone bill, while several other sites have thrown their lot in with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
Bitcoin offers benefits for casinos and other merchants in a low risk of fraud and small transaction fees but the advantages for players are numerous.
Instant payouts and deposits, privacy, irreversible transactions, avoidance of chargebacks and cross-border fees, and the ability to buy and spend Bitcoin in every country on Earth have made Satoshi Nakamoto’s cryptocurrency both a viable alternative to dollars and something of a ‘life hack’ for people in countries beset by punitive credit card fees.