Why there’s still room for more gaming websites

The market for gambling in the UK is definitely in the hands of buyers rather than sellers at the moment.

There are only so many people interested in gambling, and with ever-more brands and websites springing up all the time, it feels like at some point soon we’ll reach saturation point.

Whilst there’s no denying that there’s money to be made by the right people – the industry now makes £14bn a year in the UK– if there are too many places to go, that pot of cash will be spread too thinly, and inevitably some companies will go out of business. Those who excel will be left to reap the rewards.

For that reason, you might think that launching a new brand would be a foolhardy move. With so many options already out there, how would you even start the process of making a name for yourself and attracting customers to your new proposition?

Especially when the major names – the ones who have been in the game for decades – have such a strong foothold? If there are gambling companies out there who can afford to spend millions of pounds per year sponsoring Premier League football teams, how could you ever hope to compete with their marketing budget?

The answer, of course, is that you don’t. You compete on diversity and product.

Diversification Creates Opportunities

We now live in a world of content creation and content selection. Gone are the days when we’d primarily watch one television channel, or get our news from one source. When we’re selecting media, we want to hear voices similar to our own, with opinions we agree with, and aesthetics that appeal to us.

That’s why there’s such a range of political and social opinion expressed across different British newspapers. You could read about a current event in the Daily Express, and then check the reporting of the same event in the Daily Mirror, and aside from the basic facts you’d likely get two completely different perspectives on the same story.

Even then, the range isn’t enough. With all those options available, trust in the mainstream press is at an all time low. Social media, and websites based on niche interest groups, attract more and more readers all the time.

With opinions and reporting coming in from all directions, we naturally gravitate towards the voices we agree with most. Nobody likes to become incensed by the news they hear. If you hear or read a story that tells you that the world is exactly how you think it is, you’re more likely to listen to it.

The same is true of business and branding. Think of how dominant Blockbuster used to be as a brand, and the fate that befell them.

There was nothing wrong with what they offered; people will always want to see films, and Blockbuster offered a way to do it, but they fell behind their competitors because they offered physical rentals instead of digital streaming.

It had nothing to do with people not wanting to watch movies. They just no longer wanted to watch them the way Blockbuster wanted to provide them. Netflix, Amazon and others had found a better route to the customer. In real terms, they’d found a better niche.

Finding The Niche

That’s where online casinos can and will make money now and in the future. It’s not enough to just offer the basic range of products. You can log onto any site and play virtual versions of poker or backgammon.

Virtual casinos are on every major gambling company’s website, and even on the late night TV channels. There’s little about one offering that marks one out from the other, and apart from the branding, if you’re playing one of the games, you could be playing it anywhere.

Online slots are a different beast entirely. Everybody knows what an old fashioned fruit machine looks like. Anybody with the right IT and computing team can code one and put it on their website. That isn’t enough to grab and hold the interest of the paying public anymore. You have to offer range.

You only have to look at one of the more successful recent online slot sites to see the lengths you now have to go to if you want to succeed. Moneyreels.com launched in May this year and is a great example of how to cater to a public who want their own individual preferences taken into account.

Anyone who’s played a generic online slot game will have had their own likes and dislikes about it. Maybe the jaunty background music put you off. Maybe the visuals were too garish, or childish. Money Reels aims to solve that problem.

Interested in ancient history? Try playing ‘Legend of Cleopatra’. Do you have a taste for all things cute and cuddly? ‘Fluffy Favourites’ is right there for you. None of the games on offer are generic. They’re all intended to appeal to people with a specific set of interests. The appeal of their website is that everybody should be able to find a game that feels like it was designed just for them.

Staying Relevant

If you have the financial means, access to the technical skills, and the imagination to come up with a series of appealing games, the market will remain open to you. The key to success from now on will not to be coming up with one great game that appeals to everybody; it will be too vanilla, and it will put people off.

You need a whole series of great ideas to appeal to as many tastes as possible, and make people feel welcome on your site.

The gambling world will change in the future. Virtual reality technology is on the cusp of entering the mainstream, and offering players the experience of being in a live casino when they’re really sat at home. When it does become popular, those sites that offer it will increase their market share, and those that don’t are likely to suffer.

Just like watching movies, people will always want to gamble. Increasingly, they’ll want to do it in a format that suits them, and at their own convenience. For those new companies and individuals who are considering entering the market, the task is to be a Netflix and not a Blockbuster.

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Why there’s still room for more gaming websites

from Business Matters https://ift.tt/2FBJC6W