Today, the online casino industry is one of the largest in the world, and there are thousands upon thousands of casinos sites that can be found on the internet. It’s a thriving industry that serves hundreds of millions of players from across the world and makes up the backbone of the industry as we know it.
Online casinos are quite an interesting creation, especially when we consider that they are essentially the successful remodelling of an already well-established industry.
Older Than Most People Think
It’s easy to believe that modern, online casinos are a relatively new creation, and when compared to their physical counterparts, they are quite recent. But most people would probably be surprised to learn that online casinos are not an invention of the 2000s, but actually date back almost 10 years earlier.
When the internet was still very much in its infancy and was far from being widely adopted, casinos began to see the value in offering their services to the online community, and it was around 1994 that the first online casinos were created. These were fairly rudimentary in design compared to today’s sites, but they were the beginning of something completely new, and began an entirely new phase in the gambling sphere that has turned out to be a major success.
Player Gender
In general, the online world is typically dominated by men, and this is no different for online casinos. In fact, it’s estimated that more than 80% of all players are actually male, and that around 11% of people using the internet make use of online casinos, equating to hundreds of millions of people.
Most male players tend to be over the age of 30, which is a good thing, as research has found that the people that generally develop some kind of gambling addiction are much younger than 30. Most of the over-30-year-old players that are enjoying online casinos do not have an gambling addiction and simply play the games that they like.
Full Automation
Land-based casinos, even the ones that close really late into the morning, do eventually close down. This is not the case for online casinos, which usually run every day, all week. This is because most of the services, including the games, are completely automated, and it’s usually only if there’s an issue with the servers that human intervention is required. This means that players have access to all of their favourite online casino games no matter what time of the day it is.
Most Popular Games
The most popular casino games in the world right now are slots and poker, with slots being the clear leader by a long shot. The vast majority of those players visiting an online casino will typically gravitate toward its offering of slots, and they remain the most common type of game played both online as well as at land-based casinos.