Dissecting How Technology Turned Slot Gaming into A Global Market

Introduction

The transfer of land-based casinos to digital enterprises felt as sudden as it did seismic. While slot gaming only makes up a small portion of that, the way casino companies have reshaped their approach to slot gaming design and advertising has been fascinating to witness.

Technology has played a seminal role in enacting this change. As it continues to drive a wedge into brick-and-mortar destinations, some tech developments have played a more pivotal role than others in shaping the slot gaming market as it is today.

Although the landscape of the games barely differs from country to country, the main differences are the names people use, such as pokies in Australia and slots in the U.K. Playing these games online has a universal feel. Still, online pokies for Australian gamers operate just as they do in other parts of the world.

Whether it’s video slots or 3D games, the only thing that’s interchangeable is the term. Pokies comprise a big part of the market Down Under. Still, with more online casinos operating from the same playing field, and many of them crossing international borders, this is the primary catalyst that has changed the broader dynamic of this sector over the last two decades.

Out With The Old Guard

Some of us still remember a time before the internet and smartphones. Land-based casinos would have their slot machines front and center, bright and loud, attracting waves of players who fed their coins into the machines.

Some of the most prominent casinos combined this idea with one-off mega prizes, such as cars, holiday tickets, and first-class penthouse experiences in the hotels often adjacent to their casinos. It was a formidable system.

These providers completely monopolized the industry for decades. It felt like no new companies would be able to challenge them until the emergence of the internet in the mid-1990s created a spark that resulted in the birth of some of the world’s most prominent companies looking to the future and getting ahead of the industry elders.

The Rise Of Online Technology

Now that the internet is so embedded into every facet of our lives, it can be easy to look back on this time, almost perplexed that casinos weren’t scrambling over each other to move their entire operations online. By 1995, Bill Gates described the internet as a tidal wave and said it was about to enact some of the most remarkable changes humanity had ever seen.

However, P.C.s were still outrageously priced, and the internet speed couldn’t effectively live stream casino games, live tables, and hundreds of slot games. Those companies that identified that the internet would be the foundation of the future of slot gaming were still committed to planting their flag in the proverbial mud as early as possible.

They had a long-term vision and were competing against a legacy version of the industry that barely had to change its M.O. for nearly 50 years.

21st Century Boom

As we entered the new century, the development of both DSL and cable supercharged internet connection speed and bandwidth capability. Slot games and online casinos could now livestream their games. Coupled with firewall encryption, which often ensured that money was safer in an online casino than it was if you’d won a large amount of physical cash and had to walk around with it.

The internet rapidly changed the way people shopped and banked. People started to trust it en masse, and the digital gold rush was well underway. Slot game designers quickly identified that this was the way to go—millions of people were rushing online, slot games were more convenient to play on the internet, and due to the increase in connection quality and speed, they mirrored the performance they did at physical casinos.

The main difference is that they didn’t need to spend time or money travelling to a physical location; they could open up their smartphone or laptop and begin playing slot games within a few seconds.

Smartphone technology and mobile app gaming were the home runs for the industry. The mass supply of smartphones led to much lower costs, the emergence of refurbished phones as a viable market, and mass, cheap internet, meaning that more people had the flexibility to play slots on the move.

Final Thoughts

The rise of other companies and industries throughout the same period helped to solidify the hunch that going digital early was the right call. Amazon rose to the top of the corporate ladder and has remained there because Jeff Bezos, even in the early 1990s, knew that the future would look digital.

Online slot games might have a different dynamic, but they are generally comparable to these other industry titans. The digital revolution made it more accessible, convenient, and secure to play online; smartphone technology and the rise of fast, widespread internet were the winning tickets for those who backed the right horse early enough—and they went on to reap the reward handsomely.

As AI and VR play a more pivotal role in tech, expect to see a similar playbook unravel for slot game companies that can align themselves early enough with the ideas that resonate with the wider iGaming community.