From bookmakers using pen and paper in the 19th century to the first online casino website in the late nineties, technological advancements have continued to shape the gambling industry.
With advances in technology rising exponentially, casino companies are often left playing catch up when figuring out how to capture the latest tech evolutions and utilise them in the best way possible.
Crowds gathered at SBC Summit Barcelona to better understand the next step the casino industry will take to adopt new technologies and throw them into the mainstream, as ‘the next-gen of casino’ panel showcased how Web3.0 may have already proved itself as such.
Hosted by Wesley Ellul, Co-Founder and CCO at Quizando, the panel kicked off with an in-depth explanation of just what Web3.0 entails, explaining that a decentralised network is leaving behind a world where the “consumer was the product”, as now, Web3.0 is helping “the community become part of, and a major stakeholder in, profitability on the web”.
Perhaps the most predominant element of Web3.0 is the mass adoption of cryptocurrency in modern businesses, with the casino industry taking on blockchain technology at a faster rate than ever before.
“each year the crypto players are growing and the business is increasing”
Dariia, CPO at MegaPari
While crypto-based casino platforms like Stake.com, Roobet.com, Duelbits.com and Rollbit.com are growing in popularity, cryptocurrency casinos remain unregulated in the majority of, if not all of, the world’s leading online casino territories.
Due to this, Ellul stated that in order for the discussion to go ahead, the panel and its audience would be “throwing regulation out the window” to question just how much impact decentralised technology will have on the future of casinos.
One speaker on the panel, Dariia, CPO at MegaPari, made the strong claim that the entirety of the casino industry “will go to crypto”, believing that players appreciate the anonymity that on-chain casinos provide to avoid handing out personal information, such as emails, names and addresses when signing up.
Relaying how crypto can be used to fast-track everyday business processes, she continued: “With Web3.0, you deal with crypto wallets and trust wallets. This process is so much easier because you can connect with the platform and the wallet altogether and give players the chance to have a 10-second registration. So it saves time.
“Moreover, we know that each year the crypto players are growing and the business is increasing.”
“A much more streamlined KYC process would be a game changer”
Francesco Postiglione, CEO at Casumo
Ellul was fascinated by the subject of crypto-supported KYC processes, adding: “That’s actually very interesting because the idea is we don’t have to identify our players anymore, in that these players have already been identified and KYC’d somewhere else. This could be a big change.”
This led Ellul to reach out for the perspective of Francesco Postiglione, CEO at Casumo, to gain another operator’s insight on fast-tracked KYC processes, posing the question: “How would that change the game for you in the sense of getting a player into the casino in 20 seconds, rather than that five-minute procedure?”
“We’d have a massive change in terms of costs,” Postiglione replied, suggesting that operators would save money through transactional costs presented by typical KYC processes, which usually require employees to perform manual checks for identity verification.
He continued: “There are expected situations of course, a dramatic improvement of the conversion rates, so a much more streamlined KYC process would be a game changer, not just for the casino, but for everybody.”
As Ellul moved on to the concept of a casino-based metaverse, he questioned whether the industry could replicate the success that metaverse-based video games have had in recent years, naming Roblox as a key example.
This led him to explain the success of Decentraland, a “very, very widely used” Metaverse game in which “the place that is visited most on a daily basis is their online casino.” Ellul commented that this could prove that casino players are looking for much more than the typically private online gambling experience.
“This is the attraction that we are seeing in these Metaverse spaces. It’s not just about the gambling side, but the social side.” This got the panel’s host thinking about how adding more social elements to the average casino experience could be “a great precursor before you get into a virtual reality Metaverse space.”
He then considered the issue that regulated operators are facing due to the rise of cryptocurrency casinos, stating that “all the general operators around the world are in a battle with decentralised casinos.”
Postiglione was quick to suggest that “it’s a challenge”, explaining: “We have the .com operators and on top of those now we have the Web3.0 casinos that are not regulated. There is a Bitcoin metaverse out there that is putting a lot of pressure on the regulators.”
“I believe that regulators could play a key role, firstly in understanding how this kind of business works, and secondly they have to regulate it in some way, otherwise the regular market will simply vanish.”
Before the session concluded, Dariia noted that however casino companies are offering products that utilise Web3.0, how well they can market the products will be “the key to success”, suggesting that this can often be challenging due to the general public’s understanding of Web3.0 technology.
