Online gambling may have been around for only two decades, having been founded in 1994, but it has greatly surpassed the brick and mortar industry in not just revenue generation but popularity. Web casinos have revolutionized how punters engage with games by providing a staggering amount of choices along with the convenience of the playing easily in review sites as well such as Arabian Slots X.

This industry continues to take new innovative directions to keep things exciting for players. 2018 has been a good year to both gamblers and casinos, judging from the revenue generated by most gambling markets. 2019 is predicted to be an even bigger year for the casino business as the iGaming scene looks to venture into modes of gaming that are predicted to pick up as trends. Some of these new trends include:

Use of cryptocurrency

The utilization of digital currencies to pay for gambling services is a practice that is already underway, but it is predicted to dominate the sector within the years to come. Bitcoin is the most popular used cryptocurrency, and also the priciest to acquire. The biggest advantage this mode of payment has over conventional currencies is that no banking or credit card company controls it. Additionally, transactions are conducted faster and safer than when using real money.

In 2018, Bitcoin has grown to be provided in hundreds of casinos, and its revenue generation margins are constantly increasing. This trend is predicted to continue in 2019, and it will soon become worthy competition for some of the top online money transfer channels.

Virtual reality

Virtual reality has been making news in the iGaming industry for some time now, but the technology has yet to be made readily available by a good number of gambling companies. This mode of gaming comes with headgear that immerses the user into an artificial world that is created using still images stitched together using complex programs. Gaming VR kits replace everything in the real world within the player’s eye view and place them in a gaming environment.

According to reviews, this inaccessibility is bound to change in the coming year with cheaper options continue to enter the market. As of the moment, VR gaming kits cost anywhere from seven hundred to two thousand dollars. Some of the top-ranking online gaming software providers the likes of Net Entertainment have already released such gaming systems into the market. One of their most popular products is Jack and the Beanstalk, one of the company’s most successful three-dimensional slot games.

Cloud gaming

As much as online casino games are known for their convenience, they often come with hardware and software requirements for them to run glitch-free. This installation could end up consuming a huge portion of storage space to the gambler’s device, hence the introduction of cloud gaming. Much like cloud storage, this mode of gambling allows one to store their games on a giant server that can hold a lot more data than desktop and mobile devices. That way, the need for software and hardware updates is removed.

Augmented reality

Virtual reality opened up the iGaming scene to a world of immersion that has since been explored to present augmented reality. Like with VR, augmented reality is an artificial world that is accessed using special headgear. However, instead of completely immersing the gambler in a new environment, AR incorporates gaming elements in the real world. These generated features are do not alter the images in the real world and work within the environment they have been placed. When using this gear, for instance, the player can choose to play tennis or a roulette game on their kitchen table.

One of the biggest advantages augmented reality has over all modes of gaming is that the gaming experience is made unique to the player and cannot be experienced in the same way by other users. Also, applying games to real-life spaces is a venture that remains untapped by numerous industries, making it even more awe-inspiring.

Facial recognition

Facial recognition has risen to become a popular inclusion in numerous fields such as smartphone and tablet development as well as banking. The iGaming sector is also tapping into this technology to make the gambling experience more personal for players. With the use of three-dimensional scanners, gaming companies are looking to help gamblers simulate an avatar with similar features for use when gaming. Currently, facial recognition is popular with combat games, and the casino business has also taken an interest.

Aside from replicating gamblers’ features on the web, facial recognition devices are starting to be used for expression transfer. This feature scans the player’s face in more than seventy-eight points to tell the best gaming mode suite for one’s mood. For instance, smiling could be a sign that the game is simple, so the game is made more challenging.

Smartwatch gaming

When smartwatches were introduced, they were predicted to fizzle out within months, but instead, they have grown to become a global industry estimated to be worth more than thirty billion dollars by 2019. This wearable technology has gained a lot of uses since its first launch, and Microgaming displayed the possibility of gaming on them as well; this was done by launching a version of the popular Dark Knight Rises Slot that runs on the Samsung smartwatch. This move opened up for a new form of gaming that has since been ventured by several game developers.

Closing Thoughts

Gambling developments for mobile gadgets appear to have plateaued in the past year, but that does not mean the iGaming industry is out of innovations. 2019 seems to be a promising year for online gamblers with new modes of play ready to be explored.