Online Casino

Online casinos emerged in the mid 1990s and have grown strongly since then.

Excluding the US, the global online casino market was estimated at $5.1 billion of GGY in 2010 and is forecast by H2GC to reach $8.0 billion by 2015, implying a compound annual growth rate of 9.3%.
 

Source: H2 Gambling Capital, February 2011

How online casino works

Casino players play against the house and so player liquidity is not as important for delivering an enjoyable player experience as it is in peer-to-peer games such as poker. The house has a statistical advantage over the player (the ‘house edge’) which varies with different types of casino games. Typical games offered by online casino operators include blackjack, roulette, craps, baccarat, video poker and slot machines.

While player liquidity is less of an issue in casino, scale is important as it means that operators can offer larger jackpot prizes that are a major attraction for casino customers – offering the opportunity to win large amounts with a relatively small bet. At bwin.party we offer some of the largest jackpots on the internet: our Melon Madness slot, which was developed by our in-house team, re-seeds at $1.5 million after the jackpot has been hit. Big jackpot wins paid out on our slots in 2010 included £2.3 million on Sweet Hawaii, £1.8 million on Fire Drake, £1.9 million on Melon Madness and £1.5 million on Snow Business, another of our in-house productions.

Despite playing against the house, casino games can also be multi player. Multi player casino games make it possible for several players to sit around the same virtual table to play and socialise (through online chat features) replicating the experience of a land based casino.

Even though casino games tend to command a greater proportion of ‘high rollers’ than other games, average gross win margins from casino games are relatively stable when compared with other games such as sports betting. This is due to the fact that online casinos tend to operate with appropriate risk management systems in place, avoiding large exposures through hedging or player limits and because they tend to offer a broad variety of different games that are played by a large and diverse player base, thereby spreading any associated risks. The long term profitability of an online casino operator depends on maintaining a large betting volume across its product base whilst managing its risks and controlling marginal costs.