Everything You Need to Know About the New World of Gaming
Macao and Las Vegas are arguably the most famous and most popular gambling destinations in the world. Their world-encompassing persona is almost tricking outsiders into thinking that they have been embraced by their parent nations for generations. In truth, Sin City and the former Portuguese colony have been tiny exceptions in the United States and China when it comes to gambling. The real home of gambling, for decades, has been Europe.
Monte Carlo is the most well-known gaming destination on the continent, a playground for the rich and famous, but it’s the accessible iGaming industry which has risen to the fore. The widespread accessibility made possible by strict regulation from the likes of the UK Gambling Commission and Malta Gaming Authority has changed the game. It’s not just an entertainment medium for the most affluent anymore, with this mindset of ‘accessibility first’ making casino gaming and sports betting a truly global industry.
In the modern space, the key to accessibility is the not-so-humble smartphone. Now as powerful as the computers of old, mobile devices and the infrastructure that accompanies them is giving people cost-effective access to the internet and all of its internet-based products and services. iGaming has been perfectly positioned to offer itself around the world for several years.
Now, with global smartphone penetration continuing to rise, as reported in the findings of Statista, gaming is breaking across new frontiers to create an even wider world for the entertainment medium.
Impressive foundations in the tough space of MENA
When it comes to digital entertainment, the region of the Middle-East and North America (MENA) has notoriously been the hardest to crack. The mixture of taboo surrounding spending one’s time with the likes of video gaming as well as a relatively slow build into the modern tech space has made it a slow-burner. However, rapid instalment of mobile infrastructure and hefty investment in major cities across the region has opened up the area to the biggest brands in iGaming.
Several of the biggest names in MENA hail from the tight restrictions and the buzzing markets of Europe, offering the same high grade of gaming, betting, and bonuses. While there isn’t a total governing body for that space yet, independent services like Arabian Betting have found the safest mobile sites to present to users. Not only are the sites tested for their trustworthiness, but due it to being such a new region for iGaming, the sites also need to meet the highest bar for their customer service if they’re to be recommended.
As has been the case across Europe, it’s this high level of scrutiny that is allowing the iGaming industry to find an audience in MENA. With all of the sites needing to be at their best, the competition ramps up based on the games on offer, bonuses, payment methods, and localisation options. As such, only the best become the most popular, forcing others to up their game and explore innovations to appeal to potential players.
Discovering the New World digitally
The Americas were once known as the New World, land for Europeans to explore. Thankfully, the method of getting onto these continents in modern iGaming business is very different to those used centuries ago. Now, the leading names of the established European industry have provided a template for the budding scene in both South and North America, with some of the major brands laying the foundations themselves. The success from overseas is clearly rubbing off in these new moving regions.
In South America, Colombia was one of the first to establish an iGaming scene, with Coljuegos monopolising the scene to then hand out online gambling licenses as it sees fit. Their oversight, however, has allowed the local industry to thrive, seeing increases each year. The need for tight regulation is directly drawn from the work of the UKGC and MGA, who have set the standard in Europe. In fact, when Peru was building its highly-advertised move to regulate, it did so under the moniker of becoming ‘the Malta of South America.’
Further north, even though the United States has intrinsically tied itself to gambling through its media for decades, it had locked itself off from the modern scene. The US government would target payment processors in an attempt to stop any form of iGaming as recently as 2008. However, just ten years later following the repeal of PAPSA, online gambling is gradually becoming available across the nation. Led by New Jersey, 19 states now govern a legalised online sports betting scene, some of which also include casino gaming, with four more on the way.
Primarily powered by European-established brands, the US industry is quickly becoming one of the biggest markets in the world, as is to be expected from a population that’s so obsessed with sports and has gambling embedded in its history. Alongside Peru and Colombia, the US is creating a strong centre for in industry in the Americas.
From its rooting in Europe, and thanks to the convenient access increasingly being granted around the world by smartphones, iGaming is breaking new ground in even the toughest of markets.
