Are Online Casinos a Threat to the Land-Based Establishments?

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It was in the middle of the 17th century that the first casino was launched in Europe, giving players the chance to wager on card and table games. Since then, a lot of casinos have been established across the globe, with the United States, the Macau territory in China and the western part of Europe harboring some of the biggest of them.

In the United Kingdom, online casinos are popping up every week, and deciding which are worth your time and which aren’t can be a headache. Many UK players use comparison websites like Casimple to find information about the casino before they deposit and play. This can be crucial for the players who don’t have the time and money to see whether a casino is legit or not, which can be a real issue when playing online.

Now, there is no gainsaying that casino cities like Macau, Atlantic City and Las Vegas have turned into the biggest gambling destinations for those in search of sports and casino games to bet on, but such betting actions are not quarantined to the types of casinos found in such cities alone. There are lots of betting shops and casinos found in smaller towns and cities scattered in the United Kingdom. In these venues, enthusiasts can lay their hands on different forms of sports betting, card and table games, and varying types of electronic gaming machines. Today, these are still very popular, even though the bookmakers and online casinos have grown in popularity.

Online Casinos in Demand

Since the mid-1990s, websites like the Betsafe online casino UK, where players can easily place bets on table and card games, has been in existence. They’ve gone through evolutions within the last 25 years, delivering an increased range of games, developing more engaging video slots, and creating live casino games.

In the United Kingdom and all over Europe, 2020 has witnessed the highest demand for online casinos than any other year in history, and up to £20 billion is expected to be generated from the continent this year. One online casino firm listed in the FTSE 100 while giving their investors their annual report posited that they witnessed a 34% increase in the number of actual users last year.

Symbiotic Relationship

While the rise in demand for online shopping has been bad news to the prospects of traditional high-street stores in retail trading, the same is not applicable in the case of casinos. Based on information from the gambling commission of the United Kingdom, the number of physical betting shops in the country has not reduced much over the years, at least for the past 10 years. There was a very huge increase in the number of bookmakers around the 2010s before returning to their initial level in 2019. The same level of growth was experienced by the physical casinos, as it witnessed upwards movement around 2010 and steady movement by 2019.

While players enjoy the convenience of playing from anywhere at any time in the online casinos, the same cannot be said about the land-based casinos. People go to the physical casinos to get the live casino experience, and not just for games, because they can play games online from anywhere. They also visit the physical casinos with their friends and family, as a sort of social outing. Online casinos, instead, are a method of getting additional gaming times, practicing new strategies and skills, and enjoying the games while on transit.

In addition, we’ve learned through research that patrons of online casinos and bookmakers are still visiting physical casinos and betting shops the same way they’ve been doing for a long time. Some of the casino brands are even linking their physical and online casinos together in such a way that through the live casino games, people can play online together with those playing live at the land-based casinos or physical betting houses.

Conclusion

Though it may seem that the conclusion is quite obvious, the online casinos in the real sense of it do not pose a threat to the physical or land-based casinos. Instead, there is a very understandable coexistence between both of them, and this is because of the type of experience that customers gain from each.

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