The Intersection of Online Casinos and Social Media

The Intersection of Online Casinos and Social Media

Each year, we see more of an intersection between social media and online casino play. This comes in several forms, but software developers are also making specific platforms for these interactions. Here we look at where the industry is at this point and where it’s heading.


Examining Social Media and Online Casinos

Social media is more of a part of our lives than ever before. It seems like you can’t download any app without some type of sharing feature available. Moreover, many of them have their own social networks built right in. That includes everything from fitness apps to apps for various hobbies.

The online casino world is getting in on the social media side of things as well.

There are a few different ways that this is happening. On the one hand, you have casino game producers who want to make it easier for people to share wins. On the other hand, you have sites that are trying to form their own social networks. Both approaches, and other between these extremes, have their pros and cons.

However, the question remains as to where the industry is heading with this. Additionally, it’s important to have an idea of whether this is safe for players and if it’s a good idea in general. We’re going to examine all of these issues here and give players something to think about on their own.

Starting Off: Social Media Presence

The easiest way for online casinos to get into the social networking space is by having their own presence. The top social media platforms change and evolve over time. However, this happens slowly enough that there should be no problem for these companies to get in on the action.

This can happen by them releasing news updates through those social media platforms. However, they have to be announcements that the average player actually cares about. A piece of news about a business deal between two companies they aren’t familiar with is unlikely to get players engaged. With that said, something like a new game release with the ability to play a demo version of the game exclusively through your social media account if you follow the casino or software developer’s page would have much better luck.

In the current social media environment, we think this is something that both game providers and casinos could do better. Their social engagement seems to be an afterthought at best for most companies most of the time. A few companies do this well, but the vast majority appear to not take it very seriously. That’s a shame because there are a lot of opportunities there to provide value for the players.

The Next Step: Encouraging Players to Share

One of the most innovative products we have seen in the intersection of social media and casinos is BRAG. BRAG is a platform produced by Yggdrasil Gaming that’s integrated into their games and gaming platform. It’s designed to make it easy for players to share what they’re doing in the games. That can include things like sharing screenshots of big wins and other achievements.

We’re really surprised that this didn’t catch on as much with other software developers. It was a great tool to provide incentives for players to share posts. This creates engagement not only with the players but with their own personal network of friends. To put it more bluntly, it’s a constant source of personalized advertising. That’s largely the point of social media from a business perspective, but it also does a lot for the player.

Making it easy to share these things adds a social element to things that makes the experience more fun for people actually playing the games. This is especially the case if you have friends who play as well. That allows you to easily share your wins and BRAG about the big scores you’ve taken down.

Plenty of other opportunities exist to create incentives for players to share. Imagine each month if established player accounts could get a free €5 chip for sharing a message on their social media account. Processes could easily be put into place to make sure that this system wasn’t abused.

This is an area that has not been fully developed, and we really think more should go into it. It’s the kind of thing that could become a very real win-win situation for the players, the game producers and the operators.

The Next Level: Social Networking on the Casino Level

Something that’s often lost on a lot of people is that playing casino games used to be inherently social. You would sit in person and interact with other players and the dealer. That was a key part of the experience for a lot of people, especially in games like craps and Baccarat.

In the online environment, we’ve become largely alienated from that. Outside of certain exceptions like live dealer games and bingo, chatting with other players doesn’t happen very much. As a result, there’s a serious demand there for social interaction between many players.

While some players are more content to enjoy games by themselves, that’s clearly not everyone. Additionally, there are plenty of people who want the ability to be social or not be bothered when they want.

Adding social networking capabilities to existing online casinos would be an excellent way to achieve this aim. Some sites allow for this on minor levels, but there’s nothing very robust happening industry-wide. It would be really great if this could happen on a larger scale, but for now, it happening within the bounds of a single site or network of sites is probably the closest we could reasonably come to an ideal.

The point is this: Players need a way to connect if they want to. This would clearly drive up engagement for the operators and software developers. However, it would also improve the available options for players.

What’s Needed in Such a Scenario

There are only a handful of things needed in a scenario like this. First off, players would need the ability to create profiles. This includes a handful of simple things like uploading a photo or photos of themselves. It could also include a simple space for a blurb about what they like, where they’re from and so on.

Second, they would need some type of individual messaging system. This would allow players to communicate with each other directly, which is a centerpiece of any social networking situation. Additionally, options for adding friends to keep up with these conversations would be necessary. You’d also have standard quality of life options like deleting conversations, blocking certain accounts from contacting you and so on.

Finally, they would need a way for players to communicate in groups. This could be in a chat type format or a forum type format. We see both of these happen on the most popular social networking sites available. One or the other would be an improvement over the current system of having neither. However, having both is really the ideal.

There is some cost associated with providing all of these things from players. However, we think it’s pretty clear that it’s a winning situation for the sites from the increased engagement.

Player Safety and Security

All of this also brings up the issue of player safety and security. More specifically, the questions come up of how any of the above could be implemented without compromising these things.

For example, a player sharing a big win they made on one of the popular social sites might seem fine. However, this could make them a target for a variety of reasons. For example, knowing which casino they’re playing with and that they’ve had a recent injection of funds via the win into their account would give shady individuals enough information to know about a potentially juicy target to focus on. This is why having heightened security on the account would be so important in general.

Additionally, there are other elements of player safety any time personal information is shared. While adults are responsible for making their own decisions, anyone can be tricked in the right circumstances. With social messaging available, that opens the door to various potential scams and other problems. This could be limited and cut down to hardly any at all in various ways. An easy way to go about this would be account verification before the social features could be used.

In any event, there are definitely some issues of player safety and security that should be examined. However, they’re not really barriers or major obstacles to implementing these ideas. They’re more along the lines of simple things that should be kept in mine.

Overview

We really think that there’s a wide-open window for increased social interaction in the online casino space. It’s easy to see how this would increase engagement and give players a better experience overall. While some progress has been made in this area, it feels really slow compared to what’s happening in other industries. It’ll be interesting to see if some of these developers, operators and software providers come up with solutions in this space sooner rather than later.