Becky Liggero is with John Connelly of Bally Technologies Inc., as he explains why mobile gaming is important to US market, and the biggest challenge in mobile gaming technology.
In the past, hitting the tables to play blackjack or to try your luck at the slot machines required a visit to Las Vegas or a local casino but we’ve come a long way in the recent years as the growth of online casinos and mobile gaming applications has boomed. It’s truly astounding how technology has made it easy to play casino games from anywhere in the world.
In 2013, world-wide sales of smartphones to end users totaled to 968 million. With such deep penetration, online gambling operators are developing more apps for more platforms, especially handheld devices. According to John Connelly, “Over a hundred of casinos have adapted at least the basic form of technologies which is downloading apps, so they create an app for their casinos which by players can download on their phone, and then in that app or somewhere between a hundred and hundred different features relative to the casinos, the players can see their account balances, jackpots, shows, book hotels, book reservations at the restaurants…that has been so successful. Over fifteen million people in America downloaded casino apps in the past few years.”
“It’s an incredible tool to be investing now, so that in the future as technology of all, so you have that bridge and that relationship with your patrons,” he added.
And when we talk about handheld devices, even in online gaming, the epic battle of Apple iOS versus Android still comes into play. Previously, the casino sector had been experiencing challenges in creating quality graphics for game creation in Android; this is why iOS was the device of choice for gaming. But Connelly said that ‘this is improving dramatically in the past 6–12 months, and Android will soon be more predominant for gaming which is going to help accelerate the industry for penetration perspective because more players seemed to be leaning more to Android devices.’
“The next step after that people are starting to look at how do you use the handheld devices whether be the ability to move the geo-location—the ability to move an iPad. And can you create games that also takes advantage to that versus a slot machine, which is stagnant, more touch screen… but that’s probably six months or to year away,” Connelly said.
