Gambling is inextricably linked to human evolution and has been practised the world over for thousands of years. Evidence has been found that dice were first mentioned in Greece in 500 B.C., gambling was popular in Ancient China in the 9th century, and Baccarat appeared in at least the 1500s. State-sponsored lotteries helped England raise funds for the colonisation of the Americas, London’s water supply, and civil servant salaries.
The digital revolution of online gambling, which started around 1980, has drastically changed the way we gamble. As the world has embraced more technological advances, online gambling has adopted them as well. Technological changes have allowed more people access to gambling games, from simple scratch cards to live streaming of live dealer roulette and more. Enhanced security features have boosted people’s confidence in being able to do so safely, allowing players to simply dive into the nearly infinite number of games available online and have fun!
Keep reading to find out how technology is changing where and how players are engaging with real money entertainment.
3D Slots
As much as technology may have increased the security we enjoy when online gambling, it’s also making the games we play more exciting, and evidence of this exists in the humble slot machine, digitised versions of which you can play and view at top sites like Big Dollar casino. What was once a straightforward game of chance with outcomes decided by the pull of a lever is now an experience and a half.
Plus, 3D technology has really boosted the entertainment value online slots offer by adding ever more impressive graphics and detailed story elements with games that players can play on their smartphones, tablets, or desktops, like they would a standard video game.
Winning symbol combinations trigger cinematic 3D animations and unlock extra features for the slot, usually in the form of mini-games or special symbols. These animations and enhanced audio effects allow players to feel that they’re progressing through an experience rather than just pressing the Spin button on an ordinary game of chance repeatedly.
Cloud Gaming and Cloud Services
When we talk about “the cloud,” we’re referring to services that can be accessed via the internet and that are not tied to physical hardware or an actual location. Cloud-based games and services allow people to gamble from anywhere, using an internet-ready device. Rather than having to purchase a disc or download a programme to their computers, players simply make their way to the operator’s site and play the game that way.
Live Casino Games
The air of excitement that accompanies playing in Las Vegas, Macau, London, and Paris can be out of the average gambler’s reach, but live dealer casino games come pretty close to recreating the atmosphere of the hottest land-based casinos in the world!
When you play live dealer casino games, a dealer and their table and equipment are filmed from a remote studio with cameras broadcasting to players’ device screens via live streaming technology. Every physical card that gets dealt will be viewable on the players’ screen, allowing them to choose which ones they want to play in games like blackjack, baccarat, and poker.
Extra features like live chat also simulate the all-important social aspects of a real-life gambling environment.
Fingerprint Logins
The rise in popularity of online gambling has seen an increase in security concerns as well, since players necessarily share their personal and financial information with a range of online operators. The safest way to allow players to unlock their accounts is through fingerprint logins. This biometric technology, which is very difficult to duplicate, allows us to access online services using images of our fingerprints.
A Range of Payment Options, Including Cryptocurrency
In today’s world, cash is no longer king, and players can fund their online gambling in a range of ways, including credit cards, debit cards, ewallets, prepaid vouchers, and, increasingly, cryptocurrency.
Bank transactions may not always go through because of banks’ attitudes towards gambling, and providing credit information is dangerous in the online world. Prepaid vouchers are a safer option, but if you lose yours, anyone who picks it up can use the PIN number to access your money, and ewallets also require the sharing of certain information.
Cryptocurrency is the latest payment method development. Cryptography secures the currencies, and they’re used in conjunction with the blockchain. A critical feature of gambling sites that accept cryptocurrency is that they allow players to remain 100% anonymous as per their online gambling.
Smartphones
There was a time when smartphones were considered a luxury, but those days are well and truly past! Everyone has a smartphone nowadays, and they allow you to keep in touch with friends and family, stay up to date with work commitments, stay on top of breaking news stories, buy what you need when you need it, and, yes, gamble whenever you’re in the mood.
With the introduction of the first smartphone in 1992, only a select few were able to access one; by 2020, nearly 80% of the world had access to a smartphone. Now, instead of having to get in your car, if you have one, and drive to a brick-and-mortar casino, you can just pick up your smartphone and play any game you want.
What’s Next?
It’s about as tough to predict the future of online gambling as it has been to uncover its origins thousands of years ago, but much of the focus these days is on augmented reality and virtual reality gaming experiences.
VR is just emerging as a commercial proposition, but there are already some games that use it, and you can bet your bottom dollar that gambling applications will embrace it the same way they’ve welcomed all the other technological advancements outlined in this article.
The time where you can sit down at a virtual poker table with your friends from all over the world and see if you can spot a tell from the comfort of your own home is coming. VR headsets are more than capable of making this happen—maybe not today, but definitely a few short years in the future if advancements continue at the rate they’ve been developing so far.