Augmented Reality the Next Logical Step in Online Gambling?
The online casino market is one of steady updates and technological progress. From the simplicity of early systems to the breadth and complexity of the games and offers available today, advancement has been both rapid and consistent. Many industry speculators believe that this attention to evolution has played a large part in making online casinos the multi-billion dollar a year industry they are today.
Staying current, however, means never resting on your laurels. Instead, online casinos need to keep trying to discover what is new, what could be next, and where they should invest the next generation of attention. In this regard, it is the development of augmented reality games that could prove the next logical leap into the online casino market of tomorrow.
What is Augment Reality?
Augmented reality (AR) is a technology which allows objects to be placed digitally in the real world. This is accomplished through the use of a camera, computer, and a screen. The camera works to take an image of a real location, the computer then calculates useful dimensions, and the superimposes a digital object over the image as captured by the camera, outputting the end product to a screen.
"Peak Finder does Augmented Reality" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by troutcolor
This is fundamentally different from virtual reality (VR) in that with VR an entire world is digital, but in AR only certain aspects are. This has many applications in many mediums, with gaming and gambling being one avenue which will likely have the greatest broad appeal.
The Progress so Far
At this point, AR games are still in their infancy. Some, such as Pokémon Go, have shown the potential appeal that these games can have, but the online casino industry is yet to make any significant strides on this front directly. There are, however, related technologies which could be seen as the first testing steps.
The biggest of these, and the most recently popular, could be seen in live casino games. Streaming live dealers onto a person's mobile or computer screen could be a similar route as taken by AR in the future, where a dealer or game machine might instead be superimposed within a player's home.
Take slots, for example. These are already immensely popular, with offerings like free spins without deposit requirements gaining enormous traction with millions of players. AR integration in the future could allow players to enjoy the wide range of slot games from any number of websites in an incredibly realistic manner, with all the advantages that digital slots imply.
Barriers to Entry
Currently, some of the biggest barriers to AR integration come from the hardware end of the equation. Specifically, the problem is that many of the devices which would be needed for casino type experiences are still limited in scope. While mobile phones can work for some AR applications, full glasses would be much more necessary for casino games, and therein lies the issue; these are still untested.
That said, it should be noted that the next generation of AR headsets is not far away, and already shows immense potential. Some of these aren't much larger than ordinary sunglasses, making them far more user-friendly and comfortable than their VR headset cousins.
We might not see many attempts at AR casino gaming within the next year alone, but current trends make this leap appear as a matter of when and not if. At the very least, the ‘20s should be the decade where AR and VR both catch up to their potential, and the online casino industry is far more poised than most to take advantage of this next step.
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