The online casino market is saturated. Almost every day, a seemingly brand-new online casino is trying to launch. We say ‘seemingly’ because the vast majority of new online casinos are not actually new – they are often just rebrands of existing online casinos. It can be tough to spot, but it is certainly the case. Genuine new entrants to the online casino market are few and far between, partly because of the saturation of the market, although there are other reasons too. Let’s take a look.
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Entering the online casino market in the UK isn’t cheap
Market saturation isn’t the only reason why genuinely new online casinos are struggling to get off the ground. It’s tough to enter the gambling market in the UK. Even before a company makes a penny, they need to invest thousands of pounds in getting a gambling licence from the UKGC, ensuring they comply with legal requirements etc. Most companies don’t want to bother with that hassle. The competitive nature of the online casino market means that it can be really difficult to pay off the investment.
This isn’t something that is going to change, though. The UK does have some of the most relaxed gambling legislation in the world, but things are becoming stricter to protect consumers a little more. This means that fewer and fewer companies will be able to get over the legislative hurdles to become an online casino, and thus fewer companies will experience how difficult it becomes to compete in the market
Hard for new online gaming companies to find new players
One of the biggest challenges of entering a saturated online gaming market is the fact that finding new players is tricky.
While there are gamblers who will hop from website to website looking for a new casino, some players remain content with where they are. They only have a limited amount of cash to spend, and they will mostly spend it on places they know they can trust – particularly since more and more online gaming platforms are offering extra incentives for those who stick around.
This means that newer entrants to the market face the challenge of attracting online gamblers who have yet to commit to a website, and persuading those online gamblers who have already discovered their website to stay there and continue to play.
However, for those players who are looking for something new or are just feeling adventurous, there are plenty of casinos offering attractive Casino Bonuses in the UK. These bonuses range from welcome packages for new players, cashback deals, free spins and many more, all from player-tested and reviewed casinos. These kinds of lists provide a sense of relief for players in this market, as instead of trialling casino after casino trying to find features and bonuses that work for them, it is all detailed in one place.
Tough marketing conditions
This is where one of the biggest problems for a new entrant to the market will lie. It’s not an easy job to market an online casino. It’s also particularly expensive. That is also putting aside the fact that there are serious limitations to how and where the platform may be advertised.
The cost to acquire a brand-new customer is incredibly high. It takes a huge amount of effort to do so, and honestly, this severely limits the number of entrants into the online gaming market. While new entrants can cut costs in certain areas (for example, using a white label solution for their platform), the cost of marketing is just too high. It is very difficult to compete with the heavyweights of the business, particularly those that have become household names due to their advertising on major TV shows and other media.
Most newer online casinos gain customers not by paid marketing but through word-of-mouth advertising or working with affiliates to promote their platforms. Quite often, this will limit newer online casinos to working with gamblers who know where to find new platforms, and this can make the potential customer base rather limited – not to mention the fact that many of the people who will be discovering their platforms via these methods will be moving platforms regularly, so the online casino has to continuously work hard to gain new customers.
An online casino platform needs to be incredibly innovative to jump into a saturated market like this, considering they will find it hard to compete with the marketing budgets of the ‘big guns’.
New online gaming companies can succeed… but they need to innovate
That’s not to say that new online gaming companies can’t succeed in the saturated market. They can. It is just a huge risk.
Newer companies need to innovate and do things that other platforms aren’t doing. It wouldn’t surprise you to know that older companies don’t innovate because they don’t want to alienate their existing customer base. New platforms don’t have that problem, and they can afford to take risks. For example, many of the original mobile casino platforms were launched by new companies, because older, established companies didn’t want to shake things up too quickly. They only followed suit when it was clear that mobile gaming would be the future.
The problem is that it’s not easy to come up with a unique way to innovate a platform. Often, choosing different games won’t be enough, although accepting certain payment methods might. For example, cryptocurrencies are huge right now. Many newer online casinos do try to innovate on the bonus front, and some of the best casino bonuses in the UK are offered by new entrants to the market.
Final thoughts
It’s not a simple task for new online gaming platforms to break into the saturated online casino market, because it seems as if everything will be working against them. Even if a new platform can get past the legislative barrier, it needs to compete in a market where gamblers are very reluctant to move to a new site. For a company to succeed, not only do marketing budgets need to be sky-high but they also need to innovate. It’s certainly not an easy market to enter, and it’s one that can carry big risks.
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