How Covid-19 Impact the Online Casino Industry in Australia?

While the offline casino has stopped working worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, interest in online gambling is growing daily.

12:39 24 April 2021

In Australia, bookmakers and online casinos offer alternative entertainment options to players. They do this in order not to lose their audience in the current situation and even to attract new customers.

 

No one can say for sure when the Covid 19 pandemic will subside and people will return to their usual way of life: going to sports, visiting cafes and malls, clubs and offline casinos, sporting events, and entertainment shows. It is not surprising that during the quarantine period there is a sharp increase in demand for online gambling all around the world, Australia is no exception here.

 

The Transformation of Offline Casinos During Quarantine in Australia

 

According to AlphaBeta, which analyzed the situation on the Australian gambling market, the percentage of online betting during the first weeks of the quarantine increased by 67%. People are forced to spend all their free time at home and in addition to basic spending money on food delivery services more often become involved in online gambling.

 

After many people are within the home space, traffic to online casinos in Australia quickly spiked. Different Internet resources felt the change differently. Attendance of gambling platforms jumped considerably. Some sources say that the traffic of gambling sites has increased by about 15% in comparison with the previous year. Moreover, only in March, these indicators greatly exceeded the traffic in recent years.

 

The coronavirus pandemic and online casinos in Australia

 

Some experts from the Australian Gambling Research Center thought upsurge in this activity will be short. But they were wrong. Gambling companies are struggling to find ways to stay afloat and keep in touch with gambling players. They keep players on their sites.

 

Only in March 2020, when the whole world was hit by COVID-19, the volume of average deposits at online casinos in Australia grew by 20% compared to January. Australian online pokies  are becoming a trend in 2020 and 2021.

 

Implementation of artificial intelligence in Australian online casinos

 

Thanks to COVID-19 artificial intelligence is widely used in Australian online casinos today. Today it is represented by a self-learning algorithm for robots, acting on the principles of self-organizing neural networks. Artificial intelligence in Australian online casinos is most often used in chatbots, where the robot independently finds the right answer to the user's request, analyzing the previous experience.

 

Also, some leading casinos use the achievements of artificial intelligence in their security systems to combat fraud. Such a system detects fake users (bots), preventing unauthorized interference in the platform's workflow.

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used not only in virtual casinos but also in some offline gambling halls, as one of the tools of the security service, controlling the behavior of visitors in the casino. This makes the work of security officers much easier.

 

Online broadcasts in Australian casinos

 

Online broadcasting of casino games during the coronavirus pandemic became the most popular in Australia. The first attempts to hold such a broadcast were made back in the 2000s, but due to the poor connection and quality of the Internet, such an attempt failed.

 

When playing games online, the dealer is at the table, his work is controlled by at least three cameras. One camera broadcasts the general situation at the table in real-time. The second camera shows only the dealer's activity. The third camera focuses only on the game. From the special room, an operator controls the game.

 

Broadcasts are conducted from a special room in the casino building. Players can participate in such games from anywhere in the world, just having any gadget and a good Internet signal.

 

Australian online casinos and cryptocurrencies

 

Australian online casinos, where blockchain is responsible for the safety of the transactions, received a new round of development. Blockchain is a continuous chain of blocks, in which data about all transactions (time, place, participants of the transaction) is stored and the information about which cannot be deleted.

 

Blockchain is being actively implemented in the field of online casinos today, as it is a very transparent and secure system that allows playing, regardless of the location of the potential player. However, the integration of blockchain is expensive and not all gambling platforms can afford it yet. But the new format of casino payment acceptance is another step towards innovation and the future.

 

VR/AR technologies in Australian casinos

 

The high degree of development of the Internet, and the active spread of smartphones lead to the fact that the growth rate of the online gaming market is increasing. Virtual gambling games (VR, AR) are increasingly in demand.

 

Virtual reality in online casinos is like video games in which the player enters a virtual game room designed as an exact copy of a standard game room. It occurs with the help of a special computer headset - it can be either headphones or virtual reality glasses, as well as other equipment. As a result, the user receives a game room, as close as possible to the real one.

 

On such platforms, the user is offered a choice of standard games: roulette, poker, slot machines, etc. At the moment, there are three software companies that offer online games for casinos that support VR and AR - NetEnt, Microgaming, and Lucky.