Slots Play Casinos is an online casino industry watchdog. We have been around for just a few years and already we have many pages of useful information for all casino gamers be they online exclusive, land-based exclusive or a combination of the two.
As the word “slots” is in our name, we thought it a good idea to review the trends that we have seen in slots in the last ten years and how prognosticators see slots going forward.
It’s all about the Technology
The story of the early days of online casino gaming has been told and retold many times. In short, the technology in the early online casino days was a far cry from the technology of today.
Therein lies the essential truth about online gaming and especially about slots: technology reigns supreme.
Modern technology is normative to the generation from 21 to 35. The joke is that when parents or grandparents can’t figure out how to do something on the computer or smartphone they call in a kid who does the “obvious” in a minute or two!
Before the corona virus hit, the average age at land-based casinos was over 50. Now, after so many land-based casinos have finally reopened, the average age has dropped to 43. This means that older players are still playing it safe and not going out to places they don’t have to go to.
Younger casino players still play a lot of slots but they also go to the sports betting area. Young people have the means and patience to study sports and to make reasonable bets based on their research.
How Does this Affect Slots?
There once were just a handful of land-based casinos. Competition between them was nowhere near the level of completion of today. Competition today is between land-based casinos generally of which there are many hundreds if not thousands, and online casinos generally of witch there now many thousands, competition among land-based casinos, and among online casinos.
There is also a great deal of competition between game providers.
Competition will, as it always does in free societies, create an atmosphere of innovation by necessity.
Modern People Are Social Media Devotees
In addition, social media drive trends in real time. A slot or other casino game that hits a cord will travel at lightning speed through the social media platforms and will create opinion that less sophisticated onlookers may have missed!
One of the many aspects of social media is that in many ways it is non-political. Sure, you can post political opinion on social media but more users of social media want the social side not the political side.
There was one specific reason why Instagram overtook Facebook in the hierarchy of social media: the selfie. Instagram is the home of the selfie and the people who like to send and receive selfies don’t want politics interfering with the good life!
Competition will Drive Slots
Competition already drives slots but as technology revs up into areas undreamt of just a few years ago, slots will need to rev up as well. That’s because slots are the only casino game that can create something new every month!
Slots are to casino gaming as the selfie is to social media! Going forward we can expect slots to reflect the selfie culture. Slots will become more and more a conduit of pure entertainment.
Just imagine a slots game where you can put in your own selfie! Imagine a slot where you can create a character of your own choosing. Imagine game providers finding new ways to run the wild symbols.
We already have slots with odd formations. Future slots will have even stranger formations. We once had slots with only three reels. Then five-reel slots came along. Now, most top-level online casinos have a few six reel slots. Can ten reel slots be far behind?
Slots still rely on ancient cultures for a lot of their story material. What will slots be like when developers create entire cultures and produce slots to tell those cultures’ stories?
We could go on but we are sure that you get the idea: slots are the creative future of both online and land-based casinos.
Let’s Look at the Wild Symbol in Slots
The early slots didn’t have a wild symbol. They had one payline. Today’s slots have many paylines and they all have wild symbols. The push is for the wild symbol to do truly wild things.
The first wild symbol was just that: a wild card. Now we have so many different kinds of wild symbols. Here are just a few:
- Stacked Wilds. Sometimes they stack three high and sometimes cover an entire reel.
- Sticky Wilds. They stay in place for a pre-determined number of spins. If you get lucky you’ll get many sticky wilds before they disappear!
- Expanding Wilds. These expand upward and outward. A true expanding wild will take over a neighboring reel.
- Moving Wilds. These move on every subsequent spin until they exit the reels stage left.
- Duplicating Wilds have the uncanny ability to turn a simple symbol into a fire-breathing wild symbol.
- Finally, we arrive at the exploding wild. A wild symbol can explode in many ways. It can create a few or many new wild symbols!
- A lot of wilds have a multiplier that kicks in whenever you get a win with a wild symbol’s help.
- Some slots have two or even three different kinds of wild symbols.
Competition will Drive Free Play
We will likely see gamers play more in free play mode at online casinos. These have long been able to offer unlimited free play since it costs them nothing. Cyberspace being unlimited itself, a few thousand gamers playing for free is no burden to online casinos.
As slots will drive competition in gaming in the future, we expect to see land-based casinos offer some measure of free play! This may be limited to slots but it will be a marketing tool for land-based casinos as gamers who spend quite a bit of money just getting to a land-based casino might be convinced to come if they can play some slots for free!
The slots of the future will probably have a skill aspect. They will no longer be pure games of chance. Young gamers get bored so slots will have to be more and more exciting
Game developers will invent new casino games. An example of this is the Caribbean Poker Games which are not yet “adults” in the gaming world. If this seems odd keep in mind that new games come out all the time.
Just in the last few short months three games have come into the gaming market and have started a craze in themselves: Wordle, Nerdle, and Quordle!
Slots Play Casinos will Work Hard to Keep Up
As a casino watchdog, it is our job to stay abreast of all developments in the casino world. You should read SPC often to get news and information about all things casino.
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