Global Social Casino Market Growth Expectations

The technological breakthroughs have led to major changes in the way casino games look and feel, but also have an impact on how and where people engage in such games. Social media sites started rolling out games that have many similarities with ordinary casino games, but what sets them apart is that they are played using demo credits. 

The social casino revenues have witnessed a steady growth during the past couple of years, and the most well-liked such games are the ones that mimic slots, table games, and poker. As for the development path of the industry, most experts deem that the revenues it will generate will keep on expanding, which makes sense considering the growing demand. 

It is easy to see that the changes in the market size of social gaming and its growth are quite dynamic as the revenues the market generated back in 2016 were nearly $3.5 billion. 

Leading Social Gaming Providers

Although social casino games have a lot in common with their real-money counterparts, there are a number of departments in which they differ. The primary difference is that while playing these games, no monetary payment will be required. Additionally, these games are normally based on a social network, while the outcomes are not necessarily determined by random odds, which is exactly the case with casino games. Players who have a liking not only for social but for casino games will find lots of up-to-the-minute information at bestcasinosites.me.uk. 

There are a number of companies that are to be blamed for the assortment of social games that are currently available out there, and figures indicate that Playtika is the leading publisher of such gaming solutions. Back in 2018, the company held the biggest market share of over 28%. Back then, the company was followed by Aristocrat, and its revenue share was 12.7%. 

Scientific Games and DoubleU Games had an almost identical revenue share of about 8.5%. The other companies with a smaller market presence were Zynga, Playstudios, Tencent, and GSN. 

Platforms with the Biggest Yield

When it comes to the games that attract the biggest amount of attention, the figures for 2020 indicate that most people have gravitated towards Texas Holdem Poker, 8 Ball Pool, Candy Crush Saga, Coin Master, and Farm House Saga.  

Naturally, there is a significant difference in the revenues the market has generated across the various platforms where such gaming solutions are within reach. Back in 2020, smartphone social games were the biggest growth drivers as they generated 40% of all revenues. They were followed by console games and downloaded and boxed games that had a yield of 28% and 21%, respectively. Tablet social games produced 9% of the revenues, while browser PC games generated a profit of just 2%. 

An interesting trend is that while initially, social games that were accessible on Facebook were attention-grabbers, their popularity has started to decrease from 2016 onwards. According to the forecasts, this trend will remain in the upcoming years, while mobile social games will continue to produce larger profits. Figures show that social poker produced revenues of $76 million. 

As for the engagement of players of social games by country, back in 2016, Canadians generated well above $100 million. 

The share of the social casino game payers is another thing to pay attention to, and what data shows is that people who are aged between 21 and 35 are the ones who engage most actively in such games. They are followed by men and women that are aged between 36 and 50. 

The time most people spend playing social games has increased significantly, and according to research, which was carried out back in 2015, about 5% of people spent more than 15 hours playing social casino games. The results from the research also show that the lion’s share of people who engage in social games spend between 1 and 5 hours playing such. What is rather interesting, however, is that 4% of all people cannot say for sure how much time they spend playing social games. 

Transition from Free-to-play to Real-money Games

In spite of their growing popularity, social casino games are often frowned upon because they are considered a gateway to real-money casino games. Multiple countries have already started to pay more attention to the impact of social games on players’ behavior. One of the researches that were carried out recently shows that one quarter of the people who have engaged in social games have opted for real-money casino games shortly after this. 

Yet, experts still find it hard to determine what makes players of social games jump to real-money games, but they have found that gamers who are inclined to make micro-transaction are much more likely to go for betting on casino games. This is not that surprising considering that people who pay in order to obtain more demo credits will be more prone to go for some form of actual gambling because of the opportunity to win bigger than they have initially staked. 

Conclusion

The popularity of social casino games is expected to remain heavily on the rise for the next few years. Even more so with mobile social casino games as the growth of that segment, in particular, is expected to increase to nearly $6 billion in 2022, which is almost a two-fold increase. The other segments should not be overlooked too, as they are growth-drivers as well.