The omni-channel approach is everything in the online gaming industry today. Operators aim to create easy and convenient access to their games so that players can enjoy them across different platforms and on all of their devices.
As part of this approach, online bingo operators in particular are also diversifying their offerings by adding slots and other casino games to their sites in order to provide more gaming options for their players.
The thinking behind this move towards diversification is not hard to understand, as recent statistics from the UK Gambling Commission have highlighted that online gambling is beginning to take a greater share every year of the overall Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) in the UK (now up to 32% on the latest figures).
As online gaming participation rates grow, operators are naturally keen to secure as large a market share as they can. One of the most effective ways of doing this has been to give players the opportunity to play as big a range of games as possible at the one site.
This approach is supported by recent research into the playing habits of bingo players, which found that 67% also play online slots and casino games alongside online bingo. Given this fact, it seems a logical step that online bingo rooms increasingly offer slots alongside their bingo games.
However, this is something of a balancing act, as bingo operators still want to be seen as primarily online bingo rooms, rather than online casinos that also have bingo. That’s why you’ll find that most bingo rooms who have slots will have a smaller range than at online casinos — they want slots and casino games to be an added extra that they offer their players, rather than slots becoming their primary game. This is not to say that bingo rooms with slots games don’t offer high quality slots or a good gaming experience — rather, it’s that the number of games isn’t comparable to that at most online casinos.
For instance, at online bingo rooms like Gala Bingo, ABC Bingo, Foxy Bingo, Mecca Bingo, Wow Bingo, Zingo Bingo and Wink Bingo you can play slots games, and while the number of games they offers will vary, none of them have the size of selection or variety that most online casinos now offer.
This move towards online bingo rooms offering slots and casino games also reflects of a shift in the demographics as to who gambles online today. Research has revealed a significant increase in the number of women who bet online or play games other than bingo, and this is another reason why more bingo sites now feature slots as well.
Research carried out in 2016 revealed that in the UK 43.8% of people who gamble online regularly are female and, perhaps surprisingly, only 60% of these women said that online bingo was their game of choice. This would seem to offer a clear explanation as to the shift in operators’ strategy — by diversifying their range of games to include slots and casino games, they have more opportunities to capture the growing number of women who play online but who don’t just limit themselves to bingo.
Another way in which online bingo rooms have evolved to meet the demands of the market has been their increased emphasis on mobile bingo. The average age of women who gamble online is 29 — the first generation who have had mobile phones virtually since birth — and the popularity of mobile bingo would seem to reflect this. Recent research showed that 58% of bingo players in the UK have played on their smartphones or tablets, with 24% playing exclusively on their mobile devices.
The industry response to these statistics and increased mobile play has been interesting in terms of whether operators offer their mobile bingo games through dedicated apps, or have instead chosen to focus on web-based games (some opt for a combination of both).
Apps tend to have only one sort of game as a focus, which is why some of the biggest online gambling names offer their players several different apps i.e., one for sports betting, one for slots, one for bingo, etc. It is unusual for players to get different gaming options within the one app, although Paddy Power’s bingo app does provide slots, unlike many others in the bingo app ecosystem. However, it may well be the case that more operators begin to follow Paddy Power’s lead and produce fewer apps, but instead offer more in-app gaming options within them.
Web-based mobile bingo and casino sites, on the other hand, do tend to have more diverse offerings than apps, and in fact many newer online casinos and bingo rooms are ‘mobile first’ i.e., their target player is someone who plays primarily or only on a mobile, a change that has been brought about through the development of HTML5 and the overall improved quality of mobile gaming. A number of online bingo rooms operate in this way — they have no app but instead their desktop site is mobile-optimised so that it provides essentially the same experience regardless of the device you play on.
An interesting counterpoint to this development of omni-platform gaming is that while operators are diversifying, at the same time producers seem to be becoming more specialised. For instance, Dragonfish is the dominant name in bingo software, yet is not a developer that would necessarily be familiar to online slots game players. The same is true of brands like Cozy Games, Jumpman Gaming and Gamesys, who between them produce the software for most of the major online bingo sites, but are not notable producers of online casino games or slots.
Playtech is perhaps an exception to this, in that its subsidiary company Virtue Fusion is a prominent bingo software provider. Microgaming, too, is in the business of producing bingo software, although this doesn’t seem to be an aspect of its business on which it is currently focusing, with there being no major new bingo sites adopting Microgaming software recently. Other leading casino software providers like NetEnt or NextGen have no real presence in this space, nor do any of the newer developers like Quickspin or Yggdrasil. So, while we see operators broadening their content, developers at the same time appear to be becoming more niche.
The ever-increasing number of people gambling online and a continuing focus on mobile play would therefore seem to be the driving factors as to why more online bingo rooms offers slots and other casino games at their sites. And given the direction the industry is moving and playing tastes evolving, it seems unlikely that there will be a shift in emphasis any time soon.
