Africa Represents the Next Phase of Online Casino Growth
Valued at a whopping $100 billion, the global online casino industry is a behemoth that attracts all forms of investment. Most of this capital is concentrated in Europe and North America, but other continents around the world have shown themselves to be partial to divulging themselves into this new arena of commerce, most notably of course are the emerging markets of Africa.
Africa is at the precipice of an internet revolution, unlocking a wealth of opportunities for gambling companies in the region. With better ease-of-access to the market and ability to deliver higher quality gambling experiences for those on the ground. ©Lucent_Designs_dinoson20/Pixabay
The concern of the wealthy business owners with online casinos operating in these over-saturated markets is that the growth trajectories have plateaued. This is due to a maximum engagement level within key existing territories already being reached. However, if current trends hold there could be significant opportunities presenting themselves in some key under-represented markets.
Africa, and indeed parts of Asia, are at the very core of this expansion strategy, and while full integration with the offerings these markets possess is still some-way off, it won’t be before long until we can see a major unveiling of Western-style online casino commerce available in these untapped regions. How exactly this will be implemented remains to be seen. But the merging and integration into these markets remains a critical step for the industry.
Plenty of inroads have already been made into the opportunities of gambling in Africa, and the pent-up demand that exists within the continent for a high-quality cluster of platforms is becoming too big of an opportunity to ignore. Several companies already operate in the region, but compared against Europe and North America, there is still plenty of room in the market for a variety of different operators to occupy.
The Status Quo of the African Gambling Industry
As is the technology and platforms sector, with products like Hulu and Moment House, online gambling commerce is reliant on the quality of choices available to the consumer. With gambling, this is all about the number of games that can be bet on, and the ease with which a consumer can access these products. These central aspects of the user-experience at essential in all parts of the world, and there is serious room for improvement here.
Another area that will need an intense level of focus applied to it is the quality of the platform that will be put forward for users to interact with. The streamlined approach of making gambling products easy and welcoming is important, as unlike Europe and America where the casinos are arriving thick-and-fast, Africa is not so overwhelmed yet. With competition comes the luxury of not having to deal with outdated systems that are slow and clunky.
Driving these changes on the ground will require a wide and sweeping range of infrastructural changes on the ground. Nigeria is the country that seems to be leading the charge in this effort within Africa. Their target is to give 90% of the population have direct access to 4G and 5G internet, and lay over 120,000km of fiber. These activations alone will more than double the total userbase of the internet in Nigeria by the year 2025.
With the intense developments going on throughout the continent, it won’t be before long that iGaming providers can begin to capitalize and see obvious dividends in these infrastructural improvements. Having a larger potential customer base and better ways to deliver content to them quicker will certainly see all the digital companies in the region better off.
So Where is the Maximum?
Looking at the current situation of iGaming on a global scale, it is difficult to see exactly where the maximum number of customers that can be acquired may be. Ultimately, trying to forecast a metric that is dependent on a series of complex variables is all but a tedious and laborious task, without much certainty rewarded for the effort. There are of course, a variety of intersectional causes for the complexity.
The original drivers of growth were some of the main attractors that is obvious to game developers. That being the improvement of graphics and user interface on popular gambling games and offering experiences like online slots that have features not available in land-based casinos.
Later down the line came the mobile integration and the importance of being able to offer an elite gaming experience whilst on the go. And the final crown jewel in driving excitement around these products was the live casino experience.
Combining the rollout of all of these factors with better infrastructure for the internet, and fintech solutions that have removed obstacles to commercial participation in less developed countries, and it all suggests that online casinos will continue to grow. In regions such as Africa and Asia this is expected to be an enormous growth potential, whereas in Europe and North America it is likely to be less pronounced, and yet the final endpoint is unknown.
Whatever happens, compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is expected to keep rising into the 2020s, and how exactly the industry will manage this growth will be the greatest of the unanswered questions. New records are expected to be set whatever happens.