Certainly one of the unmistakable themes of the meteoric rise of online gambling since it began in the 1990s has been the industry’s continuous technological transformation. People started off overjoyed that they could suddenly gamble at home that didn’t have the time to come by in person, then they could gamble while waiting in line at supermarkets. After that came VPNs and crypto that allowed skirting government restrictions.
Now, one of the latest developments in this field has been virtual reality gambling. The entertainment value of VR of course has taken the world by storm. It’s absorbed audiences of all industries from modeling to video games. But is VR gambling the future? That’s what we’ll be analyzing in this article.
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The rise of VR casinos
We are all well aware that entertainment never stands still. Casino games are meanwhile themselves growing ever more sophisticated and captivating with lots of twists and side bets getting thrown in all the time. Video game consoles themselves are offering VR headsets, as are independent producers for PCs.
Popular headsets are sold by:
- Meta Quest
- HTC Vive
- PlayStation VR
These offer a level of immersion unmatched in any other form of gaming. Headsets are combined with motion tracking sensors and hand controlling allowing people to enjoy a visually rich, three-dimensional casino. As for the growth of the industry, the VR gambling market finished at 2.66 billion USD for 2024 and its CAGR stands at 22.8%, comparable to the CAGR of VR gaming itself – 27.5%.
One thing that online gambling has attempted to replicate has been the sense of camaraderie and socialization that the presence of other human beings brings. Live dealer games have been popular for that reason. However, all the while, people still long for the ability to have people actually right in front of them. In virtual reality, people get to virtually walk around on a casino floor, sit down at a table, and customize their surroundings to create a unique, full-blown gaming atmosphere with a visual representation of people’s avatars all around them. They hear their voices with sound spatially simulated.
A notable aspect of VR gambling is that it focuses heavily on table games, such as:
- poker
- blackjack
- roulette
- Pai gow
- roulette
People can also enjoy high-adrenaline crash games like Football X, particularly those who also bet on the world’s most popular betting sport.
The limitless splendor of VR immersion
Currently, chatrooms in virtual reality are quite popular. People actually get to approach each other’s avatars in a virtual space and enjoy the illusion that they’re standing in front of each other talking to each other. A lot of people use this for language practice. Other appeals are enjoying simulated experiences, such as walking in space, witnessing the sinking of the Titanic, and VR tourism – for instance, walking through the streets of Istanbul.
So the movies predicting that humanity is destined for a future dominated by virtual reality might actually be onto something. As for traditional casino-type environments, a virtual simulation of that is much more successful than live dealer games. People can easily set very flashy Las Vegas-style surroundings.
Gambling tables
Customization is a big part of the draw. If they so please, people have the opportunity to get together dressed up as vampires and replicate a Transylvanian background. They just modify their avatars to reflect their personalities along with the lighting, music, and decor of the gaming room, and voila! Virtual reality games are conducted with live dealers, often as part of tournaments and special events.
Like any breakthrough technologies, these are more popular with younger crowds than with older crowds. However, that by no means excludes all older people.
Hurdles to overcome
Of course, there are plenty of challenges to overcome if VR gambling is to go mainstream. Though the financial figures and growth rate establish its meteoric rise a fact, it is questionable whether it will actually come to dominate online gambling, let alone ever come close to the levels of in-person gambling.
This will mainly depend on whether VR gambling can overcome the following issues:
- High cost of entry: even though the cost of acquiring a VR headset has been going down, it is a significant additional investment to make. A lot of people for that reason will not get involved at least initially, especially in poorer countries. This may well work out like smartphones though, which themselves started out inaccessible and continue to expand into new markets.
- Internet connection: an individual would have to have a great connection to support VR iGaming, which currently rules out people living in a lot of rural areas, particularly in Africa. That said, the issue of global connectivity and interruptions has improved over time.
- Few total games are available in VR at the moment.
- Lack of iGaming genres supported: there are still problems with certain game genres and not all iGaming genres are offered, most importantly of all – slots. These account for the lion’s share of actual casino games, so for the time being, this is a serious limit to VR gaming.
- Mostly popular among young, internet surfers: currently, a large number of older generation members are shy to try out gambling on any computer or smartphone. For many, even a smartphone or tablet is too complicated or too foreign for them to even want to touch.
- Regulatory concerns: ensuring fairness and being able to know people’s identity will be a challenge. We will see whether legislative barriers to VR gambling will be put in place.
Impact on the gambling industry
We are already witnessing online gambling threatening the market share of many already established brick-and-mortar casinos in the US states, such as Pennsylvania and Rhode Island that have legalized online gambling. The same will likely be true for VR gamers; however, this is just a question of the casino’s willingness and success in adapting to evolving trends.
People generally enjoy hanging out in the real world and this will always be a natural human desire. For that reason, the VR gambling industry seems more likely to steal customers from online gambling platforms, especially live dealer ones.
Predictions for the future
The Metaverse is another grand example of VR being used not just for video games but for actual transactions and maintaining a financial ecosystem. Already, the Metaverse is larger than the VR gaming industry, which last year racked up 105.40 billion USD.
Moving forward:
- VR casinos will integrate emerging technologies.
- AI will become much sharper and may help better identify signs of gambling addiction and money laundering schemes.
- Blockchain will grow even more efficient. People will continue to be able to pay in cryptocurrency, which will allow them to bypass legislative barriers.
- Online casinos will be likely to adapt however, and it is plausible that physical casinos in the future could designate special VR gambling rooms, allowing people to use the equipment there instead of having to buy their own headsets. This would be similar to video game cafes, which are already very popular.
- VR gaming will heavily impact gambling in virtual worlds as this trend has already exhibited a firm imprint on casinos. So people will go on quests, explore levels, and make achievements in which they will wager money. These will keep enthusiasts in the VR casino for longer periods of time.
- Developing countries will likely join in on the trend a bit later, just as was the case with smartphones.
