The casino industry underwent a major shift with the introduction of the internet. Now an increasing number of players access casino games online, with a growing range of games adapted into digital form.
It’s only taken a couple of decades for casinos to evolve into the digital age, creating new variants of classic table games and slot games like Jammin Jars as well as fusion formats like live dealer games. Read on as we dive into an exploration of the journey of the online casino from then to now.
The origin of online casinos
It all started in the 1990s as the internet started to really grow and became more of an everyday presence. Like many other industries, casinos saw the potential of the internet as a platform and began to experiment with the idea of online play.
But as it was pretty early days for the technology, it wasn’t until the mid-90s that the first online casino debuted. InterCasino was created by software developers Microgaming and launched in 1996, starting with a small selection of Slots and table games.
Once that first platform went live, it wasn’t long before others started to emerge, though the graphics and user interfaces of those first few sites were a little on the basic side.
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Growth and expansion to new devices
Throughout the early 2000s, new online casinos continued to debut as others expanded their existing offerings with new games and improved graphics.
The next big step for the evolution of online casinos came with the rise of mobile technology. An increasing number of players began to lean towards devices like smartphones and tablets, rather than desktops. This required online casino platforms to pivot and optimise themselves for mobile.
Platforms had already improved their visuals and user interfaces from the 90s, but mobile optimisation required a further investment in system architecture and technology. To give players the same smoothness of gameplay without stutters or lag, online casinos needed to streamline the user interface, accounting for different screen sizes and devices.
The fusion of old and new
One development that only emerged once online casinos were fully established as a platform are live casino games, which bring together online play with the presence of a live dealer running the game from a physical location.
The idea for live dealer games was first floated quite early on, they simply needed to wait for the technology to catch up. Quite a lot goes into making a live casino game run smoothly, including high-definition cameras to capture all angles of the gameplay, smooth steaming to user devices and optical character recognition (OCR) to translate images into data for the software to read.
Improved internet connectivity and broadband speeds were also a big part of making live dealer games possible, showcasing the continuing evolution of casinos in the digital age.
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Developing technology has helped to drive the evolution of the casino industry, so who knows what new developments could be just around the corner? As platforms evolve, online casino games could see even more change in the years ahead.
