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Online Casinos: What to Consider When Going Mobile?

No secret that the rapid mobile application development and introduction of more powerful smartphones and tablet devices have boosted evolution of the global mobile market and have dramatically changed the online gaming industry for both players and developers. Mobile app development is much more instant compared to PC and technology providers can be self-sufficient enough to easily change your mobile gaming route. Mobile channels provide a distant advantage in terms of monetization as they're able to offer incentives based on gamers' location and time. White label providers and operators can also take advantage of HTML5 based clients with cross-platform capabilities that run well on any mobile or tablet device, Smart TV, etc, while providing branding customization support. HTML5 allows significant reduction of IOS development costs and accelerated  development process.

Another huge driver of bringing live dealer casino offerings to smartphones and tablets is the development of 3G and 4G technologies that enable remote access to the product within a given jurisdiction. Other factors that are critical for live dealer mobile gaming are broadband availability, Internet speed and usage. In mobile environment live dealer Star Gambling is able to transform the online gambling experience of a single player into an interactive and shared group activity.

To cut it short, today's mobile casino has a huge potential and ability to build strong bonds between players and individual dealers, and, thus, develop brand loyalty and boost online visibility. But what are the key points to consider when moving from online to mobile?

1. UI must be developed in a simple way allowing touch capabilities and avoiding any complexity

As far as touch capabilities are concerned, make sure your mobile casino has a high response speed and clear navigation. If your software response is too slow, the tabs are too small or the page is difficult to navigate, users will become angry and will soon abandon you and go to your competitor. Always think about user retention and acquisition when designing your UI!

2. Avoid lost time during game play

Players must be able to make decisions very fast during the game and, therefore, finding ways to reduce lost time is crucial for great UX. One of the ways to do so is by allowing bets to be placed during each spin in roulette to replicate the land-based casino experience. A game round in your live dealer casino shouldn't exceed 60 seconds.

3. Use solid backend platforms

Live casinos should be able to efficiently handle a very huge pool of concurrent players. Using solid backend platforms will allow you to create scalable casino games able to provide great performance regardless of the number of players.

4. Focus on 3G and 4G technologies when developing your mobile casino

When you develop for 3G and 4G networks, you're able to minimize delays on stream and, thus, speed up significantly page load time and activity indicators. It all is necessary to emulate experiences that mobile casino products are actually designed to offer.

Of course, there're many challenges in bringing live casino to the mobile space. But since live dealer casino is one of the fastest growing products within the gambling ecosystem, it's really interesting to see how it will develop in the future, isn't it?

Vik is our Brand Journalist and Head of Online Marketing / PR with 11+ years of international experience in IT B2B. He's also a guest blog contributor to Business2community, SitePoint, Journal of mHealth, Wearable Valley and other IT portals.
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