The European Gaming Q2 Meetup taught us all about Live Casino Trends and Innovation

The European Gaming Meetups by Hipther have been established as the go-to virtual events to keep you up-to-date with what is fresh in the European gambling industry.

For the 2nd European Gaming Quarterly Meetup that took place on 14 June 2023 at 10am CEST, the #hipthers and Zoltán Tűndik, Co-Founder and Head of Business at Hipther Agency, welcomed a panel of iGaming experts with extensive experience in Live Casino offerings – from the early online gaming days to current casino verticals, and the “futuristic” Metaverse!

The #hipthers are thrilled to introduce you the panelists who discussed:

“Innovation in Live Casino: Standing Out in an Increasingly Saturated Market”

and walk you through their insightful and thought-provoking conversation.

Anna Vikmane is the Director of BETER Live, seasoned iGaming industry executive with experience in a wide range of jurisdictions, products and services in companies such as Playtech and GVC (now Entain). As Director of BETER Live, she is tasked with bringing a new generation of live casino products to the global market.

Daniel Gunba is the Founder / CEO of TRIIONFT – the company working on solutions such as a Body Tracking technology based on #AI to bring the dealers into the Metaverse, and developing the whole #Metaverse environment where Live Casinos will be able to bring their games and products.

Simon Croft is the Founder and developer of Live Solutions Group, pioneer of the fully live online casino platform for table games with video chat for all users. Simon has 30 years of experience in the gaming industry, including #data center management, #payment solutions, Casino operations, Business Management, Full Stack Programming, Affiliate Marketing and Risk Management.

Watch the European Gaming Q2 Meetup Livestream on YouTube here – subscribe to Hipther TV and get notifications for all upcoming virtual meetups and videos by Hipther!

Read on for the highlights and key takeaways from the live meetup conversation!

Q: What can a company do to make its product stand out in the saturated casino market?

Anna Vikmane: “Companies should focus on developing more verticals like game shows and live casino games, like Blackjack Roulette, with additional features and differentiated customer journeys”.

Simon Croft: “First of all, companies should define what Live Casino is for them: What is the Live element of the gaming experience? Some companies use live feeds from casinos, and others focus on creating social environments like we do at Live Solutions. And now there’s also AI to accelerate the process”.

Daniel Gunba: “In terms of UI and UX, companies can add features to Live Casino, but in order to innovate and create something new, one should focus on the Live Experience with casino dealers. Experience is the key”.

Q: What casino trends have emerged in the last few years? Can you give us a sneak peek into the future of live casinos?

Anna: “VR and AR both have been hyped. But overall, what we see in the past 5 years is that the iGaming vertical has been growing massively in terms of offerings and demographics as well. Which adds many cross-selling options and a variety of offerings, starting from core casino games to entirely new gaming concepts – which is what we should be focusing on. We will see more on the live game shows as a separate vertical in the next two years”.

Simon: “Many companies have been jumping the original live dealer bandwagon, while others have been trying to enrich this experience. The Live Game Shows have this “TV filter” that makes them appealing and interesting. Interaction between players is a very important trend, and casino peer-to-peer videos offer a totally new user experience. What holds great potential for the future is how the players can be served better by the companies”.

Daniel: “I agree with Anna in terms of additional features and new gaming concepts – and we have the examples of the Wheel of Fortune, Monopoly, etc. Metaverse is a great trend as well, not for live casino, but still, for gambling. In the future, metaverse can bring in both the factors of live casino and improved casino experience; the real life casino experience and the Metaverse”.

Q: VR and AR spaces are very exciting and Live Casino seems like a natural fit for such technology; how can VR and AR enhance player immersion?

Anna: “The metaverse combo works well and live casino goes hand-in-hand with technological development. VR Live Casino has been done, but what is challenging about it is the end user experience and how natural it is for the users to choose VR at this point. How user-friendly can VR be considered now, when we have our phone in our pockets, not VR glasses? New advancements, like Apple’s headset, create the hype for VR so it can be applied in the future”.

Simon: “Trends are led by the development of devices. Like iGaming started with desktop and laptops, and then Apple came up with a product that allowed people to walk around with entertainment in their pockets. The problem with the VR Live Casino concept is that it depends on both the advancement and popularity of VR devices”.

Daniel: “The experience of VR casino exists – Pokerstars have their own product. Yes, we are not ready for live VR casino, but it certainly is something we will see in the future. Mobile technology is already extremely advanced, and perhaps it will evolve to accommodate the VR experience as well”.

Q: Why do you think that having a bespoke brand of Live Casino is catching on – especially in the U.S. ?

Anna: “The US market is known for valuing the entertainment quality of their products – especially considering the value and growth of Hollywood. So, they traditionally have this show-type of outlook. The Live Casino market specifically, has gotten very competitive with so many new provider and operator companies coming in. Most players are registered to 3.5 operators on average in order to check all offerings. So, the answer for providers is to keep producing unique, exclusive content for operators to stand out”. 

Simon: “The ability for branding in virtual tables and the costs lead to overcharging the tables’ branding. On the other hand, It is very difficult to justify having physical tables branded. So this trend of bespoke Live Casino branding will continue”.

Daniel: “Yes, everyone wants to successfully brand their tables so that people remember them. And users want to have a 100% positive and unique user experience”.

Q: Are there any “magic tricks” for developers to elevate the user experience?

Anna: “There is no end point to the improvement of user experience! But the question is: where is the end user in this journey? With the current phones, we have 4K quality for example, but internet connection quality per region is also an issue. Additionally, the user experience needs to be personalized in order for the customer to get the best experience possible – and that’s the biggest challenge”.

Simon: “It’s all about the user experience and not about technology. Technology provides the means for retention, but there are different types of players, looking for different points in the user experience. The new generations want social experience and we’re going to see development focusing on interaction between the users”.

Daniel: “You need to identify who your end user is, so you can provide different types of personalization – such as different types of resolutions and settings, to provide as much as possible for all players depending on their needs and hardware”.

Q: Do you think that Live Casino Games still have a seat at the table at a time when so many immersive games are being released every week?

Anna: “Definitely, although there are so many games and there is an emphasis on sports and football. But Blackjack and Roulette are live casino classics and we have seen that there can be many new variations of these games”.

Simon: “Casino games will continue to morph and change, and live casino is definitely not going to disappear. Even standard slot games can evolve to live casino”.

Daniel: “Yes, definitely games like slots will evolve to live casino and personally, I would be very happy to play slots with a live dealer. And thank you, that’s a great idea for my Team!”.

Outro – Here’s what our speakers had to say to wrap up the discussion on Live Casino Innovation:

Anna: “Let’s all stay tuned, be creative and Live Casino is the vertical with the greatest potential to evolve. Personalization is the key to a better user experience”.

Simon: “Live casinos started because people distrusted iGaming and RNG. This has massively changed now and it can only be a good thing”.

Daniel: “My team keeps an eye out for new releases every week and every day, investigating new ideas. And I think that iGaming is the ideal industry to try out new ideas!”.