The mobile gaming market continues to grow as it is expected to exceed a $200 million value by 2023, something that may be accelerated by the current global situation – with that much capital being generated, there’s no surprise that investors are looking to get as involved as possible. There’s also a big shift happening within the market as the audience is starting to reach further and wider, the introduction of social media has attracted an older demographic with disposable income which has provided a platform for these games to grow on – not only that factor, but the rise of esports has led to gaming as a whole becoming more mainstream and as such these hyper casual games have become a majority of what has been played.
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Toward the center of this growth, mobile casinos and betting sites have become a fan favourite but restrictions have been put in place as it has deemed to become a problem – within the UK the introduction of a scheme called Gamstop was aimed at reducing problem gamblers, and as of April this year it had been made mandatory for operators to register with in order to hold onto their gaming licenses, whilst there are now many betting sites not on gamstop, there are also other restrictions that have been put in place, at a similar time that Gamstop has been made mandatory, a credit card ban on online gambling had been put into place for the same reasons.
This is what has led to the increasing usage of crypto within mobile gaming, particularly the betting sector. As initiatives such as gamstop and the credit card ban start to be introduced, many sites that operate elsewhere begin to offer alternative forms of payment – popular ones include things such as eWallet and crypto as primary choices – these also offer something else, anonymity for players who may not want to submit all of their personal information to play.
There are some challenges to this though, crypto as a whole isn’t the most stable and there is volatility in the market, even for more reliable options such as Etherum, there can still be a flex in pricing. This could cause issues further down the line if many start relying on this payment method as a primary option, changes within the pricing of crypto could cause a lot of adjustment to be required in order to keep values stable for players looking to deposit.
Given how popular crypto has become as a whole, however, it’s likely that it’ll stick around and become a cornerstone of deposit and payment methods for these services, particularly if the restrictions that are currently being placed continue to grow and change, with crypto remaining unaffected as a anonymous method for many new users to choose if they’re looking to use services that work outside of many of these newer regulations that are popping up.