Smartwatch Gambling: Is This Going To Be The New Trend?
A couple of decades ago no one would have imagined we’d all have the amazing phone technology we all enjoy today. In fact, the mobile phone has changed the way we go about doing many day to day activities. With the rapidly changing technology that both powers and provides information to our portable devices, it’s no surprise that gambling via phone is now a perfectly normal activity. Every day, hundreds of thousands of gamblers turn to their phones rather than desktop apps in order to visit the best online casinos with jackpots or lotteries in the hope of striking it rich. But with the advancement of technology, we’re already jumping into the next phase of bringing casinos to the masses. But this time via your smartwatch gambling.
Smartwatch Gambling: It’s Already Here
Looking at the size of the display area of your average smartwatch and you might find it hard to imagine that there’s just no room to provide a proper gaming experience. Well, you need to wake up and get with the program! Games producers like Playtech, along with gambling operators like Unibet and Ladbrokes have already been providing apps for smartphones for a number of years now. On the whole, they run on Apple’s iOS operating system. And now Microgaming is working on an application that’ll allow you to play on any operating system used by any smartwatch manufacturer. So expect to see an explosion of smartwatch gambling apps over the next few years. Let’s take a tour of the various smartwatch devices, along with their proprietary systems to see what’s available today. It’ll also give us an idea of what the future holds as well.
First-Ever Smartwatch Casino Games
Though there’s plenty of debate as to what exactly constitutes a “smartwatch”, we can all agree that the industry has made massive strides since 1972 when the first digital wristwatch made its debut. This was a watch made by Hamilton and back then it had a retail price of $2,000, which would be around $12,000 today. In the late 1990s, Samsung introduced the SPH-WP10, which is generally regarded as the first smartwatch. It was the first wearable device that sported its own micro-computer.
The World Mobile Congress
Probably the first effort by a casino company to squeeze a game into a smartwatch came in 2014 at the World Mobile Congress. This was an annual event where companies could showcase their latest developments and products. And it’s this annual event that shows the world the direction technology is taking so that they have a better understanding of the future, in terms of mobile communications. It also paved the way for the transformation of the mobile gambling industry.
The big daddy of online casino games is Microgaming, which is one of the best jackpot games providers. They were the first company to roll out the software allowing games to run on the tiny watch platform. Their first watch compatible game was called “Thunderstruck”. It was a simple slot machine type game and proved to be very popular when it was first introduced in June 2015 at the Royal Vegas Android AIR show. This was followed by “The Dark Knight Rises”. Both these games, released almost back to back, allowed players to see the potential of gambling on smartwatches. Both were jackpot slots based, though it would be some time before customers could play them for real money.
Advantages of Smartwatch Gambling
We guess it’s all down to a matter of taste. Some people find smartwatches are cool. Others find them tacky and kinda silly. Nevertheless, there’s obviously a big enough market of geeks willing to play gambling games on their wrist. Looking at Casumo Casino, you’ll find lots of advantages to playing casino jackpot games via your smartwatch.
Multitasking Made Simple
On a practical level, as the watch is on your wrist it means that there’s no chance of dropping it, as you might with your phone or tablet. Unlike these two latter devices, you don’t have to put your watch down at any time during the gameplay in order to do other things.
Mobile to the Maximum
And that brings us to the issue of mobility. Nothing, but nothing can beat a smartwatch. Today’s smartwatch has all the functionality of your portable phone. You’re good to play casino games anywhere and at any time. Though you might assume that the visual and playing space on a watch must be minuscule, you’d be surprised. The design of these casino games is to make the playing experience second to none. Hat’s off to the game’s designers!
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It’s Definitely Amusing
Hmmm…amusing or silly? For us, because we’re Luddites and travel far behind the times, gaming on a watch seems slightly ridiculous. Probably because you should just glance at a watch to tell the time and not stare at it for hours. To that end phones and tablets are fine. But that doesn’t stop thousands of gamblers from enjoying their favorite games whilst staring down at their wrists. On the other hand, the design of smartwatches has come forwards in leaps and bounds, so today’s devices look cool and slick.
Smartwatch Gambling: Are We There Yet?
Right now we’re still experiencing the early days of smartwatch gambling. Though the gaming designs are pretty spectacular, the more mundane tasks such as signing up and depositing funds are still pretty clunker when performed with a watch. This tiny screen size takes time to feel comfortable with. If you have bigger fingers, then you’re going to suffer and be hitting the back button a lot. A more realistic means of placing wagers and handling all the minutiae of in-putting data with your pinkie can be done….but only on your phone. Unless you want a nervous breakdown.
Different Form Factors
Another point is that nearly all smartphones follow a similar form factor. Though there are a number of different models, they all roughly follow the same size factor across the range of mobile products. This makes designing apps for phones that much easier. Unfortunately, smartwatches are still in their early phase and there’s been no effort to standardize the screen size. This means that you can find round, oblong, rectangle, and many other shapes. This makes producing a single gaming experience across all watches a difficult task. And it’s this lack of unified form factor that’s most likely going to slow down the onward development of gaming apps. But if the demand for gaming apps goes through the roof, then we can expect to see companies putting more resources into this problem.
The apps available today will let you play. The King Billy Casino app interface is simple and will allow you to play online casino games for real money. You can deposit and withdraw funds with little drama. Though your mileage may vary depending on the size of your fingers. The apps are readily available on both the App Store and Play Store. Or you can even download them directly from the casino sites themselves. We’ll be seeing more and more online jackpot sites with apps for watches.
Conclusion: Smartwatch Gambling
The introduction and continued production of gambling apps for smartwatches appear to be gathering pace. Many companies are bidding to outdo each other. Obviously, it’s a huge market. It has the promise of equally huge profits in the making. Back in the day, gamblers would use their trusty PC’s. By 2017 more than 50% of them had moved over to mobile phones. So, just because the smartwatch gaming industry is in its relative infancy, doesn’t mean that the future is nothing but bright and huge.
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