Payments Go Digital: Tracking the Evolution of Online Payments and Its Business Impact on Online Casinos
In society, there’s a constant striving to make things easier. We live in a fast-food society, and we want to be able to pay for our McDonald’s with very little effort. Technology is continually evolving how we pay. Who would have thought 20 years ago that we’d pretty much be a cashless society or be able to pay for our groceries through our watch?
Interestingly, it’s online casinos that are often among the early adopters of the latest payment technology, and it continues to be a market leader, waiting for others to follow.
Many other industries did follow during the pandemic, where digital payments saw a huge surge globally, particularly in the likes of India and China. In the case of the former, over 80 million adults made their first-ever digital payment during the period.
That rise of people being comfortable with online and digital payments has driven more people to casinos, with those online platforms thriving more than ever before.
Casinos’ adoption of technology
It’s the adoption of payment technology that continues to see online casinos move to the next level, though, especially with mobile gaming on the rise.
A good example of this is how many online casinos were early adopters of e-wallets like PayPal. It made transactions easier, as well as safer, which is hugely important due to the stigma people often associate with gambling.
It added a further element of trust, with no direct connection between the bank and the casino. Of course, we know what happened from there, with PayPal having over 430 million users worldwide and being available in pretty much every online store.
That precedent is something that has continued into newer payment methods. More recently, paying using your mobile wallet or even via your mobile phone bill.
Apple Pay has become one of the most popular payment methods for online casinos. According to recent statistics, over 80% of online gambling sites now accept Apple Pay, and it accounts for nearly a third of all deposits made. With its ease of use and security features, Apple Pay is quickly becoming the top choice for funding online casino accounts and making deposits seamlessly.
Meanwhile, pay by phone is also becoming more popular, allowing players to make a deposit either using their prepaid credit or adding it to their mobile phone bill to be paid at the end of the month. Again, it’s simplicity and a deposit made through nothing more than a response to a text message to play a game they’re most likely to enjoy on mobile. No money changing hands between bank and vendor, no wait time.
What’s next for online payments?
Naturally, it’s no surprise to see that a number of online casinos are already adopting the next stages of payment technology, and that’s largely coming in the form of cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin casinos are well and truly a thing, especially as they begin to gear themselves up for the metaverse, and that’s only going to continue as crypto becomes more prominent in society. That may take a little while, and it could well be some time before we’re paying for groceries via the method, but it’s already here for casinos, and it’s here to stay.
The rise of Ripple (XRP) in the last few months, particularly following their partial win in court of late, has put it on the map, and we expect that to become a huge part of casino payments, which, again, improves player safety and speed of transactions.
Beyond that, we’ll have to see, but one thing is for sure: it’s again going to be down to ease and speed, moving away from the likes of bank transfer and debit card payments that, while are perfectly good for now, still take up to five days for winnings to arrive in a player’s account. And why would we want that when we could access them straight away?!
