In 2022, gambling has come a long way since the days of traditional casinos and arcade slot machine games. In 1994, the gambling and betting industry went through a sea change as the first ever online casino emerged. In the intervening years, online casinos, such as EnergyWin online casino, quickly gained in popularity and, the pandemic added fuel to the fire as many customers turned to the internet when COVID-19 closed the doors of their favourite gambling institutions in order to slow the spread of the virus. As with any kind of ecommerce, online gambling has been subject to trends and fads and, in this article, we’re going to take a look at one of the emerging industry trends – Play To Earn.
Virtually speaking
Play To Earn is the relatively new concept which allows players to win digital assets when playing games online. Beginning its life in the Philippines in 2018, Play To Earn gambling soon gathered steam and is now worth more than $3 billion worldwide. Within this model, users play games online and, if they win, they are rewarded with digital assets which can include cryptocurrency, in-game features and in-game assets, such as monsters or properties, which can then be sold or traded to other players. One example of this is Decentraland, in which players can buy, sell and trade virtual plots – and this game is far from child’s play as, recently, a Decentraland plot of land was sold for a cool $2.4 million.
Hold ‘em
Another form of digital gambling is known as ‘Hold To Earn’. With this model, players put their tokens or winnings into holding in order to earn some of the platform’s income. In a nutshell, a player might, for example, put $1000 worth of tokens in holding on a participating platform and leave them there for a certain amount of time (usually between eight hours and three days). During this holding period, the player will earn a small slice of the company’s takings which will then be transferred into their account. Fairspin was one of the first online gambling companies to implement Hold To Earn and, so far, the Cyprus based company’s customers have earned around $669,469.
Why go digital?
For an online gambling company, the Play To Earn model helps to generate income as well as improving customer loyalty. The Hold To Earn model is particularly effective in building customer loyalty as it makes players feel actively invested in the company. The customer also benefits from this model with increased security, the chance to win big and, by no longer having to mess about with different accounts – all of which presents a risk to security.
Conclusion
Many people feel that the future of finance is almost certainly digital and, so, it makes sense that financial activities such as online gambing will follow suit. While this can be a great way of gambling online, customers should use the same rules of common sense that they would with any other kind of betting – and properly research the company and its rules and regulations before handing over their hard earned cash.