Put yourself in the shoes of a slots developer for a moment. You’re tasked with developing a new slots title that’s going to stand out from the crowd – one that will attract its own audience of players, by appealing to the tastes and preferences of a slots demographic. Easy enough – except, there are already hundreds, if not thousands of different slots titles being played every day by slots fans worldwide.
You could try licensing a film franchise or a rock band, but that’s going to take some budget. And still, there are no guarantees your slot is going to appeal to a relevant audience that might actually want to play the game for real money.
In reality, slots developers are faced with this challenge on an almost daily basis, if they want to find the next breakthrough title or a new theme to rule them all. And with bitcoin sports betting taking off, slots app developers will need to make sure their app resonates with users now more than ever. Most of the low hanging fruit seems to have been done before, covering everything you could possibly imagine – from Ancient Greece and Alice in Wonderland to Zoological themed slots, it feels like they’ve all been done before.
But one surprising area that still remains somewhat under represented, compared to other themes, is sports. Sports fans and gamblers generally crossover to a large extent – that’s why sports betting is so popular worldwide. But is there also a crossover for sports fans in slots, and could this be a route for further development amongst slot designers?
The Crossover Between Sports and Slots
Demographically speaking, the main demographics of professional sports fans are roughly equivalent to the main demographics targeted by traditional casinos – in other words, around the region of men aged 18-45. So even pitching a generic slots offer at a sports crowd would be likely to attract some attention. But when these slots are specifically tailored to sporting interests, or carry elements of sports within them, that crossover effect becomes all the more pronounced.
People who enjoy a flutter on sports are likely to also enjoy the thrill of gambling on slots. In some ways, you can compare, for example, accumulator bets with the sense of winning a jackpot on a slot, or even scooping a progressive prize. While the chances are high that you won’t win every spin, there’s always the outside potential of landing a life-changer. For those who enjoy sports betting for entertainment, it’s obvious that there’s a strong parallel between the two, and should come as no surprise that the two appeal to similar audiences.
For casinos and sportsbooks respectively, the challenge is to cross-promote their services effectively, reaching out across verticals to give their customers access to multiple different betting opportunities. Through this type of approach, especially prevalent among the industry giants, it’s possible to maximise both user engagement and revenue, through providing a wider suite of complementary services to gamblers.
But beyond the cross-promotion that lies in the essence of slots and sports betting sites, there are more overt moves from operators and games designers afoot, all designed to encourage sports fans to turn at least part of their attention towards slots.
Finding Sports in Slots
Sports references are everywhere you look in sports. The design of games, with bonus rounds and other features of gamification increases the engagement of players, while deploying similar tactics to sports to encourage active participation. And these features aren’t restricted to sporty slots, either. Even the Monopoly slot pays homage to the world of sports, making their boot piece more closely resemble a football boot than the old-style fishing boot.
There are also a range of sports themed slots, spanning multiple titles and sports, with more coming on stream all the time. From tennis to golf, from football to cricket, there are slots appearing with every imaginable sporting theme under the sun.
While in reality, many of these games will be closer to a generic slot than the games they use as their inspiration, it’s still a fun way for sports fans to spend their time – and hopefully win some money in the process.
It’s clear that there is a huge crossover between sports and slots, both in terms of the betting action, and in the themes used to promote different games. For players, it’s often a case of a subconscious connection, or accidentally stumbling across a slots game that really appeals, for the first time.
Or, it might be the upshot of a cross-promotion from a sportsbook, or vice versa, in encouraging fans of each type of gambling to try their hand at the other. Whatever the stimulus, gamblers everywhere are taking advantage of the increasing ease of playing online, to embrace both slots and sports betting, as well as the crossovers between them both.
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