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What Might a New Age of Online Casinos Look Like Without Welcome Bonuses?
Public Group active 8 months, 3 weeks agoWelcome bonuses are a staple of the online casino industry and have become so entrenched that they’re expected by almost all players. Due to the prominence of the bonuses, upstart platforms have been able to use these offers to create unique selling points. Where there were once matched deposit bonuses with hefty wagering requirements and big minimum deposits, there are now no-deposit bonuses and even no-wagering bonuses.
As it turns out, many regulators see the competitive scene of casino bonuses as having become too effective at appealing to players. It seems to work exceedingly well on what PsychologyToday details as the principles of persuasion, leading to new players and strong levels of customer retention. So, there are murmurs that regulators will start to stop platforms from offering welcome bonuses. Where would casinos turn if this does occur?
Changes Already Occurring
Bonuses have taken on a very natural evolution over the years, with the level of competition only helping to make platforms create more appealing and genuinely rewarding bonuses. However, regulators are now taking the view that being appealing isn’t such a good thing for the general consumer base. Some of this is quite rightly seen in the ever-improving revenue and player base stats that each online casino can show.
Already, countries and regulatory bodies are working to curtail this staple of the new player experience and of the industry. In Ontario, bonuses can’t be advertised, and in Denmark, Spain, and Sweden, there are now restrictions on what a bonus can give a player. France looks set to jump on that bandwagon, per the iGamingBusiness bonus article, and the changes coming to the UK’s Gambling Act may also create a different kind of restriction.
Were welcome bonuses to find themselves restricted or even banned, online casinos will need to find different ways to advertise themselves and jostle ahead of their peers. Given the level of competition already in place and how creative online casinos have been in the past, it seems inevitable that a new way to reward new players will rise to the fore.
Bonuses Over Time
To see how the industry might respond to a crackdown on welcome bonuses, it’s good to see how successful platforms that don’t offer a welcome bonus go about achieving customer retention and digital curbside appeal. When it comes to the PeerGame casino games, the games do most of the talking. There’s blackjack, dice games, roulette, coin flip, Turtle Race, and a bunch of slots, but it’s how they operate that’s the USP.
The crypto casino runs these as crypto casino games on the blockchain. They lean further into the crypto theme, too, by allowing new players to just connect their wallets to join rather than needing to register. For many crypto enthusiasts, there’s enough working for them here that a welcome bonus isn’t necessary. There is a way to get a kind of bonus with PeerGame, though.
Rather than offering a lump match or a no-deposit bonus on sign-up, there’s a refer-a-friend program that rewards players who invite their friends to the site. Based on wagers, rather than revenues, players on the program can get up to 40 percent commission that pays automatically in real-time. It’s an interesting way to both offer bonuses, retain customers, and bring in new players.
Even if welcome bonuses as we know them become much more limited or fade completely, online casinos will come up with a creative new way to appeal to and retain new players.
