Social gaming is one of the hot topics of the moment, both the free-to-play variety, which of course doesn’t yield any real winnings, as well as the paying-out kind - which we’re more interested in!
It seems likely that the online casinos will continue to embrace the phenomenon of social media as much as everybody else has, and many of them already have their own Facebook pages, for instance.
Mr Green have gone one better than that, however — they have launched a Facebook app which will enable players to log into their account via their Facebook account itself.
If it’s your cup of tea, then if you open an account with Mr Green as of now, you’ll be able to log in whilst you’re checking your Facebook newsfeed for photos of what people are having for lunch, or comments discussions about the controversial issues of the day!
In fact, the F2P connection noted above is relevant — it was Mr Green’s acquisition earlier in the year of social gaming developer Social Thrills which apparently facilitated their move into Facebook log-in territory, although Mr Green is keen to point out at this stage that the new app is at ‘test launch’ phase at present.
We can expect to see it remain as a permanent fixture at Mr Green, however, and other casinos will no doubt follow suit — they can’t really afford not to, as Facebook allows companies to target consumers (though not without controversy) highly specifically and get a real, measurable return.
Perhaps casinos that continue to be slow to catch on will see their customer base and revenues dwindle.
It’s not just Facebook either, nor just Mr Green, for that matter.
Perennial enfant terrible Paddy Power has made Twitter its own — at least by Paddy Power’s own, modest admission, having over 2m followers, which is apparently over twice the number of followers of its next highest competitor’s Twitter account.
Naturally Paddy Power, with their off-the-wall types of bets is the kind of operation which lends itself to the Twitter-sphere, but as with Facebook, the other casinos can’t afford to skimp on the 140-character social marvel either.
Clearly social gaming, both F2P and the ‘real deal’, is where it’s at!