For players who wish to engage and partake in gambling, there is no shortage of options out there. From brick-and-mortar casinos to online versions and anything in between, players who search for a particular gambling fancy are in luck.
The gambling industry is already enormous, without mentioning all available games and variants. But with so many options, the distinctions can get blurry between similar fields or games. Gambling can be a social activity, but social gambling is a whole different field.
1. Potential
The first and most obvious distinction is in the earning potential between real money gambling and social gambling. Because social gambling does not directly involve the use of money (we’ll go into more detail in a bit), the outcome is far less than when playing on any real money online casino. Depending on your goal, real money casinos offer a different kind of excitement and engagement because of the possible outcome of every game. With real money casinos, some form of money deposits is necessary, but so are the possible prizes, whereas social gambling can be viewed as a more simplified approach intended for first-time players.
2. Player Engagement
Keeping players happy, motivated, and playing is how any gaming site survives. When talking about player engagement today, real money casinos have implemented plenty of available resources to keep their players engaged and returning. In social gambling, the focus is more on the community since interacting with other players is easier in a lax environment, where money is out of the equation.
Growing communities and allowing players to interact keeps them playing as the human touch and contact, make for an engaging experience. In real money casinos the focus is on the individual and keeping the player happy with various bonuses, free tries, and promo codes. Social gambling gives players tokens, which have no real monetary value, to use while gaming, focusing on leaderboards and competition in who can obtain more tokens, promoting competition between players in the community.
3. Monetisation
In the end, some form of monetization for both real money and social casinos is required to operate and keep the lights on, but the difference in approach stems from their position in the industry. Player conversion rates are much higher with social casinos because all players can come in and play for free, obtaining tokens with no real money value. Social casinos focus on in-app purchases, where players can buy quality-of-life upgrades, more tokens, various avatars, and VIP content.
Since social casinos allow for, potentially, free tries and focus on keeping the player engaged for longer, more conversions from free to first-time players occur in the long run. For comparison, 60% of one-time depositors (OTD) still play in social casinos after their initial purchase, but only 7% of OTD players do the same in real money casinos. To compensate, real money casinos can offer free tries, a welcome bonus, and promotional periods, alongside the incentive and possibility of winning actual currency.
4. Focus and motivation
Individual VS group could be the fundamental difference between the two approaches in the industry. Real money casinos aim to provide an entertaining and exciting experience for their players offering top-notch games, direct streams to live dealers, and the potential for winning real currency. As the name implies, social casinos exist for group interactions and guidance for first-time players. While real money casinos have bonuses and free tries, social casinos allow players to try out games without investment but offer no direct rewards.
Relying on the community to guide and form around the individual who will continue playing, the social aspect is the driving factor behind the aforementioned industry. The frequency of playing is also higher in social casinos because there is nothing to lose of real value, and players can freely spend their time on various games. But for gamblers who wish to try out and hone their skills with a chance to earn something on the side, there are no better alternatives than real-money casinos.