Social Casinos Are Thriving in Australia

The ACMA (Australia Communications and Media Authority) recently commissioned a new report, Snapshot of Social Casinos, to study consumer behaviour and market trends in Australia. According to the research, Australia is among the not nations worldwide regarding consumer spending at social casinos in the first half of 2022.

Social casinos offer online casino-like gameplay, although players cannot win real money with these games. However, players can make in-game buys using real money. Through 2025, it is anticipated that these games will generate about 5% more revenue globally.

Currently, 60% of the global market is dominated by five social casino companies, including Aristocrat, Moon Active, SciPlay, Zynga, and Playtika. While some companies like Aristocrat and SciPlay focus more on diversifying their incomes, others like Zynga rely heavily on social casinos.

According to the communications body, social casino gaming significantly increased during the pandemic. The report claims that demand and revenue spiked considerably in 2020 and, to a lesser extent, in 2021 as gamblers shifted their activities to mobile and online environments. After lifting Covid-19 limitations, there was more competition for players, resulting in reduced social casino revenues.

Industry data on the download of social gaming trends reveals that global downloads dropped during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, registering 291.6 million downloads in Q2 2020. The number increased to 322.2 million downloads in Q1 2022when most industries started recovering.

There are approximately 85 million daily social casino players globally. According to some data, gamblers at social casinos are typically older and almost equally split between men and women. Other studies say younger men are more inclined to spend money on social casino games than younger women.

By consumer spending, the United States holds 60% of the market share for social casino games, according to data.ai. As of the first half of 2022, other countries that make up the top 5 markets are China, Canada, Australia, and Taiwan. As expected, slot machines are the most played social casino games, with Australians spending a whopping $302 million on mobile slots in 2021.

The ACMA survey further states that social casino companies actively explore various gaming genres to extend their attractiveness and user base. To promote user engagement and retention, these companies have resorted to using in-game elements like guilds and leaderboards, common in casual and competitive casino games.

It’s to be noted that social casinos are not legal under the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001. The law states that these games don’t fulfil the definition of a gambling service, necessitating that games be played for real money or something else of value. As said before, social casino users cannot cash out winnings.