It is that time of year again, as we welcome all our readers to the pages of our annual Payments Focus magazine. Across this issue, you will find topics ranging from retail, the US, affordability, ID checks, kiosks and, of course, digital payments. And that’s all without mentioning that this edition is a cryptocurrency special.
As the Editor putting this magazine together, however, I am actually a little taken aback by the above list. A couple of years ago, there seemed to be two distinct focuses across gaming payments: how to make withdrawals and deposits as streamlined and frictionless as possible on the digital side – and how to make the land-based side as cashless as possible.
As time has gone on, the industry has seen the need for variety – even if that means offering a greater amount of old-fashioned options. Yes, society is becoming increasingly cashless. But has cash gone away completely? Not at all.
Just look at the Philippines, where the recent SiGMA Asia Summit was held. The Philippines is one of the foremost online gaming regions in Asia – but, with a bustling land-based casino sector in Manila, too, cash is king. The same can be said of plenty of other regions across the world.
Retail payments strategies are therefore paramount to success: kiosks, terminals and figuring out how payments form part of a gaming company’s omnichannel strategy.
Yet, from traditional retail payments to a far more modern concept in crypto, we can see that the simple idea of making a payment can provide a broad spectrum of potential methods and offerings.
In our cover feature, Gambling Insider speaks to several industry experts and breaks down the history of crypto payments – from their origin after the financial crisis of 2007, deriving from a distrust of the big banks, to the most popular cryptocurrencies used today.
Gaming and crypto have definitely come together. But today’s challenge for gaming firms is how to bring together crypto payment options, fiat payment options, online, retail and any other way in which a customer would like to pay.
Because, in business, those who adapt to what their customers want will always succeed in the long run. Those who try to dictate to the market, carefully explaining why they can’t offer certain options, will fall by the wayside – no matter how prestigious or previously successful they may have been.
