Why Analysts Look to iGaming as a Modern Online Business Blueprint

Today, iGaming is big business. Just how big is hard to quantify, but some estimates now range excess of $80bn a year in global revenues. The sector is going through an expansive phase of late that has led to it capturing headlines and attracting analysis from the eCommerce business sector. This is all unsurprising, given it gained access to the world’s largest economy, the continental US, in the wake of the PASPA bill being thrown out of the supreme court back in 2017.

But part of the reason iGaming has been able to make the most of that shift, is that it has begun a highly refined, innovating and globe-spanning sector that understands the merits of technology and the advantages of its base products well, and consistently leans in to embrace tech trends that support its quest to remain at the disruptive edge of new digital markets.

All of this has resulted in certain reaches of the online economy coming to look at iGaming as something of a trendsetter or template for how new digital products can gain ground and generate revenue in the 2020s.

But why is it exactly that this seemingly simple sector has acquired such a cache among those eagerly trying to forecast the future of online business? The answer is nuanced, but one can look to several areas that when taken together result in a sector that differentiates itself in often surprising ways.

Overcoming SEO Organically

Another key reason that iGaming has increasingly come to resemble an idealized playbook for the dispersion and growth of digital businesses today is its dense web of affiliate relationships. In the modern eCommerce landscape, where a businesses’ SEO ranking can be the determining factor as to whether it flourishes, or flounders off the back of Google’s first page of results, the import of deep affiliate connections is key.

The iGaming sector today resembles a classic web-ring, with a self-referential network of platforms all contributing to set industry standards and provide a rich and comprehensive offering to its customer-base.

The nodes of these seemingly organic networks of gaming providers come by way of dedicated platforms upon which everyone involved knows is where you can get your casino bonuses in a no-fuss way. For example, Bonuses.com hosts hundreds of diverse special offers including welcome bonuses, no-deposit free bet offers and free spins on slots. In so doing, sites like these accomplish two goals in saving patrons money on sign-ups, and collating reputable casinos into easily searchable directories that benefit SEO and organic discoverability alike.

Embracing Disruptive Tech

It may not seem like it at first glance, but the iGaming sector has built its entire platform on being a tech-centric disruptor. Take online casinos for example. The first such example of a website we could justly call an online casino opening its digital doors all the way back in 1994 – at the very dawn of the public internet.

In doing this, it sought to strike out from its brick-and-mortar casino routes and offer experiences unavailable to land-based casino fans. Of course, at first this process was pretty slow and insubstantial, but by the time computer power began to pick up, and internet speeds improved, the online casino sector had been refining its approach and product already for a decade.

Following on from this, iGaming has been at the forefront of every major digital commerce trend of the past several decades. It was a pivotal component in the development and refinement of secure only payment processors. It was one of the first market segments to figure out digital licensing and regulatory bodies, and it has eagerly embraced every new tech trend that has come along from smartphones to virtual reality and crypto.

At its root, iGaming is about technological innovation, and it has long served as a canary in the mineshaft for more conservative business sectors looking to determine the viability of cutting edge products, goods and services in the modern digital economy.

When the metaverse finally fully emerges in some form, you can expect this market to be right there and ready at the jump. Likewise, though the full extent of AIs influence on modern business is yet to be clearly determined, the rise of AI in sports betting and online casinos is already well underway.