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A gambling revolution is happening in the metaverse. Are you ready to witness it?
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The Big Story
If you love pure sci-fi and are familiar with the works of William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Philip K. Dick, you know about their obsession with the virtual world. While that may have been unrealistic, or almost impossible, decades ago, it's not anymore.
All thanks to the internet, which went from creating niche social spaces to introducing revolutionary technologies like cloud computing, and more recently, the metaverse.
The growing popularity of crypto has allowed blockchain-enabled technologies to enter the mainstream discussion. Naturally, the hype got too real, and businesses started exploring their transition into the metaverse. One such industry is the casino industry.
Gambling in the Metaverse
When you think of gambling, you think of a high-stake, all-or-nothing game of poker at Bellagio or any other popular casino in Las Vegas. But that's traditional brick-and-mortar kind of gambling, which is highly centralized, scarcely transparent and prone to unethical practices. With the help of Web3, the metaverse aims to change this and how we think about the entire online gambling industry.
Cryptocurrencies have already shown us how transformative they are by transferring enormous amounts of purchasing power to individual consumers over the past two years. In fact, the impact has been so strong that a report by Research and Market attributed it to be a key factor for the global casino market to grow by $32.54 billion between 2021 and 2025.
That’s cool, but why the fuss?
Digital anonymity, convenience, safety, faster transactions, and simplified customer-operator interactions are some of the reasons why virtual casinos are trending today. Not to forget the massive popularity of the NFTs, which has exploded in the past two years, raking in almost $7 billion in transaction volumes in January alone.
Witnessing such immense growth over a small period, the online gambling industry has started shifting towards a community shared, decentralized, and trustworthy system.
Online gambling giant Entain has launched Ennovate, a $133 million global innovation lab aimed at developing immersive sports and entertainment experiences in the metaverse. Another online gaming platform Partypoker launched its NFT collection with Theta Labs, showcasing some of its most iconic moments and tournament hands.
El Salvador, the world’s first country to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender, also said that it’s launching its first-ever virtual casino, dubbed 'Astro Casino,' that will allow guests to purchase and sell NFTs. Lastly, BOTS, a tech conglomerate specialized in Blockchain-based solutions, announced its strategic partnership with XR Casino to leverage its technology to launch AR, MR, and VR casinos on its upcoming metaverse based on the terrestrial Las Vegas.
All that to say, things are happening prettyy fast.
Historically speaking, it seems that those who recognized metaverse's potential early on gained a competitive advantage over others. Decentral Games, which made a big bet on the metaverse in 2020, reported that its ICE poker virtual casino made more than $7.5 million in revenue in the last three months, hosting 6,000 unique players every day. While that number may seem small, compared to metaverse standards, it really isn't as the space is still emerging. According to DappRadar, the number of wallets interacting with OpenSea daily is just 50,000.
Soo…what's next?
Just like any technological progress, it's tough to predict how long it will take to design the software to implement the metaverse. And it gets even more tricky considering the global regulatory crackdown on crypto and other blockchain-based technologies. Regardless, one thing remains certain: the metaverse, and other similar technologies, will change our virtual lives forever.
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