Online casinos have revolutionized the gaming industry with their meteoric rise, and although people often group broader international markets when researching the impact of this growth, it can be intriguing to explore specific regions of the world, especially those outside of the larger markets. 

New Zealand’s gambling market packs a punch, at least economically speaking, considering that it is a country with just over 5.2 million people. Australia, its nearest notable neighbor, is one of the focal points of online casino gaming and one of the biggest gambling markets per capita.

While there are casinos dotted around New Zealand, primarily in their major cities, the emergence of online casino gaming posed a challenge for those providers who have been able to make a big name for themselves and attract thousands of Kiwis every weekend. Like online casino gaming in other parts of the world, it was a new, unexplored way to play and presented a huge potential to change the status quo in the early 2000s. 

The Rise Of The Internet

Smartphones and internet access expedited a sharp societal change, meaning that almost every activity we do now has a digital alternative. It didn’t matter if we were doing our banking, clothes shopping, getting our sports news, or looking to place a bet; the internet and cheaper and easier smartphone access meant that the iGaming world would inevitably follow suit.

Despite its size, many fully functioning and operational casinos exist for Kiwis to explore. Dunder online casino provides the same experience that Kiwis have been used to from their land-based providers for decades, bringing the atmosphere and high-stakes excitement of the table to smartphones and desktops nationwide with a variety of jackpot games, slots and much more. 

A Boost In Convenience

Gamblers in New Zealand can now access online casino sites from their mobile devices instead of having to travel to a brick-and-mortar location. This has transformed the landscape for a multitude of reasons, but the main one, which is mirrored throughout the Western world, is that it has made online casino gaming much more convenient. 

Gone are the days of having to get ready and spend time traveling to a land-based casino. Although there’s obviously still a market for those Kiwis who wish to do this, the fact that online casinos expedite this process dramatically while not jeopardizing the security of customer details is such a huge step in innovation.

Once this was realized in the early 2000s, the profit potential for online casinos increased dramatically, and some of the most prominent names in iGaming, which are now multi-billion dollar companies, were able to leverage these innovations to their advantage.

However, from a customer perspective, the boost in convenience is obvious. If we can save money and time by not traveling to a land-based casino and can do it all from our phones at home, then the evidence is clear as day.

Technological Enhancements

It feels like we’re hit with fresh technological innovations every other day. Virtual reality and Artificial Intelligence news can be exhausting to keep up with. AI is the new sheriff in town, with many experts and big names in technology believing that it could enact colossal changes—similar to or possibly greater than the dawn of the internet, perhaps. 

As Kiwis adapt to AI, practical use cases emerge every day, whether it’s AI customer service desks that can deal with our queries quickly without having to sit in a queue and get through to a customer service call center or security cameras that implement the technology to ensure they’re better equipped to catch those who are up to no good. 

However, unlike the rise of the internet, there isn’t a readily apparent use case for AI in casino gaming that will cause a seismic shift, as we witnessed with the rise of online casinos in the early 2000s. 

Twenty years ago, technological enhancements were of a different nature. Tech experts discussed how smartphones were about to change our world and how everyone would have access to cheap and accessible high-speed internet on their mobile devices. 

Such was the speed of this change that mobile apps became the casino gaming battleground throughout the last decade, switching away from desktop-only providers and providing a new challenge for game designers. 

Marketing

Online casino companies now target Kiwi customers with a range of offers, including free spins, no-deposit bonuses, and a refer-a-friend bonus. This is new in the industry and was pioneered by digital casino marketing strategists.

Land-based casinos are well-known for rewarding VIP customers or those who rack up a significant number of rewards points, but online casino gaming became so competitive that new marketing techniques to offer free spins and betting credits to Kiwi customers were the most effective way for brands to grow into the NZ market. 

Prior to online casinos, many of these marketing strategies were not used or were not viable, especially when there were less than half a dozen physical casinos dotted around the country. 

It meant that marketing companies had to come up with new ideas to appeal to potential customers. This has transformed the route that casinos take to find new customers and the budget they set aside for both traditional and digital marketing strategies.

Conclusion

While the US, UK, and Canada dominate the iGaming market, Kiwis make their impact on the sector, too. However, the global gambling market landscape has shifted in a similar direction. 

This is primarily because the top providers crystallized their presence at the zenith of the industry. Therefore, they were able to launch their products into dozens of new countries, solidify their names at the top of the market, and dictate the direction of the market while adapting to global technological innovations. 

The market and gambling patterns in New Zealand followed the pathway set by the groundbreaking changes that occurred in the online casino markets in Europe in the 1990s and 2000s, and the global revolution that followed suit is what transformed the landscape for Kiwis into the market we see today.