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How will the Metaverse impact online gambling?

By Guardian Nigeria
26 December 2021   |   8:21 pm
Hmmmmm … The Metaverse ….. What started as an alternate-reality dreamworld in the 1992 novel Snow Crash is now becoming a reality.  What a time to be alive.  Unless you live under the rocks, there’s no way you wouldn’t have heard about the Metaverse by now. Initially, it was a buzzword everyone was throwing around on social…

Hmmmmm … The Metaverse ….. What started as an alternate-reality dreamworld in the 1992 novel Snow Crash is now becoming a reality. 

What a time to be alive. 

Unless you live under the rocks, there’s no way you wouldn’t have heard about the Metaverse by now. Initially, it was a buzzword everyone was throwing around on social media. Then Facebook decided to rebrand itself into Meta. And suddenly, everybody now takes it seriously.

Since the whole world is talking about it, it makes sense then that we, as gamblers, look into the impacts this alternate-dimension will have on our favourite activity.

What is the Metaverse?
Some people say it’s not a question of what but rather a question of when. Others say it’s a question of where. Like ‘when is the metaverse?’ or ‘where is the metaverse?’

In any case, you’ll have a good idea of the term Metaverse if you’ve seen movies like Ready Player One, Ironman, Minority Report, and Strange days.

USA Today defines the Metaverse as a combination of multiple elements of technology, including virtual reality, augmented reality, and video, where users “live” within a digital universe.

That sounds too techY, right?

Ok, let’s take a look at some other definition of the term.

Here’s one from Quartz: The Metaverse is a virtual reality world where you can go to school, go to work, play games, watch concerts, browse store shelves, and much more without leaving your (physical) home.

That sounds a little bit better, right?

Now, let’s see how the Metaverse will impact online gambling.

The impacts of the Metaverse on online gambling

The Metaverse will address three of the biggest issues facing the online gambling industry for years.

  1. The issue of playing posture
  2. The loss of traditional gambling traits
  3. The issue of payment systems

Playing posture challenge
Firstly, it will make the “activity” easier. By activity, we mean the act of logging in to play online, sitting through gambling sessions, and all that.

I can only imagine how strenuous it is for many of us to sit in front of PC screens for hours playing online poker. Often, my back starts to feel sore after playing for a couple of hours. In fact, I could go as far as saying the discomfort is why I lose most times.

In the Metaverse (a virtual reality world), you no longer need to sit in front of a phone/TV/PC screen for hours. You simply log into your agen bola Sbobet casino account, put on your headset, and the whole experience gets transmitted via that. And bang, you suddenly see yourself immersed in a new environment having a real life-like experience. 

In the Metaverse, crushing slot machine jackpots or passing a poker card becomes a much more immersive experience as you use your body to control your character.

Loss of traditional gambling traits
Besides the discomforts, there’s also the issue of casino games losing some of their offline ‘traits’ when they go online. For example, in online poker, it’s not so easy to read an opponent’s ‘tell’ as you would in a land-based casino.

With the immersive experience of the Metaverse (thanks to high-end VR headsets), gamblers can easily observe opponents’ body language, relate to opponents’ avatars, and feel more in control of Characters. All these put together gives you a better chance of reading games and making the right decisions.

The issue of payment systems
In the online gambling world, one challenge that has persisted is the issue of deposits and withdrawals. Many a time, players find that they cannot deposit money or withdraw their winnings from a casino site because of their country of origin. 

For example, because you’re a citizen of country X, you can’t deposit/withdraw money from a casino site operating in country Y.

Even in some instances where cross-country transactions are feasible, the fees charged on deposits/withdrawals can sometimes turn players off.

Clearly, we can assume cryptocurrency will be the currency of the Metaverse. Being a digital system, it only makes sense that the accepted means of transaction be digital, too.

Not to forget, cryptocurrencies are fast, accessible, decentralized, and not controlled by one country’s government.

With crypto, it becomes possible to gamble on any casino site in the world without having to worry about common issues like:

  • Whether the casino site will accept players from your country
  • Whether the site will be able to process deposits/withdrawals directly from and to your local bank?
  • Whether or not you won’t be charged outrageous fees for being an international player

To put it simply, crypto will allow you to play on international gambling sites as you would on local gambling sites.

What’s more? The issues of gambling scams and identity theft are also eradicated in the crypto-Metaverse world.

Conclusion
The Metaverse is clearly going to bring about a lot of changes in the online gambling community. And we just cannot wait.

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