To tackle this issue the right way, we need to go back more than a quarter of a century and identify a trend that was only just beginning to emerge. A shift started to happen around the year 2000 when the home PC began to provide an alternative form of at-home entertainment to the TV. And as we will demonstrate in the body of this article, the fractionation of household attention is what opened the doors to the world of casino offers, amongst a whole host of other forms of entertainment.
The dawn of the digital age provides competition for TV
53% of over-15-year-olds used the internet at home at least once in 2000, according to a detailed study of habits at the time, and it was a trend that was only just getting started. As web-based devices morphed into smartphones and tablets, and our attention was pulled in a whole host of directions, we now saw curated content, rather than everyone watching the same TV show. But is it really as simple as saying that more time online led to bonus offers? Surely, there were other factors at play that nudged people who had never played a casino game to download and start playing?
The non-linear nature of digital growth and adoption
Today, over 87% of Canadian households have at least one smartphone that is used on a daily basis, and approximately 95% of citizens see themselves as regular internet users. We use our smartphones and tablets for everything from idle browsing and reading the news to social media and online banking, to name just a few.
In fact, Canadians are estimated to spend an average of more than 6 hours a day online, with more than 50% of this daily exposure achieved by using smartphones. The key point here is not just that TV no longer serves as our primary form of passive entertainment, but that digital experiences often live and die by the amount of attention they are able to garner. For example, would any of us really want to use Facebook if only a handful of our friends were actually on the platform? The reason we all have it is that we all have it.
Small initial shifts in platform performance can lead to massive exponential growth when one platform becomes dominant, as shown by Netflix’s continued rise. To truly understand the impact of this, we need to think about how markets operate when there is a single dominant player.
Dominant services prove the market and attract new investment
When one service dominates and achieves a level of scale that makes outside investors sit up and take notice, those same investors have two options. They can attempt to buy into the service as shareholders and pay a premium for doing so as a result of the investment being largely de-risked. Or, alternatively, they can look to identify the next big thing in the same market and get in at the ground floor. This second approach comes with a higher risk, but as a result, it typically offers a higher reward.
For a new entrant to gain some initial traction in the market, the people driving it need to achieve a point of differentiation. Sports streaming platform DAZN is a prime example of this. When they branched out from North America and looked to crack the lucrative UK boxing market, they offered their subscriptions massively below market rate at about 10% of what they are now charging five years later. Their point of difference was that they were so confident in their service that they would give it away for virtually nothing so that new subscribers could put them to the test.
The use of no deposit bonuses as differentiators for online casinos
Giving new users the option to try before they buy is something that is certainly tried and tested because it significantly lowers the barriers to entry. By allowing new players to play for free with these types of offers, online casinos are giving them a chance to get up to speed with the way the platform works, and if they are brand-new, to learn the rules as well. From a player’s perspective, this is a win-win situation because it allows them to find a game that they enjoy playing without risking real money in the process. There’s also a secondary angle that many people overlook, but when properly included in the analysis, it explains everything.
Bonuses as trust-building, curated content delivered at scale
One of the fascinating things about the rise of no deposit bonus casinos in Canada is that they represent a new form of curated content. While social media showed us what our friends were doing and hooked us, these emerging offers started to reward us for doing the things we enjoyed. Online gaming sites and casinos can take user data and player preferences and tailor the nature and size of the deposits that they are offering. Not only that, but they can use them to showcase new games that the data indicates will be of interest to existing players.
By thinking of no deposit bonuses as a unique offering that builds trust while at the same time as connecting with players on a deeper level than a generic offer, we can see what is really at play here. The result is that online casinos are able to increase outreach, adoption rates, retention rates, and long-term engagement with a single strategy that evolves over time to suit the changing needs and interests of any given player.
Final thoughts
The emergence of no deposit bonuses in Canada’s entertainment landscape is about so much more than thinking of them as a variation on online ads. No deposit bonuses play a crucial role in attracting players, building their trust, and keeping them engaged over an extended period of time.