Why Casino Apps Aren’t Listed in Marketplaces?
Like many other industries today, gambling is quickly becoming mobile-first. Players use their smartphones not just to play casino games but also to register accounts and make deposits and withdrawals. Players and casinos exchange a lot of sensitive information, including real personal information and banking details.
Considering all of the above, it’s surprising that some of the top online casino APKs are not available in app marketplaces. Why does this happen?
Convenience
Online casinos need to build a completely responsive website to cater to their players’ needs. All of today’s casino games are HTML5-based, which instantly makes them cross-platform and responsive. So is the user interface of an online casino. In most cases, there’s simply no need for an online casino app to be deployed: players can simply save a shortcut to their casino operator’s website and play just like they would in a native app.
Cost
Developing and listing an app costs money. The development has to be done with the utmost attention to safety and security, as well as compliance with the legal requirements in every jurisdiction where the app will be available.
Gambling apps need extra safety measures ranging from regional restrictions to age gates and such, plus a secure payments solution as they are not allowed to use Google’s and Apple’s payments ecosystem.
Compliance
App marketplaces also have different requirements for gambling apps, from compliance to age restrictions and such. Plus, the operators listing their apps need licenses issued by specific jurisdictions that are accepted by app marketplaces, which complicates things for casinos at the beginning of their road.
Regional availability
Online casinos need to be licensed to deploy their native apps in every country. This is complicated, as not all countries regulate gambling the same way. In some countries, reputable licenses like the ones issued by the authorities of Curacao or Malta are tacitly accepted as valid. This, in turn, doesn’t work with the biggest app marketplaces.
What’s the solution?
In most cases, online casinos don’t bother with deploying a separate native app for their players, opting for Web Shortcuts instead. These install a shortcut on the player’s phone to the casino website that they can access directly without having to go through a browser.
Other casinos use a native app that users can download and install on their phones. This is not the ideal solution, though – to install them, players need to trust “Unknown sources”, which opens up a way for malware to be deployed on their phones.
The cost, inconvenience, and regional restrictions that apply to casino apps don’t make them an ideal solution in today’s digital landscape. This is why most online casinos abandon the idea in favour of mobile-friendly or mobile-first websites that are much easier to deploy and just as secure as a native app.
