It can be easy, at times, to see these two experiences as being joined at the hip, even when that isn’t the case.
There’s no inherent link between the world of competitive sport and online gaming, but at the same time, there is a whole web of connections that exist as optional bonuses to either interest.
You can go your whole life as a sports fan, get the full experience and never touch online gaming. Yet, there is a whole world in between these two, like the space in the middle of a Venn Diagram.
The Related Games
The most obvious connection might just be in the games that look to emulate any given sport. Right away, the minds of many people familiar with gaming landscapes might go to FIFA or Madden – annual titles that offer players a way to digitally experience the basic loop of these games either online or offline. Being able to play these games online with your like-minded friends can be a great way to keep your interest alive in the off-season.
However, it’s also not the only kind of game that’s related in this way. Not only do you have titles that are further removed (like Super Mario Golf or Tennis), but you also have slot games that are themed after specific sports – something that you might find through any online casino that features video slots CA.
The Missing Link
When trying to accurately weigh up and assess this relationship, many people might forget about the prevalence that sports betting can have as an in-between stage. While not every online casino features sports betting, some do. That can be enough for someone who enjoys sports betting to hop one step over from their usual activity to something new, creating through-traffic between sports fans and online casino visitors. It’s also worth understanding that this is something that can vary by region or country, with some places placing a much greater emphasis on sports betting culture than others.
It’s also worth understanding how many of these activities might spread throughout a social group. If one friend group all enjoys the same sport – some might enjoy that alone, some might enjoy sports betting and some might enjoy online casinos, and each of these perspectives can spread.
Marketing Methods
However, one of the biggest links (at least in some parts of the world) can also be one of the most controversial. Using sports celebrities as a mouthpiece to market gambling outlets like online casinos might be effective in swaying sports fans towards such a platform, but it does raise questions of ethics relating to responsible gambling. As much as any advert (at least in countries like the UK) is required to repeatedly state that viewers should ‘gamble responsibly’, if the tone of the advert clashes with that sentiment, some audiences might question the ethics behind the advert. If the platform that audiences are being led to is also committed to promoting responsible gambling, that might help to maintain this image.
