The Pioneers of the Virtual Gambling
The diversity of the interactive gambling is rich enough, according to the international research hold in 2002, taking into account the incomes of the companies we have the following picture: lotteries - 2 percent, sports totes - 43 percent, casinos - 55 percent. Thus it is clear that the online casinos make an essential share Internet gambling industry. According to the forecasts of analysts, by 2005 the Net users will be spending more than 30 billion dollars for gambling in the online casinos, and the number of players will increase up to 15 million people. In 2000 they will account for 4 million, in 2001 – for already 7 million, in 2002 their number will be approaching 10 million, in 2003 - 12 million.
The USA is presently the largest and the most profitable market of virtual gambling services. However experts predict that gradually the share of the American players will be decreasing with increase of the share of gamblers from other countries as casino operators began to gradually expand their domain covering involving more and more states where this kind of entertainment is getting popular.
The Europa gaming on the Internet is meanwhile only on a certain stage of development. But, irrespective of its short history, it already brings enough incomes and profit to the operators who have already occupied their niche. It still remains appealing for new companies which try to compete the existing ones. We can already say that only some of the organizations represented on the market will become successful, and only the best will be able to involve players and keep them loyal. Thus many aspects of the company work become important.
One of the first operators on the USA market was Microgaming. Today this company is considered one of the leading international suppliers of the Internet-casino software. It started working in 1994 in Great Britain when the technology of online-gambling was just about to appear on the market. The company became a pioneer in the sphere of the development of the completely operational version of the online-casino system. Today Microgaming offers its clients more than 100 various games and a system of progressive jackpots which could be a subject of envy for the other manufacturers of environments of virtual gambling houses. Here one can snatch a large sum with the minimal risk. Such progressive games give to affiliated casinos of Microgaming the strategic advantage in the competition with the other virtual gambling houses. The most popular is the slot machine MajorMillions which from time to time gives out jackpots, exceeding one million dollars. One more advantage is rare table games which are difficult to find in other places.
The casinos from Microgaming have got the deserved during many years reputation of reliable gambling houses. The systems PlayCheck and CashCheck created by the company enable players to trace history of the game and financial transactions. The percentage of payments makes from 96 up to 98 percent that it is rare even in the Russian offline casinos. All Microgaming casinos are regularly checked by independent international auditor company PricewaterhouseCoopers whose reports are available to users.
The flash version does not demand special uploading of the program that makes casinos more accessible, and also allows the mackintosh owners to join players.