Online games: desktop vs mobile

It’s unlikely that anyone really anticipated the huge impact that online casinos would have on the gambling market. Traditional land-based casinos have such a dedicated clientele and the experience of going to play at a casino was so iconic that it seemed like there wouldn’t be a huge demand for a digital alternative. We couldn’t have been more wrong. In just a few short years, online casinos have gone from a quirky fad to an important sector of the gaming market that continues to grow.

As companies have recognized the lucrative market for online casinos, the number of different casinos has grown substantially. The competition between all of these new casinos has created a great situation for players. As online casinos vie for new players, they have to find ways to distinguish themselves. One of the best ways to do this is by offering more games than their competitors. That means that nowadays, most online casinos offer hundreds of different slot machine games and multiple variations of all of the popular table games.

How players access online casinos is another way in which companies try to grow and maintain their user base. The most convenient and accessible casinos are going to be more appealing than their rivals. Desktop sites are the more established and more common, while mobile sites and apps are beginning to compete in popularity.

Let’s take a brief look at some of the pros and cons of each.

Desktop

Almost every online casino has a site that has been formatted for desktop browsers. This is the default way to access most of the internet and it was the only way until fairly recently. It is only a short time ago that mobile usage caught up to desktop internet usage. It makes sense that most casino brands would be focused on this way of connecting with players.

As this is the default, it means that most games are formatted to be played on a desktop browser. This gives players who are using a desktop browser access to hundreds or even thousands of different slots and a huge range of table games as well. Depending on your computer, you may also be able to play games at a higher resolution and speed that lets you fully enjoy the games.

If you’re already working or taking online classes on a desktop computer, it is handy to be able to simply switch windows if you want to take a quick break and play a hand or two of poker, or play on the slot machine games for a few minutes.

Sometimes we worry about how easy it is to be distracted when working on a computer, but using a system like the Pomodoro Technique – working for 25 minutes, followed by a five-minute break – lets you use those distractions as helpful mental breaks. Online casino games can fit perfectly into those little chunks of time.

The main factor against using a desktop browser to play at online casino is that it limits when and where you can play. Of course, laptops are portable but it can still be a bad idea to pull your laptop out on the bus to start playing. It can also be more difficult to get a consistent wifi connection, when out and about, on a laptop than it is on a mobile phone.

Mobile casinos

Being able to play at an online casino on your phone is a huge development. However, not every online casino has been fully willing to make the jump from desktop to mobile. Some haven’t formatted their sites to work on both platforms. Others have created a mobile version of their site that allows users to play only a portion of their library. The companies that have really understood the potential offered by mobile phones have created their own apps.

This limited selection of games that most mobile online casino sites offer is the biggest negative factor of the mobile versions of desktop sites. Many people love having hundreds of options when choosing a slot machine game, as it allows them to find the perfect game.

The biggest plus for mobile online casino sites and apps is how accessible they are. You can play at any time and from anywhere. This makes it incredibly easy to fit a few games in here and there as you go about your daily routine. Being able to prevent a few moments of downtime from being boring is very appealing.

Whether mobile or desktop online casinos are better for you depends on your needs and how you prefer to play. But you don’t need to choose – for many people, a combination of both is the best solution.