The major analysis firm Technavio have just published a new report, Global VR Gambling Market 2018-2022, which aims to project the state of the market’s response to emergent virtual reality technology over the coming years.
As the cost of this technology continues to decrease, and as major producers such as Facebook, Google and HTC produce second-generation products which stand alone, without PC support, and which cost a fraction of what the first generation did, Technavio’s timing on this report couldn’t have been better. Uptake is on the rise for individual consumers, as it will surely be in the years ahead for companies in all walks, including the gambling industry.
Technavio does caution a lack of certainty on the part of gamers about VR technology and its role, as well as a lack of current widespread adoption, while acknowledging that major operators such as William Hill and 888 have already started to work with VR technology. Nonetheless, Technavio specifies something that this writer, for one, has been speaking about for some time: namely, the fact that VR will soon become much more widely adopted by operators in both the online and land-based arenas of the gambling industry.
The report also indicates Technavio’s expectation that more mature markets, such as the UK, will emerge as market leaders in developing and adopting VR technology, and speculates that nations like China, which have burgeoning tech development fields, will likely boom in their early use of VR as well.
By all measurements, China already has the largest number of VR users in the world.
The report also refers to VR’s potential use in simulating environments for potential use in the treatment of gambling addiction. Considering that VR is likely to ultimately be used to offer far greater access to gambling services, this is an interesting juxtaposition, and one that illustrates just how wide a field VR might prove to be.
