iGB Intelligence reports Social Gaming report | Page 9

Part 1 – SOCIAL CASINO

PART 1
SOCIAL CASINO

Let the games begin
From humble beginnings less than a decade ago, the
social casino industry has ballooned into a multibillion
dollar industry – and it shows little sign of slowing
down anytime soon. Boutique research firm Eilers &
Krejcik Gaming suggests social casino is now worth
US$3.4bn, which, if correct, means this genre accounts
for about 4% of the US$91bn global games industry.
By 2017, social casino’s revenues are forecast to swell
to US$4.4bn. Despite the overwhelming majority
of desktop and mobile gamers playing slots, bingo,
poker and table games for free, it’s the all-important
montetised players, or so-called ‘whales’, who pay for
non-redeemable in-game items like chips and credits
with real money, who have helped propel some studios
into huge revenue-generating, global companies with
millions of monthly players.
Social and casual gaming is a notoriously fickle
arena where success can be ephemeral and failures
far outstrip hit games. It took Rovio 51 unsuccessful
titles before the Finnish company struck gold with birdflinging megahit Angry Birds.
Social casino, however, is considered one of
the most stable and reliable niches, with a captive
audience. In social gaming’s largest market, the United
States, there are 61.2 million social casino gamers
who played at least one casino franchise across all
devices in the past six months, according to recent
data by market research company Newzoo. These
gamers play an average of 5.6 titles, while most spend
between two and five hours per week on their favourite
social casino game. And while most social gaming
genres only manage to monetise a tiny percentage of
their audience, Newzoo revealed in 2015 that 46% of
US social casino players had spent money on in-game
items in the past six months. Indeed, social casino
titles attract the highest spenders across all categories

of games, shelling out about twice as much as social
gamers in other categories.
Market intelligence provider SuperData Research
reported in early 2016 that total monthly social casino
active players (excluding Asia) slid by 13% in 2015.
On the surface, that might appear a big concern. Yet
players are now more engaged and committed than
ever and revenues continue to climb for publishers.
“People talk about the industry and the glory days but
the reality is that social casino is growing faster than
most businesses grow,” says Alex Kelly, CEO of social
casino publisher Playsino. “I wouldn’t say we’ve hit the
peak by any extent of the imagination because we are
dealing with double-digit and in some cases tripledigit growth on a company-by-company basis. If you
look at all the different analysts out there, it’s pretty
consistently high growth predicted for the social casino
market, so I’m still very bullish.”

Age/gender split of social casino spenders
Female
36-50
16%

Male
10-20
6%
Male
21-35
33%

Female
21-35
22%
Female
10-20
3%

Male
36-50
20%

Source: Newzoo

iGaming Business Social Media & Mobile Betting Report

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