The Demand for Slots has been Growing Slowly but Steadily over the Last 3 Years
Searches in India for online slots for real money have been growing with a slow, but steady rate over the last three years, with a massive spike registered during the months of May and June of 2021, as revealed by data from Trends.Google.com and confirmed by the Mangools.com SEO tools. These trends are analyzed in detail in the recent publication “India Acquires a Taste for Online Casino Games”, a research paper by Esse N Videri Media (ENV Media), an expert analytical company specialized in the Indian real money gaming market.
While three and a half years ago searches for slots in the country rarely passed 1.5 thousand instances per month, the average monthly search volume for the last year is 18,700. This is to a certain extent due to the sharp May and June 2021 spike, but still, search instances for slots have not fallen below 4 or 5 thousand in any given month of the last 2 to 3 years. Moreover, the Top 20 long-tail and slot-related keywords combined come up at 44 thousand searches per month, again marking a steady increase over the last 12 to 24 months.
At the time of writing the present article, slot games take 7 out of the Top 10 positions in AppBrain.com’s “Google Play Ranking: The Top Grossing Casino Games in India”, and a total of 15 out of the Top 20. Teen Patti games follow with 4 instances, one of which is a combo Teen Patti, Poker and Rummy app, and one position in the Top 20 is dedicated to Poker.
Slots Dominate Gamer Preferences in Delhi and Mumbai Metro Areas
A geographical breakdown of online casino India trends by general game categories reveals that preferences generated within the metro areas of Delhi and Mumbai are dominated by slot titles. The states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh also display a strong incline for slot games. Roulette, another Western casino classic, is the most preferred game in a big number of states, including Assam, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.
The broad category of table games, which ranges from casino traditionals such as Baccarat to popular Indian and Asian cards and dice games, dominate real money gamer preferences in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The geographical trends analysis by ENV Media experts is based on data from more than 170 thousand registered users who have actually wagered on a game between the months of October 2020 and November 2021 on one of India’s leading casino gaming and sports betting platforms Pure Win.
Slots are the Only Game that Beats the Demand for Live Casino Experience
All games that found their way in the Top 30 list, both per turnover and per number of players, according to the Pure Win data analytics feature a live-dealer experience, with the only exception being made by slot game titles. Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt in 23rd place is worth mentioning as a live slot-based game. “While virtual simulation and advanced visualization are important, live sessions are always preferred in almost any category (save for slots),” the ENV analysts conclude.
Interestingly, it is difficult for individual slot games to enter the chart, as slot titles make up for more than 2,300 of the total of 2,640 casino games offered by the platform, but a number of them have done it.
Besides the rising popularity of slots in India, the Esse N Videri study highlights a growing preference among desi casino gamers towards simplified and fast versions of Western games as a whole. “Easy gameplay also means more speed or even instant results,” the authors write and point out that “around a third of the top 30 games are qualified as “lightning,” “instant,” “speed,” or “auto.””