At around 25 years old, online casinos are a newer arm of the betting industry. Though the idea of gambling has been popular for thousands of years, the new digital age brought unprecedented challenges. A big part of this was developing the right type of delivery methods.
Casinos and their software needed to be both powerful and flexible. While early efforts did what they could, it wasn’t until HTML5 that the industry really reached its potential. So, how did we get here, and what makes HTML5 special?
Early Online Casino Efforts
The first casinos that delivered online betting arrived in 1995 with the aptly named Internet Casinos, Inc. Thanks to slow computers and slow internet speeds, these services were very limited. While websites could at least run well on early HTML versions, their games could not.
Instead, the first online casinos relied on an old program called Flash. Flash acted as a kind of container for many forms of online media. It was the basis for animations, online casino games, and videos. Early YouTube even used Flash as its base.
The New Generation
As technology improved, Flash failed to keep up. It became outdated, difficult to work with, and needed constant security patches. Over time, HTML up to HTML5 replaced everything Flash managed. This meant the death of Flash, but it also meant a new generation of potential.
Flash needed separate software compared to what regular browsers included. It didn’t work well on mobile platforms, and it suffered performance issues. HTML5 negated all these issues, even if it did require porting existing games to these new systems.
The change to HTML5 took a lot of time, and a huge effort from online casinos, but it paid off. Game performance improved, website navigation improved, security improved, and many more devices found access to online casino services.
Consider the slots Canada experiences available today, like Dracula’s Bloody Reels and Ice Lobster. Today, these are played easily on desktop, laptop, smartphone, and tablet systems. They’re more reliable than ever, and older systems can play without issue. Even the websites run better, making for more satisfied players.
Going Forward
HTML5 is far better than anything that came before, and it also sets developers and websites up well for the future. Thanks to better integration, whatever the online casino industry thinks of next, putting plans into action is easy. Since online casinos are built on evolution, this gives players something to look forward to.
With HTML5, we expect a huge influx of new games and ideas. This could come in the form of more regular slot game releases, so players have more to enjoy. It could also appear with VR and AR gaming, which has a strong future in online betting.
The best part for players is, there’s nothing special they need to do for what comes next. Work behind the scenes means users engage as normal, while developers adapt as necessary. You might not ever notice it consciously, but there’s a lot going on to make the betting experience better, and HTML5 plays a huge part.
Leave a Reply