VR Casinos
Introduction
Virtual reality, otherwise shortened as VR replicates an environment that stimulates physical presence in places in the real world or imagined worlds and lets the user interact in this world. In virtual reality casinos, although it is online, it gives the player the feeling of being in a real life casino or poker room. With the ability to produce augmented realities and three dimensional worlds which the online game player can genuinely experience first-hand, virtual reality products can immerse keen punters in a gambling world in the form of simulated casinos which feature interactive video polies, gaming tables of roulette, black jack, baccarat and casino war, big rooms, poker rooms etc. The potential for multi payer gaming is a feature which adds a whole new layer of interactivity and excitement while gaming in online casinos. Imagining yourself and your play mate wearing a head-mounted device and from the comfort of your home or office or even a totally different country or continent, you get all the sights, sounds, feeling and other emotions involved in real casino games as if it were in real life.
Virtual Reality Casinos Features
The progress of making online gambling as real and fun as possible has gone a long way today. In the early 90’s the first online casino was created and the graphics and sounds were so poor, compared to the real life casino or poker room. But now, the graphics are excellent with crystal clear sharpness, animations, clear and distinct sounds, wonderful timings and transitions. Virtual reality casinos are displayed on a computer screen or with special stereoscopic displays and some include sensory information and focus on real sound through speakers or headphones targeted towards virtual reality casino gamers. Some advanced casino systems recently added tactile information, generally referred to as force feedback. Also, virtual reality covers remote communication environments which provide virtual reality casino gamers presence of users with the concepts of telepresence and telexistence or a Virtual Artefacts (VA) either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse or through multimodal devices such as a wired glove or omnidirectional treadmills. Now, the live casino feature has even been introduced into many online casinos. This enables online gamblers play with a real dealer live from another casino and also chat with other players. This helps build good inter-human personal relationship between dealers and players.
The layout of the casino is just as the normal real life casino or poker room. More so, since Facebook has bought over the company, Oculus Rift, a lot of money has been put into this system to make a success and very enjoyable for the online gamblers and game players. It should only be a matter of time before the casino experience should be moved to the next level and you can begin to even interact with other players and dealers inside the casino in real time as you would do in reality. Mark McGuinness again said that gaming is about the emotional and physiological experience of playing at the casino tables and all the sensory stimuli this delivers. He believes that virtual reality online casinos could replicate that experience of walking into the casino lobby, being greeted by the hostess and being led to the gaming floor. He said, for him, opening up this new dimension to gaming makes virtual reality devices the most exciting of all the developments in wearable technology in 2015 and the years beyond.
Recent Developments in VR Casinos
While still in its early stages of development, Virtual Reality Casinos and games are being tested and constantly improved and many gaming companies can see the potential for some stunning and technologically advanced productions. Sphinx 3D by GTECh has designed a three dimensional screen which is glass free. This boasts of a virtual wheel that can be spun by movement of your head. Google Glass is in the process of building a gaming feature called “Glass betting”. This is a virtual reality innovation allowed for real money gambling. Virtual reality casinos are being designed with the finest details so player’s entire scope if vision is surrounded by quality visuals and audio while sound effects, lighting and dynamic movements will be constantly changing all around you.
All of the online gamblers and online game players will be very elated to hear that the first virtual reality casino and 3D casino is to be launched. Players will have the opportunity to play their favourite slot games with the unique experience of gaming as in real life casinos with the help of the innovatory Oculus Rift VR headset. For the first time, online casino game players will be given the opportunity to enter into a casino game room, be greeted by a hostess, greet their fellow players, step onto the floor and get into the lounge or game space all from the comfort of their homes despite the location or country. The Oculus is announced to be revealed commercially somewhere in the first quarter of 2016. Quoting Alexandre Tomic, one of the Alea.com and SlotsMillion founders who said “One of the virtual reality’s biggest problems is to explain how mind-blowing it is to people who haven’t tried it. The only way to understand the tech is to try it.”
The most popular virtual reality casinos currently are Casino VR and SlotsMillion.
SlotsMillion - The first VR Casino
SlotsMillion offers you the opportunity to discover the VR/3D online casino application that allows you to play for real money. Online gamers can enjoy their own private casino room with more than forty of the most popular games. All you need to do the download the app, log in with your SlotsMillion account which you can create on the SlotsMillion website if you have not already done so. Then you can experience your favourite online casino like never before. You can experience SlotsMillion Virtual reality casino with Oculus Rift and goggles are required to play such games in VR. You can use a keyboard or a controller and it runs on Windows 7 and Windows 8 platforms for now. It might as well work on Windows 10 computers although that is not documented. SlotsMillion goal is to develop a virtual reality online casino that works beautifully and seamlessly on any device, be it a laptop, tablet or smart phone. Its official website is slotsmillion.com/en/
Casino VR
Casino VR is another popular virtual reality casino that offers a multiplayer casino game for virtual reality. Currently, the stage of progress of actualizing this dream is outlined in the following features:
- Real time multiplayer with Texas hold’em poker game
- Real avatar and casino environment
- Immersive and intuitive user interface to enjoy the game
The future of the virtual reality online casino by Casino VR is listed in the following features
- Additional casino games and slots
- Different casino environments and more avatars available
- Gesture and hand movement recognition
- Chat and voice functionalities
- Combine online gaming and casino gaming into one
Casino VR has a vision of making the future of casino gaming to be a wonderful virtual reality experience. It hopes to change the gaming industry by creating a virtual reality experience that simulates playing in a real life casino all from the comfort of your home. Their official website is casino-vr.com
Advantages of Virtual Reality Casinos
- Virtual reality casinos are able to portray true presence and immersion.
- Interacting with other players and enjoying your casino game like it is a real life casino game room from the comfort of your home
- Improves inter personal relationship between players through the live chat feature
Disadvantages of Virtual Reality Casinos
- For online gamblers, they are likely to spend more money as betting is just a click away and they will be so immersed. This can lead to bankruptcy if not curtailed
- More time will be spend gaming instead of thinking and doing productive things
- Break down in inter personal relationship as gamers will not notice or even relate to people around them due to being so immersed in the gaming environment.
- Gamers become oblivious of what is happening around them in their real life environment.
Why Virtual Reality Casinos?
During a chat between Damien Connelly and Jeff Lande, founder of Lucky VR, Jeff said virtual reality is a perfect fit for the casino gaming industry as it is a new way to make games not only more appealing to a younger generation but also delivers an amazing experience to any player as it engages all their senses and gives them a true feeling of immersion like no other technology can. He said this will allow players to experience much more meaningful personal and exciting gameplay keeping them engaged at higher level for much longer periods of time. Lucky VR is one of the leading virtual reality casino software developers that are developing immersive gambling experiences by taking traditional games like black jack, pokies and roulette and turning them into VR applications compatible with Facebook’s Oculus Rift and Samsung’s Gear VR headsets.