One crowd rolls dice, the other rolls its hips. But could the two be combined using internet betting into one target audience? Usually, Atlantic City casinos and video game publisher Majesco Entertainment — maker of the wildly popular Zumba Fitness games — see little overlap in their customer bases. That changed last week.

The Edison game company acquired social casino game developer Orid Media and Isle of Man online gambling operator Pariplay, which already has a catalog full of slot and scratch-card games, as part of its new venture to push into a growing market. Consumers worldwide spent more than $9 billion downloading apps last year, and more than two thirds of that money was spent on games, according to data from Apple’s iOS App Store.

“The biggest difference with this is a different revenue model,” said Michael Vesey, Majesco’s senior vice president and chief financial officer. “A lot of the games you play online are freemiums. You play some of it for free and people who really enjoy the game spend money within it. In the retail model, a customer spends $30 or $40 one time and then your relationship with them is over until they want a new game.”

The expensive consoles that users need to play pricier games, like Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation, have started to lose their hold with casual gamers. In early June, more than 35,000 game industry professionals gathered at the Los Angeles Convention center for E3, short for Electronic Entertainment Expo. There they were introduced to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but analysts were quick to question whether the companies would bother with an Xbox Two or PlayStation 5 given the state of the market.

This story on internet betting and casual gaming originally appeared on the NJ.com website.