iGaming Business – The social-casino game market hit $2 billion in 2013, and a good chunk of that came from women. A new survey from International Game Technology shows that more than a third of social casino poker players are women. IGT is the largest maker of slot machines, and its DoubleDown Interactive division is one of the biggest makers of social casino games.
The number of women playing online social casino poker games was up 22 percent in 2013 compared to the year before, the survey said. That should be informative for the designers of social casino games, which have exploded in popularity on social networks and mobile devices in the past couple of years. The enthusiasm for these nongambling games, where players can buy virtual chips with real money but can’t cash out their winnings, is so high there are more than 100 startups making social casino games.
Eilers Research says the social-casino game market hit $2 billion in 2013. SuperData Research estimates it will be $4.4 billion by 2015. DoubleDown and IGT reviewed the demographics of six million people who play DoubleDown casino games on Facebook or a mobile device every month.
“As the world’s largest virtual casino, we pay attention to trends and make note of the fact that the poker is appealing to broader audiences both online and on the casino floor,” said John Clelland, the vice president of global marketing at IGT Interactive Group. “Poker is traditionally thought of as a male-dominated game, but our data proves that female poker players are on the rise in social casino.”
Poker is still one of the most popular games in DoubleDown’s library of 40 free-to-play social casino games. The survey found women spend about as much time playing free-to-play online poker as men each week.
