Online gambling in Canada has become quite popular over the past few years, with research showing that millions of Canadians use online gambling and sports betting platforms daily.
The market remains challenging to understand, as each province has the freedom to set its own rules, but it’s clear that players from across the country use these platforms.
In recent years, numerous new platforms have emerged, and even those already reviewed on casinocrest.com have introduced many innovations, thanks to the growing popularity of AI and machine learning.
These technologies can do wonders to make the experience more interesting for players, including personalizing their profiles to recommend the best games, bonuses, and payment options depending on preferences and location.
If you think about it, iGaming can significantly benefit from integrating AI into online platforms, as this technology can learn your preferences, tailor offerings, and ensure your safety when sharing personal information or making online transactions.
However, one big question remains – how can online casinos reach this level of personalization without breaching trust?
That’s what we are here to discuss, so stick around if you want to learn more!
Understanding The Canadian iGaming Market
Before we delve into the various platforms available to Canadian gamblers and how players can tailor casino game choices to their preferences, we’d like to provide some background on the market’s structure.
Canada has 10 provinces in total, and in most of these, gambling remains strictly regulated or prohibited. Ontario is a leader on the iGaming scene, as it’s one of the rare provinces that has a fully regulated and fair market that provides locals with enough options to look into.
Since 2022, every online casino can operate legally as long as it gets a license from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and works closely with iGaming Ontario.
Some of the other provinces where you can gamble legally are British Columbia and Quebec. Other provinces lack a local regulatory agency, which means they offer no legal options to players, forcing them to focus on offshore platforms.
The only good thing is that most offshore platforms you’ll find mentioned on Casino Crest already have valid gambling licenses and offer many innovative features, including personalized options tailored to each player.
What Does Personalization in iGaming Actually Mean?
Long gone is the time when personalization meant that you would only get personalized ads when gambling online. Current AI and machine learning trends have led to notable developments, making personalization an essential part of iGaming platforms. Here’s how it is integrated into the digital gambling experience:
- Game recommendations: The platforms follow trends and notice patterns in the types of games you focus on. They could give you suggestions for slots, tables, or live casino games to look into, while also giving you themed games that follow what you’ve played up to that point.
- Custom promotions: Instead of offering the same bonuses to all players, platforms with AI personalization tailor bonuses to your needs. This means that if you are keen on playing slots, you’ll most likely get offers with free spins with no game restrictions or focused on titles from your favourite providers.
- Smarter onboarding: The casino won’t leave you hanging after you finish the registration process. Instead, it will ask you for your gaming preferences during registration and offer tutorials and guides that can help you get started and learn all about the selection of games and betting options.
- Safer play nudges: While most modern online casinos already offer responsible gambling tools for all players, these personalized platforms can give you tips and recommendations even if you don’t activate any protective tools. This means that the casino can remind you to take a break or mind your spending limit.
How AI and Machine Learning Can Improve iGaming?
When used correctly and integrated by people who know how to make the most of it, AI and machine learning can be tremendously helpful for iGaming platforms. We’ve done extensive research on the topic, reviewing numerous online casinos over the years, and we believe these new technologies can help in the following ways:
- Faster profile verification: Instead of waiting for a team of support agents to go through the documents of each new member, machine learning can streamline the ID checks and determine whether players have accurately filled out the registration form or not.
- Safer play: AI can help track patterns that can detect risky behaviour. Consider scenarios where you’re chasing losses or sudden spikes in deposits. When the platform notices such patterns, it can encourage interventions and recommend time-outs or spending limits.
- Fair environment: Even as is, most licensed gambling platforms offer games from trusted providers that use fairplay systems in their games. However, to make things even more fair and transparent, AI can help spot collusion in poker, detect bots, and flag suspicious betting, making games more trustworthy.
- Smart recommendation: As we’ve already mentioned above, AI can highlight games and bonuses that are best tailored to your gambling style. Considering that some online casinos offer thousands of casino games and numerous promotions for each day of the week, picking the best option is not always easy and can easily make players feel overwhelmed.
Of course, all of these features can make your gambling experience much better. However, how much personalization can be too much in some cases, and that makes us wonder if there is a reason we should fear AI overtaking online gambling?
According to our research, several things can go wrong when it comes to incorporating innovative techniques into online casinos, and the ones worth mentioning are:
- Overpersonalization: AI might take things further than needed, bombarding vulnerable players with offers that encourage overspending. There’s always the need to limit the ads and offers sent to players to keep them within safe gambling lines.
- Misusing data: How can players be completely sure that their experience is not tracked and their personal information is not used to train AI and machine learning platforms? We should always be mindful of what we agree to when joining new platforms.
- Lack of transparency: Players are sometimes given personalized offers and games without detailed information, leaving them uncertain about specific recommendations and potentially feeling manipulated.
These features are not only tailored to the Canadian iGaming market but also to the global one, as each platform can choose to integrate AI without actually thinking about each of these issues. Thus, it’s essential to be thorough and avoid issues that can lead to lower player satisfaction.
How Canada Can Build Trustworthy Personalization?
So, how do operators deliver personalization that wins players over without crossing the line? We have a few recommendations that we can share:
- Platforms should always be upfront and explain clearly when and why data is collected, in plain language. This will make it easier for players to understand what they are signing up for.
- It’s best for casinos not to focus solely on a personalized experience but to give players the chance to decide whether they want to opt in or out of personalization features.
- When players opt into personalized features, the casino should provide an easy way to opt out if desired, while also utilizing tools to encourage healthy play habits in case players accept any offers.
- The AI tools should be taught the local gambling rules to ensure that they take an approach tailored to local players and don’t break any rules, depending on the provinces where the casino offers its services.
Looking Ahead
There’s no doubt that AI and machine learning are transforming the iGaming landscape around the world, and Canada is no exception.
Regardless of the province we choose to focus on, it’s important to remember that personalization must be built on trust and integrated wisely into platforms. This means that the platforms must respect local gambling and privacy laws to ensure players are safe and protected throughout their journey.
If you are an operator still considering AI integration, we encourage you to proceed, but be mindful of doing it responsibly. Put yourself in the shoes of local gamblers and ensure that the plan you propose is sustainable.
