In the iGaming realm or any other activity involving product marketing, user interfaces play a vital role in determining whether players stay put or leave.
Modern iGaming platforms strategically design their websites to encourage punters to spend more time and money on these platforms, employing strategies like dark patterns and nudges.
At face value, these tactics are hardly noticeable to the unkeen eye. However, seasoned punters with an eye for detail will ultimately learn to pick them up. For instance, gaming platforms can employ subtle features that will ultimately steer gamers towards prolonged spinning and spending spells.
What Are Dark Patterns?
These entail the deceptive techniques that online gambling sites employ when they want to manipulate your gaming behaviors.
Considered one of the ultimate dark art moves of UI design, there are so many dark pattern tricks that you’ve probably never noticed before in your gaming forays but will likely have interacted with. Some common dark pattern techniques you’ll note in online gambling include:
- Disguised ads: This entails some ads that you come across on the different online gambling platforms that are designed to look like independent information when, in fact, they may be part of a paid promotion for a service the platform offers or another online gambling platform offers;
- Forced continuity: Most iGaming platforms, like the Spin City Kasyno, often offer free trials for casino games that will eventually change to real money status when confirmed. That said, some online casino sites leverage the innocence of punters looking to utilize the free offer for online slots and institute measures to harden the process of canceling the free trials before being charged real money;
- Hidden costs/information: Some iGaming websites may obscure the real fees that players will have to spend or the information that players will need in gaming. One common trick used by online casino sites is the lack of proper transparency when it comes to the wagering requirements of some bonuses. Oftentimes, you’ll find a highly alluring bonus offer that looks good at face value, but as they always say, the devil is in the details, and that’s what many online gambling platforms neglect to mention;
- Unclear cancellation process: Some online gaming platforms make it easy to open an account with them. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ll notice that it is harder to close a gaming account with these betting platforms. This is usually an intentional move by these platforms where there is a deliberate lack of clear and accessible instructions on the cancellation process and minimal steps and restrictions on registration;
- Complicated access to necessary functions: Some iGaming sites also make it hard to access gambling management tools. These platforms usually do this by overloading the players with too much information. For players looking to set up a deposit limit, for instance, you’ll notice that this process can take more time to set up as opposed to placing a wager where you give out your money to the gambling platform.
The Concept of Digital Nudging in iGaming
Nudging, on the other hand, refers to the use of user design interfaces to guide gamers into making some specific decisions within the online gambling framework.
This technique is considered a subtler form of persuasion as opposed to dark patterns. While it is a manipulative technique, it is not necessarily given that we can categorize it as a bad retention technique from platforms.
Some of the common forms of nudges that you’ll find in digital betting platforms include the usual rewards that many, if not all, online casinos offer to their players. These include welcome bonuses, loyalty points, or countdown timers. These are all designed to retain players and to keep them spending on the game.
While these actions and more always seem to be innocent from the outside, they very clearly aren’t. Online gamblers often underrate the effects of these subtle manipulations, particularly nudges, to maintain their presence on the various betting platforms.
Over time, these behaviors may also lead to players developing compulsive wagering behaviors where they feel they are in control when they very clearly aren’t in control.
Ethical and Legal Framework
Across Poland and, to a larger extent, Europe, many countries feature severe consumer and data protection legislations that are designed to protect users against dark patterns and nudges.
Even with the existence of such legislature, you’ll often find these cases still on the internet as you try to play your favorite online casino games. Dark patterns and nudges are ethically unacceptable as they may lead players to make decisions that aren’t right for them.
Watch Your Back!
As more stringent regulations are enforced on this topic, the honors fall on you, the gamer, to recognize the tactics employed by the casinos and to find ways not to be affected.
As the iGaming industry continues to evolve, players must practice lots of caution, and regulators must push for more active regulations that actively prevent dark patterns from interfering with players’ decisions.