Casinos explore a range of ways to cut costs. However, with many of their key costs stemming from electricity usage, all the top casinos, as well as companies operating in the iGaming world, will leave no stone unturned in their quest to make their energy consumption more efficient.
Slot machine designers are of the same ilk—anything that can help bring costs down and expand their profit potential will be an avenue they will explore. Energy-efficient technology has become a more pressing matter over the last decade—more companies have been exploring ESG investments, and there has been a range of subsidies aimed at those companies that veer away from traditional power sources and experiment with greener ideas.
Unlike some table games in casino gaming, such as poker, which don’t require a 24/7 power source to remain running and active, slot games have an entirely different set of gaming mechanics. They operate using RTP percentages and RNGs that will pay out over a specific number of spins. The newest slots may have a slicker feel.
They might draw on niche inspirations to try and break into the market more impactfully, but they aim to make a dent in the slot gaming market. This is an added bonus if they can do this cost-effectively and use eco-friendly methods.
ESG, Sever Virtualization & Cloud Storage
ESG—short for environmental, social, and governance—is a new incentive to prioritize companies looking to invest in greener futures and ideas. It’s been a good idea for casino companies and slot designers not to box themselves in and to look for ways to save themselves money and boost their chances of success.
While ESG may have started with the best intentions and initially focused on eco-friendly solutions, recent issues with managing funds have cast doubts over certain parts of the industry.
However, for the casino industry, particularly energy-intensive areas such as slot gaming, anything that can make energy consumption more efficient and bring down these costs in the long run is worth exploring.
The casino industry has collectively switched to cloud storage over the last 15 years. Not only is it more cost-effective than using and employing in-house storage, but it is also scalable and offers greater flexibility. Cloud storage helps to spread out the cost and energy consumption of storing and maintaining vast amounts of data on a company server. While there are some downsides involved in cloud storage, it helps to bring down energy costs for casino companies that host thousands of online slot games.
Server virtualization adopts a similar approach to cloud storage. Spreading gaming mechanics across several servers, instead of having it directly via one, means the energy costs are also spread across several—reducing energy consumption significantly.
A Change in Consumer Appetite
It isn’t just large corporations that are being encouraged to adopt greener ideas and strategies; with the cost of energy spiking over the last couple of years, those who can harness energy efficiency in their homes are finding that they’ve made savings.
While powering your home with green technology can come with an upfront cost and short-term impacts, those living in areas where they get a lot of sun or wind can bottle this up and utilize it as a fresh energy source.
One thing it is doing, though, is bringing down energy costs. This means that those casino gamers who enjoy playing slot games can have one less concern about how much energy they are using or if they have to be more selective with the energy-intensive slots they play on mobile apps and portable tablets.
As gamers become more aware of greener energy and how it’s being implemented in our lives, online slot designers and casino gaming companies are keen to keep their eye on the ball and adapt to any of these changes, especially if it has an added benefit where they’re able to reduce traditional types of energy consumption and the costs that come with it.
Conclusion
Energy-efficient technology is becoming more widely used and visible in society, which means it’s becoming normalized in conversation. Those who have emphasized that we need to move toward greener energies and divert our attention away from fossil fuels or finite energy sources have been ignored for too long.
Now that there’s money and incentive to invest in eco-friendly technologies and systems, the landscape of how online slot games are hosted on servers and how energy-intensive their designs are will change.
It depends on how much ESG investments are pushed over the next decade; the world’s most prominent societies and economies still rely heavily on traditional means of creating and distributing energy sources. While there’s a strong push for energy efficiency, and designs are becoming more cost-effective, any significant changes in the online slots industry will occur over the next decade.
They’re unlikely to transform significantly over a short period. Still, if there’s a sustained level of investment, and more gamers want to seek out energy-efficient platforms, there will be a gradual shift toward this tech and how it’s implemented into the industry moving forward.
