Anyone that's spent more than a little time gambling on the web has had that ol' deja-vu: haven't I seen these games before? The recent Bear-Stearns report on the Internet gaming industry includes an appendix where they survey over 700 online casinos indicating, among other things, which software provider a given casino uses. These results confirm the deja-vu: 50% of online casinos use one of three major software packages. That means it's an even bet that any given casino will use a package you've seen before.
The major packages come from Starnet (Softech), Cryptologic, and MicroGaming. In fact Starnet is used at more sites than the other two combined -- almost one-in-three casinos is a Starnet licensee. Here are the numbers for the top 10 providers:
- Starnet: 30% or 210 casinos
- Cryptologic: 11%, 78 casinos
- MicroGaming: 9.4%, 67 casinos
- Handa Lopez: 2.8%, 20 casinos
- Online Gaming: 2.1%, 15 casinos
- Unified Gaming: 1.9%, 14 casinos
- Boss Media: 1.7%, 12 casinos
- CyberBookies: 1.5%, 11 casinos
- Global Ent.: 1.4%, 10 casinos
- Chartwell: 1.4%, 10 casinos
These numbers are impressive enough on their own, but they are doubly significant when you see that fully 22% of the listed casinos either use their own software (2.1%) or did not report what they use (20%). Given that, Starnet is getting closer to 40% of the reported licensees. Talk about market share!
As an industry watcher it's very impressive to see the market domination of companies like Starnet and CryptoLogic. As a casino player though it's a different story: variety is the spice of life and when one or two providers virtually own the market I get bored pretty fast. I like finding new games, especially when they're good, polished products. In fact I may well use the Bear-Stearns list to track down a few casinos who use games I've never tried. But then the caveat emptor thing kicks in and you're caught between going with the brand names for reliability or the little guy for fun and variety. Ah, the tyranny of choice.
Just for fun I'll list a few of the sites using each of the packages. I've tried to pick the sites randomly to avoid any bias, but keep in mind I'm just giving you a few pointers as suggestions. In the end it's up to you where you drop your dollar and spend your time.
Starnet Communications International Ltd.
CryptoLogic Inc.
MicroGaming Systems
Handa Lopez
Online Gaming Systems Ltd.
Unified Gaming
Boss Media
CyberBookies
Global Entertainment
Chartwell
Proprietary (they wrote their own)
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