The next generation of casinos nobody wants.
At least once a week I see a new link for [INSERT-DEGEN-BUZZWORD].com.
Tiny BETA mark next to the logo. A team of crypto bros in their 20s with ridiculous amounts of seed funding from God knows where. And an overly confident arrogance that immediately annoys the shit out of me.
why?
Because these new crypto casinos are built for Twitter, not for players.
They all have a vision, and that's the problem. They're not disrupting anything. They're not changing the game. They are giving the world's oldest vice a social media team and a Discord server.
We are gamblers. We do not want innovation. We want to gamble.
We want to log in, play keno until our eyes cross and get enough cashback to feel at least mildly respected when we rip. We want VIP hosts who give decent rewards, games that occasionally let us run up a balance before we nosedive back to rock bottom, and for some of us, a chat full of other degenerates we can bitch to when everything goes to hell.
That's it.
Instead, we get some new kid calling himself a founder, announcing the future of iGaming.
By “future of iGaming” he means Stake but with fewer games, slower cashouts, none of the earned trust that makes sending crypto to their wallets feel slightly less insane, and a team that needs more help navigating the scene than me trying to play Roblox with my 7 year old.
Let's be honest. This industry runs on addiction. You have a built in loyalty that no marketing team gets to take credit for. Stop the theatrics. Give us games, we will give you money. Give us good rewards, we will give them back. And the wheel of degeneracy keeps spinning.
Stand by for Googled stats:
Online gambling generated about 78.7 billion dollars in revenue in 2024, and they think it is going to hit 153.6 billion by 2030.
This is already a massive market, which means nobody is sitting around waiting for some brand to reinvent gambling. You are literally casino number four thousand something. You would think by now more than just a select few would get it right.
And the weirdest part is the blueprint for success is not hidden. It's literally right there in front of you. There's a clear industry leader, and it's not because they had the most inspiring podcast.
More Googling:
Stake reported about 4.7 billion dollars in gross gaming revenue in 2023, more than 25 million registered users, around 5.4 million monthly visitors, and over 300 billion total bets since 2017. No other casino comes close.
Yet for some reason one of the first things these new guys say is:
“We don't want to be just another Stake.”
Wait, why?
Why on earth would you not want to be like the most successful business in the industry you are entering? Is that not the goal? Or are you going to tell me you are in the casino business for the philanthropy? Why insist on taking a working, consistent model and making it worse every single time?
I personally play at way too many casinos, including Stake. I will agree there is definitely room for improvement at all of them.
But the improvement does not come from psychologically waterboarding us into wagering for a token airdrop, or paying streamers to drag over their loyal code junkies who will jump to the next casino the second a Discord pin tells them to.
So here is some free unsolicited advice from a single mom with a community college graphic design degree and a sticker on her MacBook that says “girl boss”…
Stop making worse versions of what we already have.
You can't “change the game” if you can't even handle the basics.
You are not launching a revolution.
You are opening a casino.
Act like it.