Europe has been a stable gambling market for ten to fifteen years. It’s been growing every year, and the biggest reason for that is the increase in player base thanks to the technological revolution.
Anyone with a smartphone can access a mobile casino app, which naturally raises the question – what game is the most popular one? Between roulette and slots, the answer is simple – slots win any day of the week, and twice on a Sunday. This is nothing new since there are almost zero registered players who have never pressed the spin button. Maybe less than 1% of them play only roulette or card games without ever feeling the magic of the reels.
But, why is that? What are the reasons for them being so dominant within the market that thrives on variety and novelty? In this article, we’ll break that question into practical aspects and try to bring you a deeper level of knowledge to help you understand the full allure of the game we all love so much.
European Market Powered by Data
With the European iGaming market growing steadily, the slot performance dynamics are changing rapidly. Operators and players are both closely monitoring significant metrics such as average bet size, volume of bets, and player choice for different slot themes, volatility, RTP, and game format.
The information contained in the data provides clues about the concerns and habits of European players from the last months. The main performance metrics include average bet size, bet volume, dominant slot themes, volatility, game shape preferences, and RTP efficiency. This data not only reflects the present market situation, it points to the direction of future developments and trends.
Casino Trends in Europe
Many stats indicate the current state of the European gaming scene. For example, the average size of the bet in the European market is still very much in the same low range (around €0.952) and does not fluctuate much. This uniformity implies a fairly consistent player engagement rate without any abrupt increases and decreases in player behavior spending.
On the other hand, the number of bets placed has grown rapidly. The growth of high-quality online casinos like VulkanVegas shows the market is in the best place ever. Between April and June 2024, there was a significant increase from about 530M to 580M bets all over gambling sites. This rise also reflects increasing player activity and may be due to the popularity effect of seasonal promos or new game releases, drawing in more players.
Slot Preferences
Themes are also an important part of player engagement, and the data also come with curious information about what appeals most to players from Europe:
- Top Themes: Slot games based on fruits are the highest in efficiency (9,88% and the players show the highest preference for former civilizations, this theme is the most played, 21,6%). Common genres, for example, “Wild West” and “Money”, also continue to attract much interest, and at the same time underline the attractiveness of the ancient, well-worn motifs of games.
- Emerging Themes: Food (10,5% and sweets (8,73% appear to be emerging as powerful trends in terms of efficacy, with playful and attractive design themes that are becoming popular among the viewers).
Volatility Insights
Volatility, an important parameter to decide player risk propensity, also exhibits certain characteristic patterns:
- The Popularity of High Volatility: Games with high volatility are preferred by most majority of players (63% of the top games). This implies that the high-risk, high-reward type of these slots attracts players.
- Volatility Efficiency: The ratio of efficiency balance is fairly balanced, with preference given to high-volatility games (23,6%, then medium-high (21,7% and low-medium (19,7%). It shows that while players like high-volatile slots, operators are expanding the range of their games by introducing slots that appeal to a wider range of risk appetites.
RTP: Return to Player
RTP is still one of the most investigated features of slot games because it influences the players’ profitability over the long run:
- Top RTP Preferences: Slots (that have 96% RTP) are the most common (15,3% of games). Nevertheless, the slot efficiency associated with 94,5% (12,2% and 95,5% (11.7% RTP values is interesting. This data indicates that although players tend to be attracted to the games with a higher RTP, the operators manage to provide the games with a lower RTP and enough engagement to maintain play.
- Efficiency Spread: There is a wide range of distributions of RTP efficiency, with no clear preference for a single RTP range. This has the consequence that operators can keep multiple RTPs to appeal to various player demographics without compromising engagement.
Preferences in Shapes: Efficiency vs. Popularity
Slot shape and layout influence the player’s involvement and the game’s effectiveness to a great extent:
Efficiency: a 6-5 reel layout shape leads to efficiency (12,1%), then by 7-7 (11,2%), and last but not least 6-6 (11.1%). This indicates that players are happy to engage with such more complex setups and that more variants of such setups can be provided, which in turn can give more variations in gameplay with greater winning permutations.
Popularity: The 5-3 type of shape (44,2% is the most prevalent configuration, while the 5-4 shape (14% comes next. These basic forms continue to be a market fixture probably as a result of their recognition and ease of playability appeal to a larger number of people, namely novice players.