If there is one area in which online casinos have been looking to improve over the recent years, it’s how they can create a safer and secure monetary transactions process. There can be no argument as to why this is the case, as both operators and players alike seek to eradicate losses threatened by fraudsters. If we look at a venture that has recognised such outside threats a few years back, we can easily say that PayPal is a great example of this. The online transacting company capitalised on the challenge to protect client information, which led to increase of use, along with solid credibility. Subsequently, PayPal created a huge mark in the casino industry as an additional transactional method and it is clear by its the success, that many tech start-ups can learn from its roadmap.
The first lesson aspiring start-ups should note comes not from PayPal’s success story, but rather its first major shortcoming. PayPal was established in 1998, but exerted its dominance in the ewallet industry some years later roughly around 2003/2004, when it was acquired by eBay. When a start-up seeks to make huge waves, it has to have the financial muscle to compete with other “big boys” in the market. This is not to say that start-up ventures have to look for a merger with another company, but should rather aim to seek serious investors or consider debt and equity financing. When comparing the scales of advantage, PayPal could have established itself at an earlier stage in the gaming industry, had it known the power of strong working capital. Though today, start-ups now have the knowledge from PayPal’s failure to better equip for viable operations.
As any legitimate business would advise, it is of extreme importance for an emerging venture to value integrity and credibility first before seeking large profits, and this is exactly what PayPal’s operations teach us. PayPal managed to create a well respected and trusted brand before unveiling itself as the go-to payments processor in the online space. This is a very crucial step that all startups should bear in mind before they begin to make their presence known in the gambling world. Once users become convinced that the brand is dependable from other non-volatile industries, like online shopping for example, then it will not be a tedious task to attract a loyal client base when it finally takes the leap into the casino industry. Another important thing to note before a start-up plunges into the iGaming sector, is to differentiate the credible casinos from those tagged as illegitimate, so as to create trust with prospective users.
In addition to this, the transaction process itself has to be smooth and simple to enable anyone, whether tech savvy or not, to easily transact. A user-friendly approach will always have a huge impact on the success of a business and this is no different within the gambling industry. Transacting via PayPal is effortless as there are no account or pin numbers required. Using PayPal is also very secure based on the minimum amount of personal information involved, thereby making it extremely unlikely for users to lose any money to the likes of hackers and fraudsters. Every start-up should look at emulating PayPal in this sense, to allow users to transact freely and with peace of mind.
It goes without saying that PayPal has successfully managed to create a huge fan base in the online gambling industry and their charm for attracting such a large number of players is out in the open for everyone to see. The chief lessons start-ups can learn from PayPal are to look for working capital as an initial edge, to create credibility based on security and to provide a user-friendly transaction processing platform.
