 Online
casinos target Asian Market
Online casinos have
enjoyed unbelievable growth on the Internet in recent years, and
this explosive expansion has come with much scrutiny and has
created an incredibly crowded marketplace, as online casinos
spring up left and right. But the current state of online
casinos is healthy and ripe with new developments and news. The
industry is always exciting despite mainstream society’s recent
reservations.
The latest research on online casinos shows that there are still
substantial growth opportunities in the online casinos industry
in months and years to come. The potential growth of online
casinos is great because of the Asian market.
New studies study estimated that worldwide online casinos and
gambling revenues were $11 billion in 2005, up from about $8.5
billion in 2004. Online casinos should get even bigger and
better, as more in Asia begin to play. After all, like online
casinos, land based casinos have targeted the Asian market for a
long time.
So have the mass media and the common man or common woman in
Asia embraced the legitimacy of online casinos due to these
great revenues and the industry’s increasing popularity? Only
time will tell. If online casinos are as popular with the Asian
market as land based casinos, then the online casinos industry
will be strong.
Asian customers are aggressively being courted by online casinos
and land based casinos around the country.
Every day, Foxwoods and nearby rival Mohegan Sun combined send
more than 100 buses to predominantly Asian neighborhoods in
Boston and New York. The number of buses doubles on Chinese New
Year, and on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Foxwoods, the biggest casino in the world based on gambling
floor space, estimates that at least one-third of its 40,000
customers per day are Asian. Mohegan Sun says Asian spending
makes up a fifth of its business and has increased 12 percent
during the first half of this year alone.
The number of Asians in the United States increased by 17
percent between 2000 and 2004, the fastest growth of any ethnic
group during that period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
And few industries have catered to the Asian boom with as much
cultural competency as the $75 billion U.S. gaming industry.
In 2000, Foxwoods, which is run by the Mashantucket Pequot
tribe, hired a vice president specifically in charge of Asian
marketing. In 2005, Mohegan Sun, owned by the Mohegan tribe,
hired an international marketing executive who would target the
Asian demographic.
"Our Asian blood loves to feel the luck," said Ernie Wu,
director of Asian marketing at Foxwoods. "We call it
entertainment, we don't say it's 'gambling.'"
The two casinos target Asian customers with ads in ethnic media
and sponsoring community activities such as the Boston Dragon
Boat Festival, the Toronto Asian Beauty Pageant, and the
Southeast Asian Water Festival in Lowell, Mass.
Online casinos look to expand to Asia and, like their land based
counter-parts, continue the great gaming surge of 2006 and for
years to come.
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