Online Gambling Guidance: When is Extensive Game Variety Important?
What comes to mind when you hear the term “online gambling”? Do you think of casino games, like slot machines, blackjack and video poker? Maybe your mind goes to betting on sports or horse racing, or playing poker games like Texas Holdem, buying lottery tickets, or bingo cards. In the earliest years of the internet, online gambling wasn’t an extensive subject, but now, it’s used as an umbrella term to cover so many different ways to place to bet.
There are literally thousands of ‘online gambling guides‘ on the internet, and one of the topics that seems to be covered most is the importance of game variety. The fact is, for most online gamblers, game variety is rarely an issue.
When is Extensive Game Variety Important?
There are some instances where having more options is good. If you’re an avid slots player, you might want a larger variety. Most players have particular themes that they enjoy more than others, such as tropical themes, holiday themes, gothic themes, etc. Players also tend to hover towards a certain type of slot machine. Some prefer classic 3 reels, 5-reel video slots with multiple bonus features, or progressive jackpot games. When the variety is at its highest, the odds of finding the right type of game, within their favorite themes, is better.
But what about blackjack players? If all you play is blackjack, do you really need a thousand slot machine options on the side? Sports bettors, too. Sure, a few punters like to put action on a wide variety of sports, but most are keen on just one or two leagues, whether it be football, hockey, basketball—whatever sports they actually follow. These bettors don’t need access to Australian cricket, Scandinavian curling, British reality TV, or political elections in South Africa.
Why Too Many Choices Can Be a Bad Thing
In many cases, when an online gambling site offers too many choices, it means they aren’t putting enough focus on the niche product you’re actually there for. If you’re a casino player, go to a site that deals strictly in casino games—not one that offers bingo, poker, sports and every other game under the sun that you’ll never play. If you love Texas Holdem, you don’t need a poker site where draw poker, stud, pineapple, razz and mixed games are being played.
I’m not the only one who believes in the minimalistic proverb that ‘less is more‘. Psychologists, researchers, best-selling authors, behavioral scientists—they all agree that the more choices one is given, the harder it is to actually make a choice. It causes physical and mental stress, based on the natural fear that we will make the wrong choice.
Dr. Liraz Margalit Ph.D. specializes in online behavioral patterns. Her publication in Psychology Today revolves around the over-abundance of choice in eCommerce, and how it’s effecting customers.
“Visitors that try to scan through all of the different products available inevitably become frustrated and leave the website altogether,” writes Dr. Margalit. “This is because having too many options causes a sort of paralysis in the decision-making process, which leads to avoidance behavior – i.e. choosing to do nothing at all.”
She goes on to describe the fear of making the wrong choice that so many of us experience when presented too many options—even when it’s just two choices versus five. “When there are only two options, we have a 50% chance of choosing the right one. But when there are five options, our chances suddenly decrease to 20%.” Thus, when the number of choices rises to twenty, or one hundred, even five hundred or one thousand—as is so often the case in online gambling variety—our minds are sent into tumultuous overdrive.
Search Filters to the Rescue!
Society still believes, despite the evidence, that more choices is better. For this reason, the eCommerce industry will continue to supply all the choices we can handle, and then some. Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem, and most of today’s top gambling websites do offer it.
The simple solution is search filters. When an online casino offers hundreds of games, but offers a search filter to sort them, it puts our minds at ease. We are able to limit the selection to only those games we wish to see. We can narrow the choices to table games, blackjack games, 3-reel slots, progressive jackpots, instant win games, football betting, hockey betting, $1/$2 NLHE cash games… Whatever it is that we seek, minus all the junk we don’t want.
My advice to you is to save yourself the time and stress of sifting through so many options. Use these filters to your advantage. Narrow the results as much as possible. If your favorite online gambling site does not offer search filters, maybe it’s time to reconsider where you place your wagers. But then, there’s thousands of those to choose from, too… and the vicious cycle repeats itself!
Hopefully the following links can help you out in that department, and more.
How to Find Reputable Online Casinos
How to Choose the Right Banking Method
Choosing the Most Profitable Casino Games
Picking the Best Blackjack Variant
