Tune into any sports game and you’ll likely see an iGaming ad at some point. Sports betting or online slots have become so ubiquitous in the modern age that the United Kingdom now has one of the largest online gambling markets in the world.
Due to their high-thrills gaming and transactional nature, gambling websites face more performance issues than most. This is why it’s so important to monitor website performance, looking at conversion rate optimisation and security.
For the optimum vendor and customer relationship, we need to be aware of these five key gambling website issues.
1. Non-user-friendly sign-up forms
In a highly competitive market, acquisition is a crucial stage for online gambling sites. Naturally, signing up to an iGaming site requires some sensitive information, so vendors need to tread carefully to be compliant.
But we also need to consider customer overwhelm. Sign-up forms with too many fields are likely to deter users. A better approach is to ask minimal questions at sign-up, and proceed to more sensitive information gathering at the time of deposit and withdrawal.
Poker Stars reported great success with this approach, while also switching from an accordion-style form to one question per page. Monitoring website performance for user drop-offs can tell us if a certain form is too cumbersome for users.
2. Non-mobile-optimised gambling website issues
Smartphones continue to be the most favoured device for online gamblers, with more than 50% of 18 to 34-year-olds accessing them this way. But despite these statistics, many vendors are still getting basic mobile optimisation wrong.
In some cases, this could pose a real threat to an iGamer’s wellbeing. A study backed by GambleAware revealed that safe gambling information was not as accessible on mobile sites as it was desktop. For example, some sites only used icons, and these did not link through to responsible gambling pages.
Synthetic User Journeys monitor key gambling journeys ensuring users can online game, place a bet or browse regardless of device, to make sure users have the best experience.
3. Bad bot attacks
During the EURO 2020 tournament in summer 2021, bot traffic to global sporting sites rose by 96% compared to the same period in the year before. These automated attacks are rife during international sporting tournaments, and can attack online gambling sites in a number of ways.
One such attack is odds scraping, wherein bad bots attack an API and scrape the data from multiple sports betting operators. This can feed essential insights to bot accounts and cause fraudulent wins. Another common bot attack is to maximise account creation with bots.
Scanning your website regularly for security vulnerabilities can prevent these threats.
4. Using unregulated third-party providers
Online casino sites may turn to third-party providers for speedier functionality. For example, they may choose a cloud-based ID verification platform to prevent fraud and quicken the sign-up process. Done well, these third-party integrations can greatly improve the user experience.
Done badly, third-party providers can cause security issues. If vendors choose an unregulated provider, they risk losing customers’ personal information. Data breaches on online casino games have often grabbed headlines – such as Clubillion’s leak exposing millions of players in 2020.
RapidSpike tracks all data sent by third-party plugins and sends alerts if these are breached.
5. Slow loading websites
A 2017 report by iGaming Tracker revealed that one of customers’ biggest frustrations with online gambling sites was slow loading times. While this could be attributed to the user’s device or bandwidth, it may also reveal performance issues on the site itself.
The experiment by iGaming tracker revealed that up to 2% of websites simply don’t load whatsoever. Again, in a highly competitive market, customers have little time to wait. This starts from the moment of sign-up: 25% of gamers will abandon a site if they cannot get registered quickly.
Keeping an eye on website uptime with a live tracker will reveal any inherent problems, be they site-wide or game-specific.
Keep your gambling site secure and operational with RapidSpike
Today’s modern iGamer wants to be assured of two things: that their personal data is secure, and that they can enjoy a seamless gameplay experience. The best way to guarantee this is to deploy real-time website monitoring, identifying security breaches or performance issues that could threaten these.Find out more about how RapidSpike helps with gambling website issues with website performance monitoring for iGaming providers.
