LT Game plans social gaming enterprise

Macau gambling equipment and game supplier LT Game has revealed that it has plans to enter the social gaming arena early next year with a play-for-fun product.

Chairman Jay Chun also has hopes that the Macau ban on internet gambling for real money may be lifted amidst industry lobbying for change.

Such a development would see his company prepared to participate, he said this week.

The social gaming products Chun envisages will be casino based slot or table games, but not for real money. Instead, a more social gaming-oriented rewards system would be implemented, he said.

LT Game’s new initiative will embrace both desktop and mobile delivery channels.

A recent study by Transparency Market Research (see previous report) estimated that the social gaming market will reach a value of $17.4 billion by 2019, growing at a compound average growth rate of 16.1 percent.

The report pegged the Asia Pacific market share in this sector at 45 percent.

Asian nations like Singapore and China are apparently concerned that social gaming – increasingly popular and with massive player participation due to the mobile revolution – may spill over into what they class as illegal online gambling, and they are currently grappling with the problem of legally distinguishing between the two sectors.

Whether real money changes hands on the outcome of a game appears to be the point of departure; social gaming supporters argue that social players do not play for the chance of winning money, and the way in which the games are designed do not allow the player to convert in-game credits to actual money or real merchandise outside the game.

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