iGaming in the US has transformed from a niche internet hobby to a multi-billion dollar industry over the past decade. A big part of that is down to the rise of mobile gaming. Smartphones have made online casinos more accessible and brought them to a far wider audience.
Most mobile games are played via a native app that is downloaded and installed on the phone. Some mobile casinos use native apps too, but many are played direct from a browser, in the same way as they are played on a desktop. The question is, which is better? That’s not so easy to answer – let’s look at the question from a few different perspectives.
Access
From an accessibility perspective, web apps win hands down. In the US, you can’t just visit the usual app stores to download iGaming apps. Instead, you need to go to a specialist review site such as https://www.gamblingsites.com/us/online-casinos/ to identify trustworthy providers with native apps and install them. You then have to check availability for iOS or Android, depending on your phone. Simply reading the review and following a link via your phone’s web browser is certainly less hassle.
Reliability
There’s nothing worse than suddenly losing your connection just as you’re about to hit the jackpot or play a royal flush. Of course, if your web connection goes down entirely, it will affect both native apps and browsers. However, apps are more resilient to patchy connections and glitches than browser-based games.
Quality
There is a perception that native apps offer a superior gaming experience to web-based apps. That might be true for racing games or first-person shooters, but with casino games, there is little discernable difference. With an app, you can play full screen without the distraction of the information bar with battery, signal and so on – it’s a small detail but it just tips the scales in favor of native apps.
Discretion
These days, American society has a far more relaxed attitude toward gambling. Still, there are some who disapprove of the pastime. If this is a potential issue, you might not want the sight of an online casino app prominently on your home screen whenever your phone lights up. When it comes to discretion, therefore, a web app is the better option.
Support and updates
Installing updates and patches for apps is one of those annoying tasks that is part and parcel of the smartphone age. Inevitably, you have to do it more often with newer apps as bugs and glitches that were not obvious during development suddenly come to the fore. With a web app, all that happens behind the scenes, and you know that whenever you log on, you are playing the latest games with the latest software.
In conclusion
Perhaps surprisingly, there is no clear winner between browser or app when it comes to iGaming. By all means, keep the above points in mind when choosing your provider. But also, note that other aspects such as reputation, choice of games and payout speed are more important than whether the casino is accessed from an app or via the browser.
