Every app developer most likely wants to create a mobile experience users simply can’t put down or get enough of. Naturally, turning to the ones currently sitting at the top of “most downloaded” lists for inspiration is a great start, as the applications listed there are undoubtedly doing more than one thing right. But there’s another, significantly less obvious resource you can tap for insights. As the title suggests, Canadian casino apps have seemingly figured out exactly how to deliver an app experience that’s irresistible.
Even if the apps you make have nothing at all to do with slots or roulette, there’s still loads you can learn from and use to improve app projects of your own in the future. Let’s go over which apps you should consider looking at for an advantage, and what strategies they use to provide an outstanding, immensely-fun experience to Canadians everywhere.
Competition is fierce and only the best apps thrive in Canada
It’s relatively easy to make a good app in locations where internet penetration is low and local competition is scarce. Canada’s mobile app context isn’t one of those places. Almost everyone in the country has access to both a phone and a stable connection. Many people spend around 4.5 hours on mobile apps of all kinds every day. And last year, Canadians collectively spent more than 19 billion hours on a wide range of applications.
To make it in the Canadian context, a casino app has to be exceptional in every possible way. This is why they’re valuable to examine for clues about what a good app experience looks and feels like. So, which apps are most worth looking at? What exactly should you look for when selecting one for insights and inspiration?
Which casino apps offer the best experiences to learn from?
Your time is valuable, so you probably won’t have any desire to look at, or try out, more than a handful of apps during an educationally-focused deep dive. It can be helpful to look at local ranking sites to sift out the good apps from the less-than ideal ones. One ranking site, Casino.ca lists the best casino apps based on a wide and varied range of things like bonus offers, the speed at which the app pays out and how smooth the general experience is.
The highest-ranking casinos on lists like this will make your job easier, in the same way they can be helpful for gamblers looking for a space offering a great app experience.
According to Casino.ca some of the latest and greatest local Canadian mobile casino options include:
- JackPotCity Casino
- JustCasino
- Spin Casino
- Winzane
What should you look for when selecting a casino app?
Casino apps worth their salt will offer a whole lot more than just a handful of games and a way to pay using a credit card or PayPal. This means there’s a large amount of app features and characteristics to investigate. Here’s a bunch of the most important and meaningful ones to keep an eye out for:
- Gamification elements: Even if you’re making an app that’s about education instead of fun, there’s still room to consider gamification. Take a look at how, and where, a Canadian casino app handles reward systems, social features, achievements, progress bars and loyalty programs.
- The general experience: Casino apps have all but perfected smooth experiences. How they blend graphics and animations with cleverly placed CTA buttons has been carefully and expertly considered. Ask yourself if your app can be laid out in a similar way.
- Monetization: Apps have to make money or they won’t stick around for long. Canadian gaming and casino apps are very good at convincing users to spend through in-app purchases and promotions. In fact, by the end of 2024, the mobile gaming entertainment market in the country could reach $1.19 billion in revenue.
There’s other features to think about like customer support and security. It will no doubt be more difficult to test out exactly how these features work in detail just from a casual browse around a casino app. But even surface-level observations can give you some good ideas to build your own app from. Keep in mind that full-on copying is not the aim of this exercise. Unless of course you’re actually planning to make a casino app of your own. The goal is actually to simply see what’s working, explore how the good elements of the app work together, and brainstorm whether any winning features could be useful for your ideas and development process.
A good casino app experience hinges on engagement
Applications anywhere, and about anything, do better when they hook their users and convince them to spend more time using the app. Canadian casino apps that make it to the tops of download lists, and stay there, use more than one strategy to encourage users to spend time with them over big social media giants like TikTok, X or Meta’s Threads.
More often than not, they’re following many of the same best practices TikTok creators use to boost engagement, which is usually a good enough strategy. How they implement their rewards systems and social features differ a great deal from the norm though, making them interesting case studies for developers hungry to innovate and do something new. Instead of burning a gambler out or encouraging them to behave irresponsibly, the apps they visit will incentivize small doses of use over weeks and months through tiny rewards systems and limited daily offers like free spins.
When it comes down to it, the same things that excite and engage mobile gamblers for extended periods of time should be exciting for app developers, too. As long as you’re putting the experience first and making it as polished as it can possibly be, the way Canadian casino apps do, your app should find some kind of success pretty quickly.