What can Florida’s casinos learn from their Nordic counterparts?

by Nick James

Casinos are something that have always been associated with the Southern U.S., aside from Las Vegas of course.

However, many don’t know that Florida is also a big hub for wagering enthusiasts. Most people don’t realize that they can gamble while enjoying the beach, instead of gambling while melting in the desert.

Despite the heat that both Nevada and Florida suffer, they’re still a hotspot in most cases for U.S. players. But comparing the regulations that the state of Florida has to other jurisdictions in the Nordic countries, they’re massively underperforming.

So, what are casinos in countries like Norway and Sweden doing better when compared to Florida? Let’s find out.

When it comes to restrictions and regulations, Florida and most Nordic countries, especially Norway, have a lot in common.

For one, both of these jurisdictions have a monopoly on their hands and don’t seem to be bothered by it in any way. Much like Indian Reserves are the only companies verified for providing gambling services to the locals, something similar may be said about Norwegian state-owned companies.

Both countries are overlooking monopolies in one of the most lucrative sectors, and aren’t even batting an eye, but when it comes to entrepreneurship, the Norwegians managed to come out ahead.

The Norwegian Advantage

The first advantage that Norwegians have is the large population of Europe, which Florida simply doesn’t have access to, but that is beside the point.
The other advantage is that most Norwegian casinos operate online, as offline is restricted to only state-owned enterprises.

This allows them to cover much more ground and not inconvenience visitors from taking long trips from their homes just to visit the casino. Unfortunately, this also inhibits the Florida-based venues, because they simply cannot open an online platform due to regulations and restrictions. However, there is one additional advantage that they could use.

Most of the Nordic countries have a thing called deposit bonuses. These may be familiar to you from financial markets and they work pretty much the same way. It has been known that the vast majority of the Norwegian casino bonuses operate pretty much like regular bonuses elsewhere. You make a deposit and you get around 100 percent of it as additional money to use for bets.

This feature was heavily marketed by Nordic casinos in order to drive much better traffic to their websites. For Florida-based casinos, this would be a great feature to introduce for players yearning for high-risk and high-reward games.

Due to already existing restrictions on the maximum bettable amount in Florida, the 100 percent deposit bonus would allow the players to participate in some of the most entertaining games and drive the profitability even higher.

Furthermore, it won’t be a loss for the casino, because in the case the customer is simply unlucky, they get their money back.

In essence, this is a marketing stunt rather than an attempt to drive sales even higher. Introducing this feature is going to increase brand recognition and help Florida’s casinos drive a lot more traffic from various other states.

No longer will New-Yorkers have to go all the way across the country in order to visit Vegas. They’ll have an even better casino choice down South.