When you enter a casino building, the cacophony of sounds is often the first thing you notice. The bleeps and ringing of the slot machines, the music piped through the room, and the catchphrases of the dealers all form the soundtrack of a memorable Las Vegas experience. But what about when you enter a digital casino?
How we experience sound in digital environments is an important question, especially as ever-more spheres of everyday life continue to take place online. Online casinos are an interesting case study here since they offer us a window into how industries can use sound to convey an immersive and authentic experience for digital users. With that in mind, let’s look at some of the genres of music that you can expect when playing an online casino.
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Classic Jingles and Theme Tunes
Some of the most popular real-money games these days are based directly on real-life TV shows and are usually licensed by the shows themselves. Let’s take a look at the bingo games at Paddy Power, for example. Here you’ll find online bingo and slot games based on the likes of Deal or No Deal, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and Britain’s Got Talent. All of these games use the same theme tune and official music from the original TV shows, creating a powerful association for fans of the shows and giving them a reason to play.
Casino Sound Simulacra
Many casino games seek to replicate the “classic” experience of being in a land-based casino through their games. When playing online slots based on old-school fruit machines as per Britannica, you will often find that the soundtrack to the game features the same retro bells and chiptunes that those classic machines used to play.
Some games even go further, including typical casino background noise and conversation in their soundtracks, to make online users feel exactly like they are in a Las Vegas casino. Meanwhile, there are live casino games that let people play poker or blackjack with a real-life dealer, connected to them through a live-stream video uplink. In these cases, the studio that the dealer is broadcasting from will often feature carefully-curated casino background noise, to make the experience as immersive as possible.
Hit Pop Songs
It’s not just TV and game shows that are branching out into the online casino realm. Many of the world’s most well-known music acts now also have official branded slot games in their name. There are official slots for the likes of Madonna, KISS, Motörhead, Guns N’ Roses, and more. All of these feature snippets of these artists’ greatest hits as per RollingStone, providing an epic soundtrack for any fans who might be playing the game. The use of their music is often the main draw for players of these branded slots, as it offers a novel way to engage with their favorite artists of all time.
The music of online casinos offers an insight into the creative ways that companies can create authentic online experiences for the digital age. We’ll see if other industries follow suit.
