If you’ve ever had the privilege of travelling to Asia, it’ll come as no surprise to you that their generally different view on pretty much everything in that part of the world even permeates spheres such as online casino game preferences. While mainland China prohibits gambling, visit any casino in other parts of Asia or perhaps in Macao, and you’ll find a lot of Chinese people trying their luck.
China is mentioned because of its huge population, but it seems to be a regional (continental) favourite pastime, that of gambling, and so when the opportunity arises many Asians are only too happy to participate. This includes online gambling as well, but this is where it becomes apparent that it’s about more than just pure luck. Sure, luck does indeed have a lot to do with it, but the top three online casino games synonymous with the Asian region paint a totally different picture to that of casino favourites in Europe, the Americas, and Africa.
Asians tend to gravitate towards those online casino games that are based on traditional games they grew up playing as part of their popular and entertainment culture, with three distinct games coming into focus. These include Mahjong, Pachinko, and Keno. Of course given how the traditional versions of these games are and have been played, they would likely be subject to some adaptations for the online casino gaming environment.
Mahjong
Mahjong resembles the dominoes-based equivalent of poker, particularly Texas Hold’em, or perhaps in fact Blackjack if we’re to think beyond poker and draw even closer parallels. The game’s outcome depends on how good of a hand you have as the player in comparison to the dealer’s hand. So we can perhaps definitely compare it more closely with Blackjack than any variation of poker…
Pachinko
Pachinko is where the stark difference in online casino gaming preferences is at its most apparent, because it’s not a game likely to be played by Westerners in an online betting situation, if at all. It’s extremely popular among Asian online gamers, perhaps most closely resembling a pinball machine.
Pachinko is more of a luck-based game than the element of skill apparent in Mahjong, albeit both are indeed heavily influenced by the luck factor synonymous with pretty much every online casino game.
The player shoots a ball in a specific direction, where it’ll fall into one of a selection holes. Slot machine-like reels then spin to reveal how much the player may have won based on the matching criterion.
Keno
Just as is the case with what the West knows as Bingo, Keno is the Chinese-invented equivalent in that it’s a game based on cards with numbers on them.
20 numbers are selected by players and then the Keno machine proceeds to draw a set of 15 numbers. Different risk-percentages come with the different types of betting options available, but the objective is to match as many numbers between those of the player and the machine, with a higher matching set naturally equating to higher winnings.
All three of these games can make for some real fun when played over online casino platforms.
