Show everything you have, or show what matters when it matters?
Every casino wants to offer its players as many games and ways to have fun as possible. But having so many games brings a challenge: how do you choose what to play?
The homepage
Who decides what players see first?
A new promotion needs a banner, a provider wants its launch featured, and the CRM team has a tournament to promote. There is usually a reasonable explanation for each addition, so each one gets a place on the homepage.
Then another campaign arrives, along with a category and a loyalty feature that also need space. Before long, the homepage tells you a lot about what the company wants to promote and very little about where a player should start.
Having a large catalogue can be a strength. But when every addition needs to be seen first, the player has to work out which of these competing messages and routes is relevant to them.
Chapter 1 Choosing under pressure
Finding a game should be the easy part
For the player, those additions become things to compare, interpret or get past. Gambling is entertainment. If getting to a game means comparing banners, decoding category names and dismissing messages, the product is asking a lot before anything has started.
Let's try it from the player's side. In the game below, you'll look for the same title in two different lobbies. Notice what helps you find it and what gets in the way.
Find Namar's Vault.
Find Namar's Vault in two different lobbies.
How long will each one take?
Round 1 of 2
Find Namar's Vault
Lobby A 18 games
Find Namar's Vault.
Round 1 complete
Found it.
0.0 s0 wrong picks
Lobby B 6 games
Find Namar's Vault.
Your results
Lobby A 18 games
0.0 s0 wrong picks
Lobby B 6 games
0.0 s0 wrong picks
It is tempting to judge a journey by its number of clicks. But a single screen can take more effort than two if it leaves you comparing everything at once. A clear category or a useful filter can add a step and still make the game easier to find.
A large catalogue still needs clear navigation
Adding a provider gives people more games to choose from. Adding another row or banner changes how they get to those games. Those are separate decisions, and a bigger catalogue does not automatically need more competing entrances on the homepage.
Search, favourites, recent play and categories can all be useful. The question is whether each route helps someone do something different, and whether it is easy to recognise when they need it. To answer that, we need more than a reason for putting it there.
Chapter 2 The assumptions behind the page
"The player might want it" is not enough
In almost every online casino I review, players are given dozens of ways to reach a game: homepage banners, category rows, provider filters, search, favourites and recently played. The company can usually explain why each one is there. That does not tell us whether players find it useful.
A returning player might simply be looking for yesterday's game, while the homepage is busy presenting everything the business wants them to see. Without looking at how people use the page, it is easy to mistake an internal priority for a player need.
The business
- Acquisition
"Put the welcome offer first."
- CRM
"People need to see the tournament."
- Casino
"The new provider needs a spot."
- Commercial
"We promised this jackpot placement."
- Retention
"Let's promote the loyalty programme."
- Payments
"Make the payment methods visible."
The player
Where's the game
I played yesterday?
"The player might want it" is hard to argue with when we have no evidence either way. So another category, banner or shortcut stays, and the next one gets added beside it. Each decision seems small; together, they give the player more options to assess before reaching a game.
Chapter 3 Decision load
The familiar Netflix moment.
The result can feel a lot like opening Netflix to watch something and ending up scrolling through row after row. There is more than enough to watch, yet choosing takes longer than expected. Casino lobbies can create a similar experience when each new route adds another decision without helping someone work out where to begin.
More choice is not always harder. Someone who knows exactly what they want may only need search. Someone browsing needs to understand the differences between the options. Familiarity, how the choices are presented and what the person came to do all matter.
Why the number of choices matters
The Hick-Hyman law relates the number of plausible choices to decision time. It is a useful way to think about the work an interface asks of someone, although it cannot tell us which casino feature to remove or predict an improvement in conversion.
Hick-Hyman law
Example scenario
The curve rises logarithmically: each extra option adds less time than the previous one. These example coefficients show the model's shape, not a universal timing rule.
RT = a + b log2(n + 1)
About the law
- RT
- Modelled choice time in this scenario, not a complete casino browsing session.
- n
- Number of equally likely options. This is what the slider changes.
- a
- Hypothetical baseline time: 2 seconds.
- b
- Hypothetical time per bit of information: 1.3 seconds.
Example coefficients, not measured casino data. The model does not include the full browsing, visual search or comparison process.
Chapter 4 The meaning behind the label
Do more categories make choosing easier?
A category like Top Games can be a useful starting point when someone is browsing a large catalogue. It gives them a smaller selection to explore without having to work through everything.
A category can get in the way because its name is unclear, or because it seems to offer the same thing as another category. A name like Hot Games may leave a player guessing whether it means popular games, games with recent big wins or something else.
When Top Games, Selected and Most Played sit next to each other without a clear difference between them, they can make that choice harder. The team may know why each row is there, while the player sees three groups of games with no obvious difference. Now they have to choose where to look before they can choose what to play.
Let's see how those names read without the rules behind them. In the game below, choose what you would expect each category to contain. At the end, you'll see which names you gave the same meaning and which left you unsure.
Let's play a game.
What do these five category names mean to you?
Pick an answer for each. We'll compare them at the end.
"Top Games"
What would you expect to find here?
0names overlap
Your answers do not tell us whether a category is right or wrong. They show where a name leaves its meaning unclear, or where different names suggest the same selection. The player needs to know what to expect from a category and, when several sit together, why they would choose one over another.
For someone exploring the catalogue, a useful selection can be a good place to start. For someone coming back to yesterday's game, it may be something to scroll past. The category can stay useful without needing to be the first thing every player sees.
Chapter 5 Different reasons to visit
The same homepage, different expectations
A first-time visitor may be checking the offer and deciding whether to trust the casino. A returning player may already have a game in mind. Someone coming from a campaign expects to find the offer they clicked. Giving them the same first screen means some of them have to search past information meant for someone else.
These are different situations, rather than fixed types of people. The same player might be exploring today and looking for a familiar game tomorrow. What matters is what they need on this visit.
Question: Can I trust this place?
Help someone get their bearings.
Someone visiting for the first time may want to understand the offer, check the terms and see which payment methods are available before exploring the games.
- 01Welcome offer and terms
- 02Trust and payment signals
- 03A clear way to browse
Question: Can I continue quickly?
Make the familiar game easy to find.
A player coming back may already have a game in mind. Recent play, favourites and search give them a direct route without making them browse the homepage again.
- 01Continue playing
- 02Favourites and search
- 03Relevant live offers
Question: Is this the offer I expected?
Show the offer they clicked on.
Someone arriving from a campaign expects to find that offer, its terms and how to use it. If they land on a generic homepage, they have to start looking for it again.
- 01Campaign match
- 02Eligibility and terms
- 03The promised next step
Thinking about these situations helps us decide what might deserve priority. But expecting a returning player to use recent play is not the same as knowing that they do. The next step is to follow how people actually move through the product.
Chapter 6 Following the actual journey
Which routes do players actually use?
A returning player may go straight to recent play, search for a title or browse a provider they know. Someone exploring might start with a category, while a campaign visitor could follow the offer before looking for a game. These are possibilities to investigate, not routes we can assign to people just because they belong to a group.
A click alone tells us very little about that journey. Did the player find what they wanted, try another route or leave before launching a game? Looking at the sequence helps us understand whether an entry point makes the game easier to reach or simply adds another stop.
10% of modules drive 90 of 100 actions.
If most players reach a game through a few familiar routes, giving every entry point equal prominence can make those routes harder to find. The 10/90 split illustrates the principle; the exact ratio varies by product.
What I would look for in the data
- Do players reach a game through search, recent play, categories or banners?
- Which routes do new and returning players use differently?
- Where do players switch paths, go back or leave before launching a game?
- Which entry points offer a useful route, and which repeat one already there?
This gives us a better basis for deciding what belongs on the first screen. A route that helps people reach a game deserves a different place from one they keep abandoning, or one that repeats a route already there. We can keep the catalogue and the features without giving every entrance equal prominence.
Before adding something to the homepage
- 01Who needs it?
Be specific about the visitor and what they came to do.
- 02What does it help them do?
A placement commitment explains the business request. It does not explain how the player will use it.
- 03Does it need to be on the first screen?
Some things need to be visible immediately. Others just need to be easy to find.
- 04How do people use it now?
Look at search, recent play and the paths people take before launching a game or leaving.
- 05What moves down to make room?
Adding a prominent item also makes the existing items less prominent.
- 06What result would justify the change?
Decide what to measure before changing the page.
What would you put first?
A player is back for another visit. Choose what they see first, what stays within reach, and what can wait. There is room for four items on the first screen.
Two of four show-now slots are in use.
Show now
Continue playing, Search
Easy to find
Welcome offer, Payment methods, Top Games, Loyalty
Later
Selected Games, Most Played, Tournaments
A final checklist for your casino homepage
Building a useful homepage means understanding what players came to do and checking those assumptions against how they actually use the product. Data can show us where they struggle; talking to players helps us understand why. With that understanding, we can make decisions that support player needs and business goals together, instead of giving every new request a place on the first screen.
Here's a checklist to help you put that into practice when building or reviewing your casino homepage.
- Review what is on the homepage. For each banner, row and shortcut, identify the player need it serves alongside the business reason for its placement.
- Follow the routes to a game. Look at search, recent play, categories and banners. Track where people reach a game, switch paths or leave.
- Make categories understandable and distinct. Clarify names that leave people guessing. Merge overlapping categories or make their differences visible.
- Set priorities for the visit. Give new, returning and campaign visitors a starting point suited to what they came to do. Check those assumptions against their behaviour.
- Keep the rest within reach. Make secondary features easy to find without asking every banner, category and shortcut to compete on the first screen.
- Check what the change achieved. Look for more direct routes to the intended game and fewer abandoned journeys, rather than judging the page by clicks alone.
Now Contentsquare