With the online gambling market set to reach $59.79 billion in worldwide revenue this year, expanding globally is a more tempting prospect than ever. Brands that successfully create multilingual platforms can tap into a global market with a potential audience of 1.6 million people who gamble on a regular basis.
Creating a multilingual gaming platform is no easy task, though. Translating casino games for international markets is a serious challenge with costly mistakes lurking around every corner. So, in this article, we look at seven casino translation mistakes you need to avoid along the path to success.
Casino translation mistakes to avoid
The best thing you can do for any casino translation project is to hire a language company with proven experience in working with brands like yours. As you will see from the list below, there are unique hurdles that come with building a multilingual gaming platform and it takes the right expertise to overcome them.
- Falling short on research: Quality research should guide every translation decision and allow you to make the right choice with confidence.
- Using the wrong tools: Or even misusing the right tools (e.g.: automation translation) can cause more problems than it fixes.
- Compromising with translation quality: Cutting corners and choosing quick fixes will lead to costly problems further down the line.
- Inconsistency: Translation quality, brand voice, tone and messaging should be consistent across every language.
- Overlooking UX: It doesn’t matter how good your translations are if you fail to deliver them through positive, engaging experiences.
- Marketing misfires: Multilingual casinos and games need the right multilingual marketing campaigns to attract and retain users.
- Failing on multilingual customer service: To maximise customer lifetime value, you have to deliver excellent customer service when it matters most – in every language.
Translating individual games is only a small (but crucial) part of building a multilingual online gambling platform. To make things work, you have to translate every aspect of your brand and adapt to local markets to capture the right audiences and keep them engaged with your platform.
Casino translation is a process
To overcome all of the complexities of translating an online gambling platform, you need to have the right process in place. As the list above suggests, this starts with adequate research and planning, ensuring you have all the necessary tools available, building the right team and knowing which challenges you need to overcome, every step of the way.
You don’t want to find out halfway through your project, for example, that one of your target languages does not fit into some of your game interfaces because the translated text is significantly longer than anticipated.
Avoiding this type of mistakes requires the right level of experience and expertise with specific knowledge about the inherent challenges of translating casino games, platforms and brands. This is why it always pays to work with a specialist language company that has a proven process already in place – something that can always be adapted to suit the unique needs of your business, when necessary.