Share
Cloud technology is a cornerstone of the online casino and sports betting industry, but it poses a significant risk to our planet. Your online gambling app may not seem too much of a burden on your phone’s battery, but the bulk of the power use is happening behind the scenes on distant servers.
Online casino players should be aware of the environmental impact of these apps. There are steps the industry could take to limit that harm, but it might need a push to take them.
Environmental impacts of online gaming
For online gaming, measuring the environmental impact depends on many factors like what kinds of energy are used, what devices are part of the game, and the suitability of the systems supporting the play. There isn’t much scholarship on the specific matter but there are logical comparisons.
In November 2020, a CarbonBrief analysis suggested that one hour of streaming video produces 36gCO2 (36 grams of carbon dioxide). The hardware and software used in online casino platforms is similar.
A comparison to traveling in a motor vehicle provides a clearer picture of the effects of online gambling on the environment. This is also a good comparison because like with such vehicles, many factors can decrease or increase the emissions involved.
A 2022 study in the Journal of Cleaner Production estimated that a motor vehicle with a combustion engine running on gasoline emits 226gCO2 per kilometer. Thus, these data suggest that playing online slots for an hour is comparable to driving such a vehicle 160 meters in terms of CO2 emissions.
That impact can diminish. Reduction begins with the systems making online casino games available.
Online gaming’s heavy utilization of cloud computing
Operating online casino platforms and services for the operators via the cloud is essentially standard for modern online gaming. Basically, when you open an online casino app, that app is running not on a server that the casino maintains and owns but is using infrastructure that the gaming company is “renting” from a third party.
Cloud computing can help online gambling providers and vendors to control costs and ensure they benefit from the latest technology. For example, the service cost can represent a savings compared to online gambling companies employing staff to maintain servers.
There are criticisms, however. Many of those criticisms involve the growing cost of cloud computing for the environment.
Impact of cloud computing
Concerns about the environmental impact of cloud computing involve carbon emissions and resource consumption. In 2022, Climatiq estimated that nearly 4% of all global greenhouse gas emissions were due to cloud computing.
To put that into perspective, Climatiq said that even the low end of its estimates of emissions from cloud computing was more than what it estimated global aviation to have produced. That seems to have only grown, as Amazon recently reported a 19% year-over-year increase in sales for its cloud division, Amazon Web Services.
Hilary Schmidt described the problem for International Banker in July 2024:
“Indeed, it has become impossible to ignore the increasingly imposing environmental footprints of cloud solutions and data centres, especially given the hugely energy-intensive nature of running servers, the substantial volumes of water needed to keep their machines cool, the refrigerants they consume, the vast areas of land they occupy and the significant e-waste (such as discarded electronic equipment) that is generated.”
Online gambling companies do have the power to select the cloud services doing their best to offer options in the most environmentally sustainable ways. Their part in the remediation of the impact of online gaming is bigger than that choice, though.
Optimizing online casino platforms for the cloud
As every facet of cloud computing contributes to the environmental impact, solutions to diminish that impact must involve each component. That’s where online casino operators and other companies involved in the gaming industry can participate.
In a May 2024 analysis for InfoWorld, David Linthicum described how consumers’ usage of cloud resources is an integral part of making cloud computing sustainable:
“To fix that (systems like online casino platforms using more resources than they need), you’ll have to modernize the applications and databases so they are fully optimized on the cloud platforms where they reside. This is not cheap, so most enterprises choose to run them as is, paying for the inefficiencies rather than fixing the systems in the cloud.”
Cloud providers are pushing to make more use of renewable energy but to get the full benefit, online gaming providers need to ensure that their systems are running as efficiently as possible. In doing so, they will spend some green, but make their apps and websites greener.
Players can contribute to solutions instead of the problem as well.
How users can make their online casino play greener
Players have little control over what cloud services the operators of their favorite online casino brands use, what energy sources those cloud services deploy, or whether the gambling companies’ apps are running lean in the cloud. Regardless, there are still actions that can reduce environmental impacts instead of contributing to them.
Linthicum did a stellar job of summarizing the contributions players can make to solutions.
“We’re all guilty. Most of us store more data than we realize on our systems or our respective cloud and social media services. It keeps growing, and all this storage and data processing requires a huge amount of power.”
Tailoring recommendations from UNICEF for online casino players creates suggestions like:
- Delete correspondence from online gambling companies in your email as soon as you have reviewed them
- Ensure your device’s software is up to date
- Keep the device you play on instead of replacing it frequently
- Perform file maintenance to minimize cloud storage
- Reduce the energy consumption of your device by unplugging it when it’s charged, powering it off when you are not using it, and using wired chargers instead of wireless
There is no cheap, easy, or monolithic solution to the environmental issues that online gambling in the cloud presents. With cooperation and investment from all parties, however, it is possible to make more green the fun of trying to win some green.
