LET ME ENTAIN YOU
LET ME ENTAIN YOU
Working in the gaming industry is many a teenager’s idea of heaven but it’s not quite as simple as it looks. In an industry sprawling across the globe there are a daunting number of regulations with which to comply and customers to satisfy at a time of constant technological change.
Steve Degiorgio, Director of gGaming Revenue, Nordics and Baltics, at Entain Group, one of the world’s largest sports betting and gaming groups, has the enviable but also challenging task of driving long-term growth in a successful business in these regions but also into other markets.
He describes himself as a person who’s very passionate about delivering a successful result to both the business and its clients alike.
He began his career in online gaming, just shy of 15 years ago but his roots in the industry lie within the glitzy world of VIP management, where as a VIP host, his role was to build strong, long-lasting relationships with customers.
The landscape of course back then was an entirely different one. No less interesting than today, but different. He then moved over to player retention as a whole aiming to apply that same knowledge and experience gained within VIP to the entire player base, both of which he says were fantastic experiences spanning quite a few years. He currently works on the commercial side of the business and is involved with revenue and third-party partnerships.
Steve has now been in the gaming industry long enough to be sure Entain’s path ahead must be plotted carefully.
ENTAIN PROJECT DIRECTED BY: JESS COLLINS
ARTICLE WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE LAFFERTY
ENTAIN
“The key for us is long-term sustainable revenue, in order to ensure continuous development and evolution of a successful business,” he says.
This means the group eschews anything that might lead to player burnout or irresponsible gambling, all the while emphasising safety and security for players. Degiorgio stresses that vital to every strategy Entain deploys is its duty of care to players and customers.
“At Entain we are leaders in responsible gambling, social responsibility and player protection practices,” Degiorgio emphasises, adding: “Not only because these are important values but because we truly believe in providing our audiences with an offering which is not only innovative and entertaining but above all offered within a safe environment for all our players to enjoy.”
It is these values that make for the most vital of backbones for any commercial enterprise, the loyal customer base. It’s a relationship of mutual interdependence. Entain looks after the customers and the customers look after Entain.
Degiorgio says: “With my roots in VIP management, I always carry that mantra with me that everything that is being created should be done with the end user’s satisfaction in mind. And I believe this way of thinking has shaped me as a manager.”
This is a time when, Degiorgio notes, so much customer engagement takes place online via game recommendation engines and player portals and the centrality of customer experience is core to Entain’s vision. To that end it frequently surveys customers about its products and services. It also holds focus groups in which different demographic groups are quizzed on what the company is doing well and not so well and where it can improve.
No less important to Entain’s offering is technology, which is steadily building up the gaming landscape of tomorrow.
Degiorgio says: “Gamification extends far beyond just aesthetic engagement; I think it begins with mechanics before aesthetics.”
He adds: “We’ve got lots of machine learning which goes on into our systems learning and adapting from players’ behaviours as well to ensure that we are providing them with a relevant offering so everything is built around their needs and I’m sure there’s a lot more for this to develop as well in the future.”
Interactivity for Entain’s customers and their real time gaming experience is at the heart of the service it provides today’s tech savvy consumers. As players are constantly directly and indirectly interacting with the system, all while keeping track of their progress in real time, the Entain universe and its customers make for a hive of rapid continuous leisure activity.
This generates an infectious buzz among those who work for Entain, Degiorgio feels.
He says: “There is this hunger amongst people in the industry always to develop something better and it’s really exciting to be a part of that and I mean, also on that subject, never in my opinion has there been a time more than at present when user experience and UI are such
EXPLORE GLITTERING WINS IN FORTUNE ROULETTE
Our new Live Casino game show is set to deliver multipliers on inside bets, a thrilling slots bonus game, and epic wins of up to 9,000x!
PRAGMATIC PLAY Delivering unrivalled gaming experiences
Pragmatic Play is a leading supplier of iGaming content. Our extensive and multi-award-winning portfolio includes slots, live casino, crash games, virtual sports, bingo, and sportsbook, available in all major regulated markets, languages, and currencies. Delivering premium products at pace and scale, we put the experience of players and partners at the heart of everything we do.
Supercharged slots
Offering more than 500 diverse slots, we release around nine new games every month, not counting operator and country exclusives. Our aim is to deliver different, more varied gaming experiences to all player segments, regularly introducing new concepts and mechanics while expanding popular game franchises.
Pragmatic Play is also home to some of the most popular and celebrated slots in the industry. Gates of Olympus, Sweet Bonanza, Sugar Rush, and the iconic Big Bass and The Dog House series are names which millions of players across the globe know and love. And to illustrate our emphasis on elevating the player experience, we are taking some of our most popular games of all time and making them even bigger and better.
bigger 1,000x max multipliers to fanfavourite titles: Starlight Princess 1000, Gates of Olympus 1000, Sugar Rush 1000, Sweet Bonanza 1000, and most recently Wisdom of Athena 1000. The original titles remain popular to this day, but it’s the supercharged special editions that take the experience up a gear, offering significantly greater win potential – up to five times greater, in fact, in the case of Sugar Rush 1000 and its 25,000x max win.
The 1000 series of slots is about giving players much more of what they already love.
Powering up new possibilities of play in live casino
We put on a fantastic show in live casino – and we’re making it even better. Pragmatic Play offers an outstanding selection of traditional table games and original game shows. Our strategy to twist, transform, and elevate content ensures that we deliver unique gaming experiences to players. We supply exceptionally well-crafted products that are designed to attract and retain all audiences, from novice and casual players to more experienced high rollers.
EXPLORE GLITTERING WINS IN FORTUNE ROULETTE
Our supercharged ‘1000’ range adds
Alongside traditional favourites such as Baccarat, Blackjack, and Roulette, for which we regularly add new tables, we provide exciting variants
Our new Live Casino game show is set to deliver multipliers on inside bets, a thrilling slots bonus game, and epic wins of up to 9,000x!
such as Blackjack X and Auto Mega Roulette, both of which are played without a live dealer. Our Privé Lounge range offers the ultimate VIP live experience, and the recently released Bet Behind Pro Blackjack is a market first, seating only bots at the table –this means that a potentially unlimited number of players can join the game and bet behind them.
We are also fully focused on enhancing and expanding our range of thrilling game shows. Designed to offer unique gameplay and unrivalled entertainment, these include popular and immersive titles such as Mega Roulette, Sweet Bonanza CandyLand, and Mega Wheel.
Sports betting, crash games, promotions, and more
Pragmatic Play offers much more than award-winning slots and live casino content. In addition to a growing range of bingo and virtual sports games, we have expanded our new sportsbook offering to include horse racing and football player markets – this after going live in Spain, Germany, and the UK via DAZN Bet.
We also recently launched our third crash game, High Flyer, which brings dual bet spots and multipliers of up to 1,000,000x to this growing niche sector.
In live casino, we complement an ever-growing range of premium products with support for dedicated studios, giving some of the biggest operators the chance to create and host their own physical live casino environments. As this isn’t a viable option for all operators, we developed Smart Studio, which uses advanced technology to provide a faster, more cost-effective way to brand
and customise elements of the live products.
We also boost existing games with Drops & Wins, the largest providerfunded prize pool in the industry. Offering €2,000,000 a month in daily prize drops and tournaments across a growing selection of player-favourite slots, Drops & Wins is celebrating five years of bringing additional rewards to players.
Pragmatic Play backs up an outstanding product portfolio with exceptional service. Seamless onboarding and integrations, aboveand-beyond account management, extensive promotional tools, roundthe-clock support, multi-language translations, competitions and giveaways, social tournaments, exclusive brand partnerships, exciting operator events – for Pragmatic Play, the list is endless.
Next up
Pragmatic Play will continue to deliver fantastic new products and promotions. Seasonal and supercharged slots on the horizon include Might of Freya Megaways™ and Gates of Olympus Xmas 1000 –the latest addition to our 1000 series. Upcoming promotions include Holiday Rush, which offers a prize pool of €2,500,000 over the festive period. And we are gearing up for the launch of Fortune Roulette, our glittering new live casino game show that will offer up to six Fortune Multipliers in every round, an additional Chest feature boost, multipliers on inside bets, and the chance to enter a thrilling slots bonus game. Fortune Roulette will be awarding wins of up to 9,000x when it launches in January 2025.
Prepare for our latest scintillating twist on classic live roulette. pragmaticplay.com
crucial driving forces within this sector especially as an operator.”
Gaming is a universal leisure activity but that brings with it a new set of challenges as the sector has to operate within a multiplicity of different jurisdictions with multiple different regulations and consumer needs. Entain has to be nimble in adapting to these challenges with a range of strategies to retain customers.
Aside from adhering strictly to the regulations implemented by the individual regulators of each market in which it operates, key for Entain has been maintaining a level of flexibility within each market. Degiorgio has learned that what the company builds and develops for one market will not necessarily have the same impact in another.
“We retain that level of flexibility within our offering, which allows us to target specific markets independently whilst, of course, always being compliant within each jurisdiction in which we operate.”
As an international business not only does Entain have to take into account the full range of regulations governing its industry across the globe but with a vast customer base it also has to perform an adept juggling of differences in player needs and desires. Degiorgio has put a lot of thought into the things that motivate players and what they want to get out of their gaming experience. It’s serving the company well
www.entaingroup.com
