Operators, suppliers & affiliates discuss what it takes for European firms to succeed stateside From Vegas penny slots to advertising in India, our columnists deliver We run through the victors at the Global Gaming Awards Asia COMING TOassessesAMERICAthepast,futureandpresent of live gaming WINNERS REVEALED
Grover Ho Grover.Ho@gamblinginsider.comTel:+44(0)2034355628
DESIGN ASSISTANTS
COO, EDITOR IN CHIEF
ALEXIA SMILOVIC RØNDE Relax Gaming, Chief Regulatory O cer
COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR
STAFF WRITERS
Peter Lynch Peter.Lynch@gamblinginsider.com Matthew Nicholson Matthew.Nicholson@gamblinginsider.com
JUNIOR STAFF WRITER Louis Thompsett Louis.Thompsett@gamblinginsider.com
ADVERTISING SALES EXECUTIVE - U.S. Ariel Greenberg Ariel.Greenberg@playerspublishing.comTel:+1.7028339581
Clive Waite Clive.Waite@gamblinginsider.comTel:+44(0)2077290643
t is that time of the year again: network time, pitch time, partnership time and maybe even M&A time. I'll stop short of saying party time á la Joey Tribbiani. Although, I'm sure plenty of our readers will grace the industry networking scene at G2E Las Vegas – or any other show you're attending over the next few months.
It's a wide-reaching topic, so we've provided as comprehensive an outlook as we can on the European firms looking to tackle the North American market in the coming months and years: how the market will pan out, the pitfalls to avoid and more.
With so much of our sector heading to Las Vegas for the trade show, there is of course a much larger migration to Las Vegas and the wider North American market in progress, on an industry-wide scale. That's why our main theme for the September/ October edition is Coming to America, addressing this migration from a 360-degree viewpoint: the supply side, the operator view and the a liate take.
On our cover, Interblock Global CEO John Connelly is symbolically welcoming you to G2E and the American market. In our exclusive interview with the industry veteran (page 32), he talks us through how Interblock went from a European table game supplier to a global company with a US hub. Joining him are suppliers Yggdrasil, BetConstruct, Relax Gaming and Kambi (page 36), operators Betfred (page 40) and Kindred Group (page 46), consultancy Fast O shore (page 48) and a liate BestOdds (page 50).
DESIGNERS
Radostina Mihaylova, Svetlana Stoyanova, Gabriela Baleva
CREDIT WITHRachelMANAGERVoitTHANKSTO: John Connelly, Alexia Smilovic Rønde, David Bretnitz, Björn Krantz, BetConstruct US team, Stephen Crystal, Liv Biesemans, Ron Mendelson, Will Armitage, Bill Miller, Korbi Carrison, Jeevan Jeyaratnam, David Bonnefous, Dean Nicolls, Je Millar, Yury Ermantraut, Simeon Hristov, Irina Cornides, Lee Richardson, Clive Cottrell, Anne Hay, Leighton Webb, Ranjana Adhikari, Gustaf Hoffstedt, Rob Ziems, Matthew Kelemen, Hamza A , Martin Cheek, Dr Joerg Hofmann
ACCOUNT MANAGERS William Aderele William.Aderele@gamblinginsider.comTel:+44(0)2077392062
JEFF MILLAR Evolution, Commercial Director North America
MARKETING & EVENTS MANAGER
Earlier in the magazine, we celebrate the winners of our inaugural Global Gaming Awards Asia (page 28), with the Global Gaming Awards Las Vegas also set to take place during G2E week. Asia's growth is not lost on this particular Editor so, while we have a heavy US focus in this issue, expect more on the Asia-Paci c region in the November/ December edition of the magazine.
EDITOR’S LETTER
Elsewhere in the issue, I'd like to single out industry experts Gustaf Ho stedt (page 82) and Alex Czajkowski (page 83) for their best articles yet; the former arguing against state-run gambling companies, the latter arguing in favour of penny slots in Las Vegas.
Mariya Savova
Julian Perry
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Michelle Pugh Michelle@GlobalGamingAwards.comTel:+44(0)2077395768
Deepak Malkani Deepak.Malkani@gamblinginsider.comTel:+44(0)2077296279
SENIOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER - U.S. Aaron Harvey Aaron.Harvey@playerspublishing.comTel:+17024257818
Fantini Research, GBGC, Enrico Bradamante,
TP, Editor
EDITOR
Julian Perry, COO, Editor in Chief
Tom Powling
I
Olesya Adamska, Christian Quiling
Tim Poole Tim.Poole@gamblinginsider.com
SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER Michael Juqula Michael.Juqula@gamblinginsider.comTel:+44(0)2034870498
Dr Joerg Hofmann rounds o the magazine in our Final Word section (page 98) with a – hopefully promising in the long term – regulatory update in Germany. We also have a Product Review section packed with land-based o erings (page 90), and a UK horseracing section featuring industry veterans Lee Richardson (page 72) and Clive Cottrell (page 74). While we hope you enjoy G2E, we know you'll enjoy reading!
LEAD DESIGNER Brendan Morrell
FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION ASSISTANT Julia Olivan
Gambling Insider magazine ISSN 2043-9466Produced and published by Players Publishing Ltd All material is strictly copyrighted and all rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is forbidden. Every care is taken in compiling the contents of Gambling Insider but we assume no responsibility for the e ects arising therefrom. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher.
Tim Poole, Editor
IT MANAGER
FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE
32 Coming to America
LIV BIESEMANS IRINA CORNIDES
AWARDSGAMINGGLOBAL
46 Uniting fragmenteda market
08 Facing Facts
12 In numbers
24 Life after M&A
BestOdds Co-Founder Will Armitage discusses the challenges European affiliates face moving into different US markets
Asia: The winners revealed FEATURESCOVER
20 Taking stock
40 Beware the shake out Stephen Crystal, Head of North America Development for Betfred, speaks to Gambling Insider about the operator's US migration from Europe
A gaming snapshot by Fantini Research, this time looking at data from Pennsylvania
50 An affiliate's take
644636
ISSUES
Pariplay CCO Enrico Bradamante speaks to the GI Huddle about the NeoGames merger and its aims for the North American market
28 Global Gaming Awards
Interblock Global CEO John Connelly discusses the supplier's growth in the US market
Global Betting & Gaming Consultants, the global gaming data expert, provides exclusive data to Gambling Insider
HUDDLE
18 The global outlook
Ron Mendelson of iGaming consultancy Fast Offshore outlines the progress of the biggest European operators in the US market
BJÖRN KRANTZ
Gambling Insider takes a close statistical look at financial results for Q2 2022
C ONTENTS
36 The supplier story so far Gambling Insider speaks with Relax Gaming, BetConstruct, Kambi and Yggdrasil about how European suppliers are faring in the US so far
48 The consultant's viewpoint
We track operator and supplier stock prices across a six-month period
Liv Biesemans, Group Deputy General Counsel at Kindred Group, discusses Kindred's US development, via its flagship Unibet brand
ONTENTS
Evolution, Atmosfera, Amusnet and Pragmatic Play evaluate how live gaming has evolved, why the vertical is so popular and what the future holds The bettingsecond-favouritenation'ssport
RMG Director of Marketing Clive Cottrell speaks exclusively to Gambling Insider about bringing horseracing to younger audiences The US payments problem
82
54 G2E Las Vegas preview
83
INSIDERS 85 Rob
89 Martin
56
PayNearMe's Anne Hay and Leighton Webb talk through the issues surrounding deposits and withdrawals in the US
Advertising in India
86 Adrian Bailey Pariplay 88 Hamza
How have risk management strategies developed to reduce live trading debt? Do you know who I am?
FINAL WORD 98 Dr Joerg Hofmann Melchers Law 78 88 98
JOERG HOFMANN
FEATURES
HAMZA AFIFI
Gambling Insider looks at the upcoming G2E trade show in Las Vegas Big Question
SmartSearch REVIEWSPRODUCT 90
Lee Richardson MBA, CEO of Gaming Economics, discusses the overall state of horseracing in the UK
Roundtable: Innovation in live gaming
Ranjana Adhikari and her associate at IndusLaw, Arjun Khanna, discuss the gambling advertising situation in India The case for burning gambling profits
64
72
Aruze
74 The Holy Grail of the sport
Gustaf Hoffstedt contemplates the morally contentious points associated with being a state-owned gambling organisation We love penny slots
60
80
78
Alex Czajkowski assesses how macroeconomic indicators can influence the determination of optimal wager amounts Ziems Gaming Afifi Soft2Bet Cheek What's new in land-based gaming?
Oosto CMO Dean Nicolls discusses facial recognition inside casinos
ANNE HAY
Gambling Insider takes a closer look at some of the new products now available on the casino floor
FEATURES NUMBER CRUNCHING
million)(€Revenue million)($Revenue
Source: Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ)
Comparing Macau Q2 2021 and Q2 2022 gross gaming revenue (MOP billion)
2021 2022
• Total Q2 2022 revenue amounted to $1.05bn
• Despite respite in May that saw a slight increase, revenue was straight back down again for June
• Q2 2022 revenue totalled €343.9m ($350.1m)
Source: Evolution
• All three months reported year-on-year declines
8 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
2021 2022
Las Vegas Sands revenue for Macau Operations, Q2 2022 ($ million)
Source: Las Vegas Sands
billion)(MOPGGR
Comparing Evolution Q2 2021 and 2022 revenue per geographical region (€ million)
Gambling Insider presents data from Q2 2022 results across the industry. Which operators and suppliers fared well? And which markets proved most lucrative?
2021 2022
• Macau Operations declined 56% year-on-year from $855m to $374m
• Evolution's main region was Asia, followed by the 'Rest of Europe' market
FACING FACTS
million)($Revenue
•Live and Historical Racing was the only segment to increase year-on-year 2022 2022
million)($Revenue million)($Revenue million)($Revenue
• Q2 2022 total revenue amounted to $894.5m
• Revenue increased 18% year-on-year
Comparing Q2 2021 and 2022 revenue for three major Swedish companies ($ million)
Comparing Monarch Casino & Resort (Reno, Nevada and Black Hawk, Colorado) Q2 revenue, income and adjusted EBITDA ($ million)
•Record net revenue of $582.5m
Source: Boyd Gaming Corporation
Source: Monarch Casino & Resort
• However, Kindred and Kambi (supplier) revenue decreased year-on-year, Svenska Spel (operator) increased
9GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
Comparing Boyd Gaming Corporation Q2 2021 and 2022 revenue by segment ($ million)
• Income and adjusted EBITDA increased 7% and 12% respectively year-on-year
NUMBER CRUNCHING
Source: Churchill Downs Incorporated
FEATURES
2021 2022 2021
2021 2022 2021
Comparing Churchill Downs Incorporated Q2 2021 and 2022 revenue per segment ($ million)
Source: Company reports
• Kindred Group (operator) reported the highest revenue for both years
• Las Vegas Locals and Downtown Las Vegas revenue was up year-on-year, while Midwest & South was down
Source: International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA)
from Q1
• Football provided by far the most alerts, although esports alerts are on the rise and tennis remains problematic as a sport
Betsson Q2 revenue by region and product (€ million)
• The 88 alerts spanned 36 countries
• Total revenue amounted to PHP 8.96bn ($160.4m)
Q2
*CEECA = Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia
to
• Total Q2 2022 revenue amounted to $3.26bn
quarterly
10 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM 203040100 Football Tennis Horseracing Esports Basketball Handball GreyhoundRacingTennisTable IBIA suspicious betting alerts for Q2 2022 32 27 8 3 1 12 4 1 14320 VIPGamesTable Mass Market Table Games MachinesGaming Comparing Tiger Resort Q1 2022 and Q2 2022 revenue by segment (PHP billion) ($million)Revenue 2.54 3.24 1.53 2.19 1.95 2.86 Comparing Tiger Resort (Manila, Philippines) Q1 2022 and Q2 2022 revenue by segment (PHP billion) Q1 2022 Q2 2022
• This was a huge 44% increase year-on-year
Comparing MGM Resorts 2021 2022 revenue by segment ($ million)
International
Source: Tiger Resort
2022
• This represented a 40% increase 2022 Q2
Source: MGM Resorts
Source: Betsson
*ceeca33.0% western13.0%europe latinnordics27.0%25.0%america rest of 2.0%world casino66.0%sportsbook33.0% Other1.0%
and
2021 2022 billion)(PHPRevenue million)($Revenue
• Q2 2022 revenue amounted to €186.3m ($190.4m)
• Organic growth for the period was 13%
IBIA suspicious betting alerts for Q2 2022
2022
South Philly Turf Club (Greenwood) $0.194 -43.42
CASINO PROPERTIES
JUNE REVENUE (M)
Parx at Malvern (Greenwood) $0.044 N/A
Hollywood (PENN) $57.616 +5.18
Live! Pittsburgh (Cordish) $8.168 -2.37
Fantasy Sports $1.506 -20.39
PENNSYLVANIA: Pennsylvania’s June figures capped off a record-breaking 2021/2022 fiscal year for the Keystone State, where annual gaming revenue surpassed $5bn for the first time. June’s figures highlight a continued resurgence from Pennsylvania’s land-based operations.
Harrah's Philadelphia (CZR) $14.057 -9.72
Mount Airy $19.563 -12.03
The Meadows (PENN) $18.067 -13.54
CHANGE (%) YEAR-ON-YEAR
Mohegan Lehigh Valley $0.041 -72.10
Total $399.948 +1.14
Slot Routes $3.507 +6.15
Caesars Interactive $3.266 N/A
Valley Forge (BYD) $39.330 -13.69
In partnership with Gambling Insider, Fantini Research provides data from around the US; in this issue, we analyse June revenue gures from Pennsylvania
Presque Isle (CHDN) $8.983 -13.59
Wind Creek Bethlehem $42.007 +15.25
Mohegan Sun $20.653 +8.68
Lady Luck Nemacolin (CHDN) $1.724 -14.41
Hollywood York (PENN) $7.279 N/A
IN NUMBERS
Parx (Greenwood) $52.392 -9.93
Rivers (Rush St) $29.384 +2.17
12 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM NUMBER CRUNCHINGISSUES
Hollywood Morgantown (PENN) $7.057 +120.26
Rivers Philadelphia (Rush St) $42.783 -2.25
Live! Philadelphia (Cordish) $22.328 +8.49
NUMBER CRUNCHINGISSUES
ENT/MGM -19.37
Rivers Philadelphia $0.802 RSI -59.36
FLTR (FOX Bet) -57.96
Hollywood $1.793 PENN -48.40
Live! Philadelphia $0.274 SGHC -57.36
www.FantiniResearch.com
Valley Forge $10.190
Parx at Malvern $0.044 Greenwood N/A
FLTR (FanDuel) -49.27
Hollywood York $0.700 PENN N/A Mount Airy $0.400
Mohegan Sun Pocono $0.225
Harrah's $0.043 CZR -61.99
Mohegan - Lehigh Valley $0.041 Kindred -72.10 Wind Creek $0.036 Betfred -56.83
Total Sports Betting $22.890 -46.14 Handle $393.494 -6.35
14 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
Parx $1.261 Greenwood -32.64
SPORTS BETTING: Despite Pennsylvania’s land-based casino rebound, sports betting took a marked dip in June. The Keystone State's sports betting numbers traditionally start to pick up again from August due to the sporting calendar; however, the figures below still show year-on-year falls across the board, with Presque Isle even suffering a three-figure percentage drop.
Kindred -56.90 South Philly Turf Club $0.194 Greenwood -43.42
Live! Pittsburgh $0.064 RSI -53.67
Rivers $1.321 RSI -27.52
Presque Isle ($0.082) CHDN -114.04
Hollywood Morgantown $2.583
The Meadows $3.000 DKNG -54.09
MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR MORNING COFFEE
SPORTS BETTING JUNE REVENUE (M) OPERATOR CHANGE (%) YEAR-ON-YEAR
Rivers
Parx
Presque
SPORTS BETTING:
Multiple Operators – Of the operators working on multiple sites, Flutter Entertainment's FanDuel brand led the way in the Keystone State once again. FanDuel's lead is no surprise but Penn Entertainment's Barstool Sports generated over $4m in sports betting revenue, with Rush Street Interactive (RSI) following, then Greenwood Gaming and Kindred Group.
$0.284 CHDN
16 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
iGaming Total $102.924
IGAMING: Pennsylvania’s sportsbook slump has been made up, in part, by vastly increased revenue from the state’s iGaming sector. Relationships can be drawn between the Keystone State’s improved land-based returns and iGaming revenue, as US operators continue to integrate and homogenise their online and offline offerings.
THAN YOUR MORNING COFFEE
MULTIPLE OPERATORS
JUNE REVENUE (M)
Flutter (FLTR) $10.929
Barstool $4.377 RSI $2.122 Greenwood $1.499 Kindred $0.266
NUMBER CRUNCHINGISSUES
www.FantiniResearch.com MORE
Caesars
Mohegan $2.245 Kindred
Mount
Wind BethlehemCreek $1.233 Wind
Live!
IGAMING
Valley
JUNE REVENUE (M) OPERATOR CHANGE (%) YEAR-ON-YEAR Hollywood $42.030 DKNG, ENT/MGM, PENN +20.53 Philadelphia $25.484 RSI, MGM +9.20 Forge $18.401 FLTR +23.05 Airy $4.183 FLTR -28.54 Interactive $3.266 CZR +90.02 $2.920 Greenwood -18.17 Philadelphia $2.878 +284.28 +5.75 Creek -1.49 Isle -42.12 +15.76 IMPORTANT
Cordish
US commercial casino GGY (US$bn) 2003 – 2020
GLOBAL OUTLOOK: US FOCUS
US gaming machine GGY ranked by state (US$m) for 2020
18 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
• In pandemic-hit 2020, US commercial casino GGY dipped more than in the 2007-2008 recession
Global Betting & Gaming Consultants (GBGC), the global gaming data expert, provides exclusive statistical data to Gambling Insider on markets from around the US; visit www.gbgc.com for more
The above graph shows US commercial casino GGY in the period from 2003 to 2020
• Here, New York with its racinos is the leading state, with machine GGY of US$449m in 2020, followed by Illinois' large video gaming sector
The graph shows US states ranked by gambling machine gross gaming yield (GGY) for 2020
FEATURES NUMBER CRUNCHING
• The US gambling machine market consists of slot-only racinos, slot-only casinos and machines found in establishments with a liquor licence
• Due to its relatively small population size, but large Native American gambling industry, Oklahoma is the leading state by Native American gambling GGY per adult
• Lottery sector leads the way, closely followed by commercial casinos and Native American gambling
The graph shows top 20 US states ranked by GGY (US$bn) in 2020. The GGY is derived from all gambling sectors
The graph shows % of gross gambling yield (GGY) from each gambling vertical for the US gambling market in 2020
The graph shows the top 15 US states ranked by Native American gambling GGY per adult (18+)
Leading 20 US gambling states by GGY (US$bn) for 2020
• Due to its large Native American gambling industry, California leads the way, followed by Nevada due to its commercial casinos
Leading 15 US states by Native American gambling GGY per adult (US$)
19GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM NUMBER CRUNCHING FEATURES
US gambling industry make-up (%) in 2020
month FEATURES NUMBER CRUNCHING
• Market capital - £15.31bn (US$18.49bn) LAS VEGAS SANDS 888 HOLDINGS
WYNN RESORTS
The
20 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
- 58.18
OPERATORS high - 40.30 (Mar) low - 35.16 (Jun) capital - US$29.32bn
across
• Market
• Six-month
• high 9,456.00 (Mar) (Aug)
FLUTTER ENTERTAINMENT
• Six-month low - 8,278.00
TAKING STOCK
• Market capital - US$7.74bn • Six-month high - 216.80 (Mar) • Six-month low - 144.40 (Aug) • Market capital - £695.39m (US$839.84m)
-
• Six-month
Six-month
LAS low (Jul)
VEGAS SANDS 20305040100 March US$ April May July AugustJune 888 HOLDINGS 100150250200500 March GBP April May July AugustJune 1001257550250 March US$ April May June WYNN RESORTS OPERATORS FLUTTER ENTERTAINMENT 12,500.0010,000.007,500.005,000.002,500.000.00 March GBP April May JulyJune LAS VEGAS SANDS 20305040100 March US$ April May July AugustJune 888 HOLDINGS 100150250200500 March GBP April May July AugustJune 1001257550250 March US$ April OPERATORS FLUTTER ENTERTAINMENT 12,500.0010,000.007,500.005,000.002,500.000.00 March GBP April May LAS VEGAS SANDS March April May July AugustJune 888 HOLDINGS May July AugustJune 1001257550250 March US$ April May July AugustJune WYNN RESORTS FLUTTER ENTERTAINMENT 12,500.0010,000.007,500.005,000.002,500.000.00 March GBP April May July AugustJune VEGAS SANDS May July AugustJune July August 1001257550250 March US$ April May July AugustJune WYNN RESORTS FLUTTER ENTERTAINMENT 12,500.0010,000.007,500.005,000.002,500.000.00 March GBP April May July AugustJune • Six-month high - 81.64 (Mar) • Six-month
Gambling Insider tracks operator and supplier stock prices a six-month period (March to August 2022). stock price is taken from the first day of each
AU$
March April May July AugustJune
Six-month low - 33.16 (May)
• Six-month high - 13.59 (Mar)
1,250.001,000.00750.00500.00250.000.00
July AugustJune
ENTERTAINMENT AugustJune April May July AugustJune
Market capital - AU$23.7bn (US$16.67bn)
GAMING GROUP
• Six-month low - 163.10 (May)
20
101550 March US$
40
KAMBI GROUP
SEK
March SEK April May July AugustJune April May
• Market capital - US$293.39m
March SEK April May July AugustJune April
ARISTOCRAT 2030100 March AU$
EVOLUTION GAMING GROUP
ARISTOCRAT 2030100 March AU$
KAMBI GROUP
INSPIREDEVOLUTIONENTERTAINMENT ARISTOCRATKAMBI
FEATURES NUMBER CRUNCHING
101550 March US$
SUPPLIERS 40
SUPPLIERS
20
GAMING GROUP
250200150100500
INSPIRED ENTERTAINMENT April May July AugustJune April May
July AugustJune
• Six-month high - 1,063.00 (Mar)
• Market capital - SEK 207.18bn (US$20.32bn)
ARISTOCRAT 2030100
March April May July AugustJune
Six-month high - 36.44 (Mar)
EVOLUTION GAMING GROUP
March April May July AugustJune
ENTERTAINMENT
40
SUPPLIERS 40
• Six-month low - 8.58 (Jul)
ARISTOCRAT 2030100 March AU$
22 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
SEK
• Market capital - SEK 5.44bn (US$530m)
July
1,250.001,000.00750.00500.00250.000.00
250200150100500
• Six-month low - 920.50 (Jul)
• Six-month high - 220.40 (Apr)
KAMBI 250200150100500 March SEK
KAMBI 250200150100500 March SEK
INSPIRED ENTERTAINMENT April May July AugustJune April
July AugustJune
FANTASTICAJOURNEYFORMEGOINGFROMTHESUPPLYSIDETOTHEAGGREGATIONLAYEROFTHEBUSINESS"
a year since I became CCO (Chief Commercial Officer).
phenomenal in previous years, and I’m glad to now be responsible for taking this forward.
really great team, a fantastic mix of developing
I have now been in the iGaming industry for the past 10 years. I was Managing Director at NetEnt for the first six years, then I started a few studios as an entrepreneur and 7/8 years ago I joined Pariplay. Time has really flown; I can’t believe it’s coming up to
And, yes, as CCO I also
I’m a big believer in this internal
like years, but it’s only months. I think the When
"IT’S BEEN
LIFE M&AAFTER
24 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES THE HUDDLE
We have been fortunate to have had a lot of things to celebrate over these past 7/8 months – it feels like years, but it’s only months. I think the one achievement I’m most proud of is the team. When I joined, one of my key objectives was to consolidate, build and grow the commercial team. This has now happened. We have commercial functions in our main office in Sofia, Bulgaria, here of course in Malta and we have a commercial office in Gibraltar. We have account managers in those locations and we managed to bring together a really great team, a fantastic mix of experienced professionals, new blood coming from outside our industry and also developing colleagues internally.
fantastic journey for me Pariplay is a very successful company, our growth rate has been
have the responsibility here for the Malta side of things, so I’m the Managing Director here of our legal entity and operations. It’s been a going from the supply side to the aggregation layer of the business, in terms of personal and professional development.
Pariplay CCO Enrico Bradamante speaks to the GI Huddle about its recent acquisition by NeoGames, nding the right balance in Europe and its aims for the ever-growing North American market
In terms of your first year in the role – have you got any celebrations planned for the anniversary? And, more importantly, how do you reflect on your first few months as CCO?
Watch the full video online at gamblinginsider.com/gi-huddle
functions in our main office in
for to
Can you tell us a little bit about your background and your career in gaming before you became CCO last November?
I wanted to pick your brain about the breadth of the B2B offering with iLottery being added in.
From a personal perspective and a Pariplay perspective, there has been essentially zero operational impact on the day-to-day. It’s, of course, a fantastic development for the company and the group to now be a part of NeoGames.
26 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES THE HUDDLE
For Pariplay, the North American market is strategically important as one of our growth engines and we are executing state by state; we expect to be live in Michigan and Pennsylvania very soon, with others following afterwards. We launched in Alberta and Ontario when it comes to Canadian provinces, and I think the key for us as an aggregate is to be the number one aggregator in every market we enter. We have a portfolio of over 80 vendors and over 80 content suppliers on our books. But, for the North American market, we need to have content that is focused on North American players.
We’re doing this within the Wizard portfolio – but there are also existing brands, existing companies that we want to add for a localised offering, which has been a success for Pariplay in our market entries; so for the US, Canada and North America in general we are adopting the same strategy.
development of our talent pool, so I’d say that’s the one significant milestone I’d like to call out.
I’d say it’s been a recipe for success for the current NeoGames Group to have had individual companies focused into their markets, and become market leaders and successful in their own specific area. And subsequently, with the acquisitions of Aspire Global first, and NeoGames now, we continue with this same strategy of having the individual companies retain the brand name, retain the structure, retain the organisation, so that focus is maintained. At the same time, looking for synergy on a commercial level, on a customer level and on a technology level.
We have now created one of the only two companies on the B2B side from the technology perspective that cover the entire spectrum.
"WE ARE EXECUTING STATE BY STATE; WE EXPECT TO BE LIVE &MICHIGANINPENNSYLVANIAVERYSOON"
For Pariplay specifically, I expect this will give us some synergy and market access in the iLottery business, where we’ve not really been present before. From a game development perspective, NeoGames have their own development studio – and within Pariplay we have our Wizard Studio, so there will be some interesting synergy and cross-pollination with the two studios.
Wizard is the product spearheading our entry into the North American market and is being followed by the aggregation business. So, in Ontario for example, we’re also offering third-party vendors and we’re starting to aggregate with Ignite, which is the third-party studio that is leveraging our licences to enter the US market.
On the sportsbook, Aspire Global had acquired BtoBet and their focus has been to develop a fantastic platform for sports, which is now also integrated in the Pariplay offering. So, with one API, you have access to not only the casino content, but also the sportsbook content.
NeoGames and Aspire Global are companies that I have known & worked with over the years. They are companies and people that I’m already familiar with and I’m very comfortable with.
At the top level for Pariplay there’s been a few changes recently – obviously Aspire Global acquired Pariplay – but more recently NeoGames acquired Aspire. Does that change much and how has that impacted the day-to-day for your team?
Wizard as a brand was launched at Sigma last year, pretty much when I joined in November. We hired a new management team and started to create new and better content as a result – so, that has been a step up when it comes to the game quality and production. In addition, we have been very busy from a distribution perspective and from a licencing perspective, especially when it comes to North America and the US & Canadian market. The whole industry is focusing on those as being a huge opportunity and Pariplay has identified this as a strategic market, so now we’re executing that strategy.
A quick question on a few of those locations you mentioned: which one’s your favourite!
That’s a perfect segue for our final topic and question. You have already discussed Wizard, North America, Canada and the US. Overall, what are Pariplay’s ambitions and targets on the North American continent, given that there is so much international expansion into these markets right now?
You've mentioned a few products and brands, but Wizard Games in particular has come up a couple of times. Can you talk us through what’s been happening with this part of the business recently and your plans with it moving forward?
I can’t have a favourite, they’re all very different – I haven’t yet been to our Sofia office, which is where I'm going in September, so I look forward very much to visiting. I have been to Gibraltar several times before in different capacities. So, yes, I will not call any single one a favourite, but the one I’m looking forward to going the most is Sofia – because I’ve never been there before.
A hypothetical question I sometimes ask is: is it better to be a market leader in one area, or have a strong offering in every vertical? What is better in your opinion, specialist or generalist?
I think the reality of the component pieces that are within the NeoGames Group is that they have been assembled from having companies that are really focused on those areas. So, from a Pariplay perspective, certainly the focus area is aggregation – number one; and the Wizard brand – our own game content – number two, which is for the casino market.
Aspire Global, a platform with player management and account management, provides the glue for everything from a casino perspective and the managed services to run the B2C brands. NeoGames is iLottery and has been on End 2 End bingo, which is a very exciting technology company coming from Latin America, one of our focus markets. Again, through the Pariplay fusion platform with the same API, you also have access to the bingo product.
So it has been a fantastic journey that I have personally contributed to – and the future is even more exciting, the company is very pleased with the progress made and we’re looking at further investments into the quality of the games, and into the team.
28 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES GLOBAL GAMING AWARDS ASIA 2022 CONGRATULATIONSTOTHEWINNERS
Lead Partner Event Sponsors
Following the inaugural Global Gaming Awards Asia, Gambling Insider breaks down the worthy winners in each category
Although this is the first ceremony recognising the work of Asia-facing companies, the Global Gaming Awards have played host to the industry's most trusted and prestigious Awards for over nine years.
The
BetConstruct was the Lead Partner of Global Gaming Awards event sponsors coming the shape Digitain, Play SimplePlay. section below
in person next year, alongside
“We have been thinking about expanding the Global Gaming Awards and adding an event for Asia-Pacific for a number of years now. To see this event finally happen, albeit virtually, is a huge moment for us,” said Julian Perry, Editor-in-Chief of Gambling Insider.
SA Gaming, Pragmatic
“Congratulations to all winners, and of course well done to all the companies that were nominated. A big thank you to our Judging Panel, the event sponsors and KPMG in the Crown Dependencies for supporting our event,” he added.
and
all winners from the inaugural
and
like
Companies were shortlisted based on merit, with the winners chosen by a panel of multiple senior industry executives from the Asia-Pacific, with KMPG in the Crown Dependencies independently adjudicating the voting process.
Gambling Insider would congratulate Global Gaming Awards Asia looks forward event KPMG.
to hosting the
The winners of the inaugural Global Gaming Awards Asia have been revealed. A virtual event in its first year, the Awards recognise the efforts of operators and suppliers working in the Asia-Pacific region.
the
details this year’s winners across nine categories. Categories are as follows: · Casino Operator of the Year · Casino Supplier of the Year · Integrated Resort of the Year · Casino Product of the Year · Table Game of the Year · Corporate Social Responsibility of the Year · Digital Operator of the Year · Digital Supplier of the Year · Executive of the Year (see above)
of
Asia 2022, with
ENRIQUEEXECUTIVEOFTHEYEARK.RAZON JR. CHAIRMAN & CEO, BLOOMBERRY RESORTS CORPORATION 29GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM GLOBAL GAMING AWARDS ASIA 2022 FEATURES
in
CASINO PRODUCT OF THE YEAR MDXLIGHTSHUFFLER&WONDER INTEGRATED RESORT OF THE YEAR SOLAIRE RESORT & CASINO CASINO OPERATOR OF THE YEAR BLOOMBERRY RESORTS CORPORATION CASINO SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR LIGHT & WONDER 30 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES GLOBAL GAMING AWARDS ASIA 2022
CORPORATE MELCORESPONSIBILITYSOCIALOFTHEYEARRESORTS&ENTERTAINMENTTABLE GAME OF THE YEAR NOVO LINE NOVO UNITY II NOVOMATIC DIGITAL SUPPLIER OF THE EVOLUTIONYEAR DIGITAL OPERATOR OF THE SPORTSBETYEAR 31GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM GLOBAL GAMING AWARDS ASIA 2022 FEATURES
Lookingtoday.atthe sales business vs recurring revenue, we built a recurring revenue stream, which is considerably larger than it was five years ago. Thus giving us the cash flow and ability to operate and innovate; in other words, doing all the things that Interblock is known for doing – just more of it.
about the key factors a gambling company has to consider when moving from Europe to the US. It's a journey many will emulate in the coming months and years
diversification standpoint and, subsequently, discovered Interblock wasn’t very diversified in any sense of the definition. It had limited customers, limited markets and it was a sales business – very cyclical and tied to broader economic factors. From then on, we quickly worked hard to diversify the company, and now we are licensed in over 320 markets around the world; while our product portfolio has extended to over 30 products vs the one the company had in its first quarter century. Taking into consideration features and functionality, there are probably close to 200 different variations of our products out there
Two months ago, the original two Founders sold 100% of their shares, as Interblock was acquired by funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management. I stayed on as the company became a new entity and I’m very excited about having private equity inside the organisation now, which feeds into the transition of Interblock becoming a global company.
Has Interblock ever considered IPO-ing (Initial Public Offering) or using a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company)? I have a lot of friends in SPACs so I don’t want to talk about that specifically! But Interblock did not consider SPACs; honestly, I was always of the mindset that the next step for us was going to be private equity. Going public these days vs 10 or 15 years ago is far harder – the industry, costs involved and the expectations associated with it are massive. There are a lot of positives, but until your company is of a certain size and
COMING AMERICATO
grow. In fact, Interblock remained a sales business of mechanical roulette wheels for close to two decades.
32 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES INTERBLOCK
One of the first things I did was evaluate the company from a
It's good to speak with you again, John. On our main theme of 'coming to America,' can you talk us through the history of Interblock’s transition from a European company to a more global company with a US hub?
Interblock Global CEO John Connelly speaks to Gambling Insider Editor Tim Poole
In essence, the company is close to 30-years-old. The first ever electronic table game (ETG) was created by the founder of Interblock, Joc Pececnik, in Slovenia. From this, a small company comprised of a group of high school friends that went to university started to
Personally, the first time I had the opportunity to look at Interblock was as an executive at Bally’s, because we considered acquiring it back then. So, I was in discussions with Joc when I got to look under the hood of the organisation and do some due diligence. Lo and behond, the subsequent sale of Bally’s was not something we anticipated, it was quite rapid, when Bally’s was sold to Ron Perelman. In valuating Interblock, I thought it had the potential to go global, so I decided to go to and work with them. I joined Joc in 2015 and we decided to push ahead to see if we could take the concept of ETGs to a new level.
There’s nothing wrong with being public. Being public is an amazing opportunity and, at some point, perhaps we will also consider going public. Again, with the size of Interblock and the trajectory we’re on, having private equity and the ability to do M&A is a big boost. When you have private equity, you can acquire things even larger than yourself. The leverage of your company means you’re able to provide equity in cash vs straight borrowing, and it leaves the entire gamut of choices at our disposal to do what we feel is best for the future of Interblock.
33GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM INTERBLOCK FEATURES
What were some of the biggest challenges for you as a European supplier entering the US market? And hypothetically for the wider supplier market, what are the biggest hurdles they'll face in the US?
“Right now, it looks like the world is headed towards automation, a type of automation consumers are more comfortable with”
Looking at North America, Covid-19 was a complete shock for everybody. For us, the pandemic vastly accelerated a business plan we put in place. Rather than our business model taking five years it took two, maybe even a little less – so that was quite interesting, and a good insight to know what was going on with electronic table games during Covid. As a result of this shortened time frame, it meant we had to put an enormous amount of focus on North America. Luckily, we had laid a lot of groundwork between 2015-2020, meaning we had good infrastructure in the North American market already. So when Covid hit, we weren’t starting from ground zero. Having a pre-existing foundation created an opportunity to capitalise on the momentum we saw from both a player and operator perspective, in terms of increased interest during the pandemic.
scale, it’s definitely better to stay private in myForopinion.now, we are private equity, with the flexibility and ability to remain focused day-to -day on growing the business, and having the tools necessary to react quickly. Sometimes on Wall Street, the rules can be quite prohibitive, which wouldn’t live with our strategy. So I couldn’t be more pleased with having private equity as our owner in the form of Oaktree. Oaktree’s reputation is stellar, and its culture and way of doing business are very much aligned with the way we do things. Let’s see what the future brings.
the product. That's a fascinating prospect many might not have predicted. It's new ground that we’re all treading here. To your point about North America and how quickly Interblock has evolved here, I don’t want to take away from the team, their hard work and dedication, but it’s the primary product that people like. I think the growth we had before Covid was still staggering. But when Covid hit, that trajectory skyrocketed, growth was consolidated from five years into two. This is why people who’re entering America are saying they are seeing Interblock everywhere compared to a couple of years ago. The gaming industry is evolving, and more cost pressures are being placed on casinos to be more labour efficient. Covid created the need for efficiency, and post-Covid I don’t think casinos want to give
games – it’s a growth area of gaming that’s sustainable. The new generation of gamblers are very attuned to table games. So provided we continue to innovate, using technology to keep the segment competitive, I would say we are just getting started.
Again, we were quite fortunate that the portfolio of products we had created from 2015 to 2019 had grown and diversified to such a point that it was really conducive to an environment such as the one Covid presented. The fact that we had stadiums and single-seat products vs everything being very close together, where we could separate our offerings very easily, fit perfectly into what the public and casinos were looking for.
“There are a lot of positives to going public, but until your company is of a certain size and scale, it’s definitely better to stay private in my opinion”
As of today, I believe the vision of the company is to improve our marketing, so when people think of table games of any type, they think of Interblock. No matter which segment of gaming you think about across the world, both horizontally and vertically, we are working very hard to build a foundation and platform that can quickly expand. This is our current path, where we see ourselves, and I personally very much like being associated with table
Thinking out loud, Interblock is possibly the biggest supplier operating privately. At the same time, on the operator side you have bet365 – a huge global firm with no signs of going public, and no signs of this troubling it either – the operator reports great numbers every year.
What’s even more fascinating is that post-Covid, you would think there would be some type of a pullback or a recession of demand to the gaming environment people were looking for, but this hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s continuing to grow. It’s almost as though a whole new segment of players tried ETGs and were encouraged to stay with
“With competition comes more momentum in a particular sector”
Hypothetically, you couldn’t do the job you’re doing now in the US if you were based in say, London, could you? Well, anything is possible nowadays. But without question it would take you longer. Being local and present no matter where you’re doing business is critical, and essential to navigating your business toward growth. Whatever company is looking to come to the US, forming a subsidiary or an office with a management team in place is going to increase your chances of success 10-fold. This doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to manage from abroad, it will just take longer and posesses a higher risk of failure.
and '90s. Back then, the lottery segment was so dominant, and we saw supplier-side consolidation between casino and lottery suppliers. I see that as a very similar case study to casinos in the traditional and online sense. I think we’re going to have a consolidation over the next five years of the online world and traditional casino space.
As a B2B supplier, Interblock is working hard and innovating very diligently to make sure our product offering is conducive to the traditional and online space merging. Sooner or later, players will ask for the seamless ability of two wagering options in one space – online or land-based. If a company can start to integrate online and offline services into one, and it is seamless for a player no matter where they are, this is great for business. It’s also crucial to make your services as user-friendly as possible and provide content in a very seamless fashion that is competitive. I think we’re going to see some very, very large gaming companies fall out of the US market. This market fallout is going to be much, much bigger than anything we’ve seen on the supply side in the past, and the remaining companies will most likely end up being very dominant. So if you’re a supplier and you’re not careful, you can fall behind to a point where you can’t catch up. In my opinion, all suppliers in the US need to move quickly now if they want to be a success.
34 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES INTERBLOCK
Have you seen greater competition as more and more suppliers migrate? Do you think pandemic-led growth has led non-US companies to accelerate their plans to move stateside? We are seeing a tremendous influx of new forms of gaming, both in online, sports and traditional verticals. Loads of suppliers are coming to the states and Canada now; and for all intents and purposes, North America remained open over the past couple of years. In many other markets, if you were trying to build or expand your business, whether that be in Europe, Asia or Latin America – it was incredibly volatile, which made it very difficult to establish a business plan there. Although North America has had volatility and challenges, it was definitely one of the more stable places in the world to evolve over the past 30 months.
that up – if anything, I think casinos want to maintain the efficiencies they were able to implement during that period.
Right now, it looks like the world is headed towards some type of automation, a type of automation that consumers are more comfortable with. In many cases, the consumer demands things more immediately – we're trying to fit in with a wider trajectory towards automation.
Because of this, people that were looking to grow, those that had competitive new products, entered the US because it was a place to drive short-term gains. On the other hand, I think people at these companies underestimated the complexity of entering this particular region, from a regulatory and competitive landscape. Every part of the world is very different, they all have different thresholds – but the Covid situation has definitely brought a slew of companies here. Interblock has definitely seen more competition as a result of this, which I think is very good. My philosophy on competition is that with more competition comes more momentum in a particular sector. With that being said, many companies contact other companies asking about potential partnerships and mergers. The effort it takes to build up a company in North American markets is not something you can do overnight, you need to be really integrated in the US and have the capital to see through what you want to get done;
as well as time to establish all that. A lot of companies run out of capital and, quite frankly, the energy to pursue a return on their efforts. Conversely, Interblock is almost 30 years old, already had an international infrastructure, with cash flow and private equity to sustain us. This allowed us to focus on North America over the past couple of years to get where we are today. So we’re very fortunate to have that backing, unlike other companies.
Looking forward, what trends can you see occurring to determine how markets unfold in the US?
Well, who knows? But one thing I can say for sure is the US market definitely won’t be the same. Where we’re going is something I’ll equate to the 1980s
John Connelly
36 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES SUPPLY SIDE
European migration to the US has been on the rise since the overturning of PASPA in 2018. But, focusing specifically on suppliers, how much progress has been made so far and what does the future hold, with so many new suppliers choosing now to make the move?
Relax Gaming Chief Regulatory Officer Alexia Smilovic Rønde, Kambi Senior Director of Sales, US, David Bretnitz, Yggdrasil CEO Björn Krantz and the BetConstruct US team collectively share their thoughts with Gambling Insider.
There are, of course, plenty of similarities between the European and North American markets, though the broad differences outweigh any comparisons, with the BetConstruct US team quick to point out that the “biggest obvious difference is in the history.” The team told Gambling Insider that sports betting has been around for decades in Europe and in some cases even centuries. This is in stark contrast to the US, where legal sports betting has only been permitted for a few years and not legal in every state.
Bretnitz added: “It is also worth remembering that Europe and North America aren’t really markets per se as they are made up of dozens of markets all with slight differences.”
THE STORYSUPPLIERSOFAR
As noted by Krantz, it means getting the job right from the very beginning is crucial, with companies risking a return on heavy
David Bretnitz
“If you don’t deliver on player needs and motivations, players will walk away after playing just a few game rounds, meaning the lifetime value of the game will be very short.”
high-performance sportsbook remain the same.
EUROPEAN AND NORTH AMERICAN MARKET DIFFERENCES
Kambi’s Bretnitz agreed that the North American sports betting market is very much in its infancy, with several large states and provinces still yet to regulate. It remains a very exciting prospect for this reason alone, according to the company’s US Senior Director of Sales.
However, while noting the evident differences that such a situation brings about – from the importance of tribal gaming in the US to differences in player betting behaviour – Bretnitz adopted the stance that “the fundamentals of a
Yggdrasil CEO Krantz, meanwhile, added one important factor to the mix: European players in general are quite well educated. He explained: “Higher market maturity,
"Whether it’s a stable core platform, strong risk management or competitive pricing, the key is having the flexibility to provide a genuine localised offering that players can enjoy.
The BetConstruct US team touched on some other differences it has witnessed so far, too – such as the “sports covered and types of bets offered,” before advising that “operators will have to listen to consumers and dial in on the needs of the market to be really successful.”
combined with a higher degree of player awareness, puts high pressure on game developers to balance math and mechanics in game design and delivery. It is a win or lose battle as you don’t have the luxury of a second or a third try in a mature gaming environment.
Gambling Insider speaks with leading executives from Relax Gaming, BetConstruct, Kambi and Yggdrasil to hear how European suppliers are progressing so far in North America
“Strive to be unique and don’t try to copy what everyone else is doing”
Relax Gaming’s Chief Regulatory Officer explained: “The route to getting games certified in North America can often be long and arduous, particularly in US states. Even then, it’s vitally important that suppliers realise that content popular in markets such as Europe isn’t necessarily going to work in North America.”
That sentiment is very much shared by the US team at BetConstruct, which told Gambling Insider: “European firms that are willing to listen and adapt to the market are meeting with a great deal of success. Firms that are doctrinaire and say ‘this is how we do it in Europe, we will train them [North America] to do it our way’ aren’t having so much success.”
“In our field of sportsbooks and online gaming, there are too many competitors and tooAlexia Smilovic Rønde
Despite the many differences between the two sports betting markets, European companies can, of course, use all their experience to thrive in these foreign lands. But as former US President Theodore Roosevelt once said, nothing worth having comes easy.
HAS EUROPE MADE AN IMPACT IN NORTH AMERICA?
“In a mature market, trust and confidence in your ability to consistently provide strong roadmaps with high quality and innovation is fundamental. When entering a mature market as a new player, you need to prove that you are unique, can clearly support customers in terms of differentiation and add value to the player ecosystem.”
investments if they fail. Moreover, the market entry barrier for new game developers is not only high, but a costly affair. This is particularly true of mature markets such as Europe.
She added that most providers are beginning to come to terms with this, and are consequently adapting internal roadmaps accordingly in an attempt to meet the needs of such players.
Yggdrasil, meanwhile, has just started its US go-to-market journey, with the company live with one game – Vikings Go Wild – via its collaboration partnership with IGT. As noted by the company’s CEO Krantz, a second game – Cazino Zeppelin – is ready for its 7 September launch in Michigan.
The North American market is, naturally, not only limited to the United States. Canada in recent months has shown that it is a major player when it comes to this new age of sports betting. On 4 April 2022, a total of 13 sportsbook apps were granted approval to launch in the hugely influential province of Ontario, and it is a region that has continued to grow in stature since launch. That has undoubtedly been helped by the fact Ontario is the country’s most populous province, and is home to over 10 million potential players.
“What's also attractive is that Ontario has already been exposed to online slots in the past as a grey market, therefore players are accustomed to European-style games,” she said. “Couple this with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario’s (AGCO) regulatory model, that’s significantly friendlier than we’ve seen elsewhere on the continent, and I think it’s fair to say things are poised nicely for suppliers.”
Krantz offered the following advice to any and all interested parties out there: “Strive to be unique and don’t try to copy what everyone else is doing.”
While Relax Gaming’s Rønde acknowledges that European companies are slowly starting to flourish in the North American market, she concedes it has been far from easy for suppliers, “particularly those with little to no experience in the market.”
The team continued by explaining that any business that wants to survive and grow must adapt and speak the local language, as it were, particularly when it comes to the hugely competitive world of sports betting.
On the other side of the spectrum is the burgeoning US market, where Yggdrasil has noticed some “fantastic growth” in key regulated states, while the underlying growth is However,“enormous.”Krantzexplained that with more actors and more games comes “higher pressure to bring consistent high value to stay relevant and not be down-prioritised. This means that you need to go 'all in,' in both mature and immature markets, creating a niche with a key focus on optimising and maximising long-term growth ambitions.”
“A new entrant needs to compete with legacy game developers who have built their top-of-mind brand awareness, cross-player communities, customers and markets over several years,” explained Krantz.
Relax Gaming wasted no time in taking advantage of this opportunity, with the company’s Chief Regulatory Officer Rønde saying “it made complete sense for us to announce our presence in North America via Ontario for that reason alone, as it’s very likely that Ontario will remain the largest market for some“Alltime.signs indicate that neighbouring provinces will be much slower to come online, but perhaps Ontario could act as a goodButexample.”itwasn’t solely the huge numbers of potential bettors that attracted the supplier to the province, as explained by Rønde.
He said: “As we do not run parallel game development processes, we can manage both Europe and US go-to-market roadmaps simultaneously."
“We have been following the market
The group is very much in its early stages in the US, but Krantz explained that any progression will in no way impose on its European operations.
WHY GO TO THE NORTH AMERICAN MARKET?
38 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES SUPPLY SIDE
developments very closely in the US and several of my colleagues have extensive experience and insights from US operations. We know that European content resides well with US player behaviour and are confident that our legacy Yggdrasil portfolio will do well once launched in the US.”
The BetConstruct US team opted for a perhaps more blunt approach when asked the question of what the future holds, stating that “the strong will survive, the weak will perish; it’s the rule of the jungle.” The team added that “new markets will drive innovation and technology, which will flow around the globe.”
He concluded: “Besides that, there is a continued evolution of technology and tools supporting operators to optimise their omnichannel strategy.”
“The strong will survive, the weak will perish; it’s the rule of the jungle”
– BetConstruct US team
“In the same vein, there will be lawmakers in other Canadian provinces that have watched on admirably at what the AGCO (Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario) has achieved so far and how smooth market entry has proven to be for most. In time they will look to emulate this success so that they
particularly if such states adopt a similar
As Krantz previously alluded to, the company is just starting out on its US journey, and so needs to ensure it enters with a “high level of trust and confidence that will support our long-term operational ambitions in the US.
“In the same vein, there will be lawmakers and Gaming Commission of Ontario) has achieved so far and how smooth market entry can get their own slice of the pie.”
US, “it isn’t really a case of Europe versus betting.” But he has no doubt that will “continue to play the development of sports betting in North America in collaboration with
39GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM SUPPLY SIDE FEATURES
many choices for customers,” said BetConstruct. “So providers need to be customer-focused and customer service-driven or they will face certain peril.”
“Ontario took an approach of ‘let’s work with our providers, provide the appropriate protections and oversights and show the world regulation doesn’t need to be adversarial to be effective.’ Whereas the United States’ commercial, tribal and governmental can be a hodgepodge of regulations, Canada has a more uniform approach, within the individual provinces, and the industry will be better for it.”
suppliers, making a difference in the US, are more or less digital natives. I believe this has supported the US online gaming market growth, attracting a new online-focused audience with an appetite for new exciting mechanics and fresh online-focused content.”
One vertical that remains rather behind in the legalisation process in the US, at least when compared to Europe, is online casino. It’s a vertical in which Yggdrasil has a particular interest, but CEO Krantz is not currently preoccupied with how the lack of legalisation will impact the company’s strategy going forward.
As for the “impressive” Canada, a hugely important aspect of the thriving North American sports betting market, BetConstruct explained that Ontario regulators are among the best in the world and are only getting started.
Ontario does, however, differ somewhat according to Bretnitz, primarily because there was already a large grey market in place in the province, one that consisted of operators that had previously focused on Europe, “with a couple of operators commanding a large slice of the market prior to full regulation.”
For Kambi’s Bretnitz, European companies have undoubtedly played a “significant” role in the evolution and growth of the regulated US sports betting market. This is thanks to longstanding sports betting heritage, experience and is something particularly evident on the B2B side of things.
“We have very exciting times ahead of us with highly motivated and talented colleagues that cannot wait to make a difference in the US.”
Whether it's online gaming or sportsbook, European firms entering North America will only increase in volume. But it's how they continue to fare in terms of success that remains most intriguing.
local expertise and organisations.”
of player preferences in the US.
Krantz added that there is also an enhanced omnichannel opportunity, one that will "offer and convert land-based content to online and vice versa." Yggdrasil specifically sees this as an opportunity to “capture a wider ecosystem of players to support sustainable content growth and innovation.”
For Kambi's Senior Director of Sales, US, “it isn’t really a case of Europe versus North America when it comes to sports betting.” But he has no doubt that ‘traditional’ European firms will “continue to play an important role in the development of sports betting in North America in collaboration with
Björn Krantz
Interestingly, however, Bretnitz is of the belief that ‘European firms’ no longer really exist. He used Kambi as an example, saying that the company is now live in over 40 jurisdictions across six continents, with offices in Australia, the Philippines and the US. Moreover, the majority of the group’s revenue now comes from outside of Europe.
The market, she added, is “only going to get bigger and better as new states open up,” particularly if such states adopt a similar regulatory model to the one seen in Ontario.
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR NORTH AMERICA?
For Relax Gaming’s Chief Regulatory Officer, the future looks “extremely bright” for European companies in the US. She noted that several European studios that have already entered the market have begun to comprehend all the intricacies and quirks
For Yggdrasil, European firms are playing a hugely supportive role in this rapidly growing market. Telling Gambling Insider how European suppliers have done in the North American market to date, Krantz said: “I would say very well, and also considering that today more than 50% of the top 25 slot games are built with a pure online focus in mind.”
He continued by notin: “European
Much of the current focus for European suppliers is on the here and now, with the North American market just getting started. But that is not to say there isn’t one eye on what the future holds for this hugely exciting region.
However, this is only half of the equation. The second half of the equation is to ask: Can you then go on to utilise the same approach used in the UK in the US? This includes leveraging retail into mobile and brand development. These are issues that have proven to be very expensive with the way the US market is rolling out.
you compare Betfred to William Hill, which first appeared on the US scene between five to seven years before Betfred. The question was could Betfred still establish its brand in the US state by state, without a partnership?
And how did Betfred fare when it chose to go down this path?
There were clearly difficulties finding partnerships, so I came up with a strategy to strike agreements with American tribes. Tribal agreements are incredibly hard; it’s a difficult market to penetrate. Deals with tribes were thought out and approached on a state-by-state basis, a process we started in 2020. At present, Betfred has several tribal partnerships and is live in six markets today, with 15 more set to go live. The company is continuing to answer the question of whether it can establish a state-by-state operating roadmap, in 20+ states.
40 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES OPERATOR VIEW
BEWARE THE SHAKE OUT
How did Betfred’s migration from Europe and other world markets to the US come about?
Stephen Crystal, Head of North America Development for Betfred, speaks to Gambling Insider about the operator’s migration from Europe to the US, and how the brand hopes to achieve long-term success there
Stephen Crystal
The feeling in the US is that if a business needs expertise, it will go out and acquire it – it would not feel the need to merge or partner ofsecondItchangedsomebody.withSoafter9monthswithnosuccess,despiteseveralconversations,Betfreditsmind.waspartoftheorthirdwaveactivityintheUSif
So we went through a series of discussions, isolating a dozen potential candidates. We got close but, in the end, it wasn’t a natural enough thing for a brand to partner with a sportsbook – or recognise that a company such as Betfred has expertise a US-founded brand doesn’t have.
was to link up with an existing US partner – a US brand – and bring what they know best, which is bookmaking, to a US-facing brand. The first six to eight months of my partnership with them focused on trying to find a US brand looking for a partnership.
So far, broadly speaking, the US has been less about brand and more about the willingness of an operator to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to acquire a customer worth a fraction of what the operators are spending on that customer. This is where the market, in general, has evolved. It doesn’t play into the strengths of Betfred as a nuts-and-bolts operator, but more so the big hitters: DraftKings, MGM Resorts and Caesars, which can use their balance sheet to spend money without regard to making a profit. This is the short answer of where we started and where we are now with Betfred US.
To be clear, Betfred in the US operates mobile and land-based businesses. It has six mobile operations with an agreement to
It was in 2019 at G2E, which is coming up in October this year, when Betfred approached me asking to bring its brand to the US. The guys at Betfred asked what I thought about the ability of Betfred to achieve market access. The initial thought from Betfred
Betfred is a well-established brand in the UK. This has never been in doubt. Its strategy in the UK has to use five decades of experience to focus on leveraging a retail experience into a mobile business. It was retail-first in the UK when the brand was made. It was built with professional sports team partnerships and sports events across what is now 1,500 betting shops. Then, Betfred migrated online and was able to capture its fair share of the mobile market by leveraging its retail brand.
more on the profitability of operations, the success of investments in customers and retention, and the return that they’re getting in these investments. What people had been rewarded for was their topline handle month-to-month, even though most of that growth was being fuelled by the investment of operators in bonuses and free play.
OPERATOR VIEW
of customers. None of this, though, gets to the heart of the issue – which is first and foremost to be a brand. An operator either needs to have a well-working brand or be willing to invest in it. The second thing is a platform, operators need to have a platform in which it controls their destiny, one which is differentiated from competitors. Staffing is an issue too; there aren’t enough qualified experts locally in gaming and iGaming. Companies are having to take people from other e-commerce businesses and
Pretty soon we’ll see a shake out, a consolidation of the market because there’s only so long you can operate and lose money. What will happen as we advance will more resemble the experience of mature markets. That means innovation and differentiation in products; you’ll see a rise in the ability to differentinvestmentthecustomers,segmentandappropriateinsegments
Comparing European and US customers, how different are the sports betting cultures? Has Betfred had to adapt its offerings to a market where the idea of wagering is “newer?”
I think many from a European perspective don’t fully appreciate just how intense and rapid the rollout has been in the US. We’ve seen multiple markets go live at the same time; new challenges arise with respect to technology. Putting aside the product, just to be up and operational in a retail context, in a mobile context, just to be able to confirm your platform to the state-by-state regulatory approach, taxation approach and compliance approach, is a huge challenge. What we’re seeing now is the race for operators to get up and running with a functional platform and then to go after customers they consider to be low-hanging fruit; those they believe to be accustomed to betting or to come up with strategies to cast a wider net and get more customers in. The reality is that the market today shows its potential of what the market could look like once the platform and products are up to speed. In my view, it’s almost irrelevant to talk about the customer-facing metrics now, because the numbers of people, bets and revenue we see is a result of a number of markets opening simultaneously. In the future, you will see companies judged much
train them in gaming – this has opportunity but also peril. This is why William Hill merged with Caesars, why Entain is partnered with MGM Resorts and why Flutter (then Paddy Power Betfair) acquired FanDuel. A company like Betfred has to be nimbler and more strategic. The US market is not one size fits all, a company like Betfred can find its way into a market as big as America. But it has to leverage its
seen multiple markets go live at the same compliance approach, is a huge challenge. of markets opening simultaneously. In the
"In my experience as a gaming lawyer for 30 years, as long as you’re an above-board business operation, which Betfred is, where there is a will there is a way to navigate the regulatory process"
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launch 15 more in other states. Obviously, in some states gaming is retail only, but almost every state either has mobile live today or has mobile expected to be live very soon. Furthermore, Betfred has reserved the right to use iGaming in all of these states in the future. So, overall, the footprint will see Betfred go ahead with retail sports, mobile sports and iGaming.
assets, which is a process Betfred has been undergoing for four years.
How much of a challenge is it in general when going live in multiple different states, given the vastly different regulations in all of them?
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Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas and Missouri. So there’s more to come in terms of market access for Betfred: the operation has grown from zero a year and a half ago to there being close to 150 personnel in Las Vegas. The operation and the platform partnership with OpenBet is growing state by state. As these relationships get larger, Betfred will get more control over the platform and the types of upgrades to its online site. Furthermore, the company is continuing to pursue media and sports team partnerships for branding – making investments there – all while seeing how the market is Obviously,evolving.Betfred wants to be one of those companies that survive the shake out of the US market, and get its fair share of the market. All Betfred has to do is manage between 3% and 5% profit per market and it will have a hugely successful business in the US. If it does this, it will have revenue and cash flow that will far surpass that of its existing operation everywhere else. The potential is huge. All Betfred has to do is what it has already done in another heavily competitive market, the UK, where it has 20% of the retail market space and 5% of the mobile space. The UK has over 300 operators. However, in the US we’ll have fewer than 25 real operators when all is said and done. This is for a country that’s over four times the size of the UK in terms of the market. That’s how Betfred has got to look at it to make sure it is one of the remaining operators in the US. If Betfred can get to 5% of the mobile space in every market it is present in, that would represent a huge success. The company needs to make wise investments, and rely on 50 years of operating history and industry nous, to succeed in a highly competitive US market.
Coming back to Betfred, what’s the next goal for the operator in the US? What’s the mission going forward?
Betfred is live in states like Arizona, Iowa, Colorado and Louisiana. The next states the operator will go live in are Indiana, Virginia, Ohio, where Betfred announced a partnership with the Cincinnati Bengals, and Nevada. Other states in the pipeline include
Betfred has managed to navigate dozens of jurisdictions. What we’ve found is you end up having more compliance staff than the number of staff in your product team. When your compliance team is larger than your product team, that tells you about the lengths operators need to go to in America.
STEPHEN CRYSTAL FEATURES
Honing in on somewhere like New York, where only the “big hitters” operate, is this a market Betfred would ever look to enter, given its high tax rate?
Only eight operators are live in New York. Betfred had a chance to join them, but the state’s 51% tax rate on all gaming activity made market entry there a non-starter. Even though handle numbers would be significant, the fact the state government would be a 51% partner on day one was a bit of a disincentive.
The UK prides itself on having, quote unquote, “tough regulations." But I think most operators that have migrated to the US have realised some states are even more rigorous than the UK. It’s always surprising to them, even for Betfred. Some of the questions posed by operators are: “Why do regulators need to know about non-gaming business?” “Why do the regulators care about everywhere else we do business?” These are the requirements of some states that create tough issues for operators to Innavigate.my30 years experience as a gaming lawyer, as long as you’re an above-board business operation, which Betfred is, where
Ontario has adopted more of a European regulatory model. Can you see the approach of Ontario impacting US regulations in the future?
I would say Ontario is much more similar to what Europeans are used to. I do not feel by any stretch that Ontario regulations are anywhere near as strict as those in the US. I’m finding that a lot of European operators are using Canada as a jumping-off point to the US. I think operators doing this are mistaken; the US and Canada are completely different ballparks altogether.
"Betfred had a chance to move into New York, but the state’s 51% tax rate on all gaming made market entry a non-starter"
there is a will there is a way to navigate the regulatory process. It just takes time, resources and some adaptation to the mode of doing business. Regulators in the US care about the entirety of the people they’re doing business with and how they approach corporate culture. You have to take a much more holistic view and, in the US, you almost have to be proactive in terms of self-regulation. In the UK, you wait for the Government to tell you: “You can no longer do this or that”. But in the US, regulators expect you to, in essence, self-regulate and go the extra mile to do the things that regulators feel responsible, ethical businesses should do. This is something that’s a little different culturally from what we see in the UK and across Europe.
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced tapping into local US culture?
What are some of the broader regulatory differences Kindred has experienced in the US market compared to Europe? Do you find yourself with more flexibility in terms of the odds you can offer and how you are able to market those odds? Europe and the US are both very fragmented markets. In the US, you’re also dealing with a state-by-state (similar to the EU country -by-country) regime but with a more complex regulatory framework of state, tribal and federal legislation. Our experience in dealing with that regulatory fragmentation and being able to achieve scalability despite this has definitely helped our expansion in the US. What we’ve noticed in the US is that sports and advertising are a much more integral part of life, and the tolerance towards (the volume of) marketing of US customers is perhaps higher than in Europe. The budgets are also exponentially greater. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn from the developments in Europe, where marketing restrictions and bonus bans are now more common than not in the main markets (UK, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, etc.) after years of over-advertising. As an industry, we definitely have a responsibility in mitigating this risk proactively in the US.
Each state has different regulations. Is there a fine line between what you can do in one state compared to another? The US is a fragmented market and gambling regulations are managed on a state level. In
Our brand positioning is the same across
When it comes to the variety of odds and markets, there are two interesting distinctions. Firstly, when it comes to the top sports, we see a much wider offering in the US, as a result of years of fantasy games – the customers’ appetite for player props is definitely higher than in Europe and the market has done very well to meet that demand. At the opposite end, we see more restrictions in terms of non-sports markets (like Oscars, politics etc.) which is understandable for a younger market – but this is likely to relax as regulators grow confidence that the industry can manage the risks.
Liv Biesemans
practice, it means that whenever we plan to enter a new state, we have to approach that state as a standalone project that requires a local licence: a dedicated analysis of the regulatory framework in place, a customisation of your platform and website setup, a separate platform certification, additional supplier integrations etc. We also operate both retail and online sports betting operations in Pennsylvania and Arizona, which is a different operational setup entirely. The biggest difference between the states is the product scope: most states cater for sports betting (although there are local restrictions and differences) but only a number of states allow for iGaming. Payment methods are another area where we notice differences between some states. However, we also see a great deal of commonalities between the different states in terms of know your customer (KYC), responsible gaming, advertising, etc, so we can definitely build on a shared baseline across the different states.
Sports betting is culturally entrenched in some European markets. How have you had to promote sports betting and the brand, and how does your promotion of sports betting in the US differ from Europe?
Liv Biesemans, Group Deputy General Counsel at Kindred Group, discusses Kindred's development in the US via its agship Unibet brand
We’re hopeful that iGaming will become more widely regulated, on the back of the success in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan. We’re also looking forward to the regulation of sports betting in a number of key states, including California and Texas. It’s difficult to predict whether we’ll see a similar trend as in Europe (or the pace of it) but we hope that as an industry we can continue to work together to create a sustainable sector. And one that keeps the protection and safety of the customer at heart.
UNITING FRAGMENTEDA MARKET
How does branding differ in the States? Do you diversify your branding for each state and how does it differ from how you brand your sportsbook in Europe?
How do you envisage your operations in the US developing over the coming years? Can you see sports betting regulations tighten (to something similar to Europe) or will they remain as they are now?
While sports betting may be more culturally entrenched in some European markets (definitely not all), the perception towards the industry is much more negative which has resulted in extremely adverse policy decisions. We don’t see that negative perception as widespread in the US at this point. On the contrary, most recent consumer surveys actually demonstrate a more neutral to positive perception towards sports betting. The societal role of sports, and the importance of the leagues and teams definitely plays a huge factor in that.
all states, but there will be different targeted nuances in the different states/ provinces driven by customer preferences, partnerships (i.e., NJ Devils, Philadelphia Eagles or Pittsburgh Steelers) or product scope (i.e., sports betting vs iGaming).
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As for states that are yet to make any laws, a number of them are looking at various ways to pass new laws and create frameworks that will allow online gambling while protecting consumers and other stakeholders. Some, however, are still vehemently opposed to the idea and have no plans to consider it soon.
FLUTTER ENTERTAINMENT
HOW EUROPEAN ONLINE GAMBLING COMPANIES ARE FARING IN THE US
The first example is that of the Irish mega-corporation Flutter Entertainment. The holding company was created through the merger of Paddy Power and Betfair with the acquisition of The Stars Group. It is also known for brands like PokerStars, FanDuel, BetEasy and Sky Bet. The company started operating some brands in the US where FanDuel, in particular, is a market leader. In fact, revenues reported at the end of 2021 showed an increase of 113% to $1.9bn and just under 1.5 million monthly users. Its most recent Q2 and H1 figures saw further growth.
Tax revenue from online gambling is a massive boost for states, providing them with much-needed funds that can be reinvested back into essential services. Other reasons include wanting to tackle illegal online gambling by offering regulated alternatives that provide players with higher levels of protection. Lastly, it is due to wanting to attract businesses to their state, creating direct and indirect employment, and driving investment in sectors that provide services to online gambling operators.
For many years, online gambling in the US has been complex, ill-defined and prone to change, leaving many operators fearful of making significant investments. That said, the vast potential and size of the sector has left many on the sidelines looking in and waiting for an opportunity. That opportunity has grown over the last few years. While the industry is heavily regulated and varies wildly from state to state, we see more certainty than ever before.
At the end of 2020, the US online gambling sector was worth some $2.18bn and was estimated to grow at around 17% between 2022 and 2027. Of this growth, sports betting holds the most significant segment, followed by poker and then lotteries. On a state level, betting revenue is increasing rapidly, providing opportunities for operators while topping up state coffers.
BET365
and has yielded different results, but all show promise and profitability.
Those that have favourable environments for online gambling include New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Delaware, West Virginia, and Nevada. Those in the process of creating new or additional legislation include New York, Indiana and Illinois, and those who are entirely against it are Utah and Hawaii.
The operator reported that its US market is its second-largest division, ahead of the International one, with CEO Peter Jackson stating: “In the US, we delivered over $1.9bn in revenue, leveraging our differentiated product proposition to remain the number one sportsbook in the market with a 40% share.” The company has launched a number of new products and features in the sports betting sector and expects accelerated growth during the rest of the year in the US market.
Ron Mendelson of iGaming consultancy Fast O shore outlines how European operators have fared to date in the US market; in particular, zoning in on industry giants Flutter, bet365 and Entain
THE VIEWPOINTCONSULTANT’S
“Overall, I am pleased with the progress we have made during 2021 and believe Flutter is exceptionally well positioned for future growth,” Jackson concluded.
Founded in the UK in 2000, bet365 has gone on to become one of the leading names in the online betting industry. Shortly after the US Supreme Court ruling on sports betting, the company launched in New Jersey, Colorado and New York. Then in July 2022, the company applied for an Ohio online sports betting license in a step toward what can be perceived as a bigger US expansion. The company still has a lot of work to do to catch up with Flutter
THOSE THAT HAVE MADE THE CHANGE Since 2018, we have seen a number of big, established European names make the transition to the US. Each approach has been different
The main reason behind the growing number of states embracing online gambling is benefitting from taxes levied against operators.
"While the industry is heavily regulated and varies wildly from state to state, we see more certainty than ever before"
The basics are as follows: There have been a number of changes in federal law, which has made it a lot easier for online gambling operators to set up their businesses. For example, a 2018 Supreme Court ruling paved the way for many states to allow operators to provide online gambling services. Now, each state can decide whether to allow or ban online gambling and, if they permit it, how it will be legislated. As a result, many states have created frameworks for online sports betting, while the number is far less when it comes to casinos and slots. However, this could change in the future as legislators see the benefits of legalising and regulating online gambling for their economies.
It has also branched out into Ontario, Canada, and has been labelled as a potential market share leader in the region’s fledgeling industry. There are no official figures yet, but the number of app downloads (it was second in the Canadian iOS store) shows promise. The scheduled launch for bet365’s Ohio debut is 1 January 2023, but it has quite a challenge ahead of it to claw back some clients from more well-established names.
Owner of Coral and Ladbrokes, in 2018, Entain announced a 50/50 joint venture with MGM Resorts International and created the brand BetMGM. One of the largest iGaming companies in the world and previously known as GVC Holdings, Entain includes other names like PartyPoker and Sportingbet, and is headquartered in the Isle of Man. The company also operates in Ontario, where it handles more than 70 million monthly transactions. But it is in the US where the company has set its sights on the highest levels of growth. In February of this year, the operator was first in the country for sports betting and market share across states it is active in.
Ron Mendelson
hasForover24years,FastOffshoreworkedwithcountlessonlinegamblingoperators.Wehaveassistedstartupsandexistingbrandsinacquiringlicenses,andhelpingthembranchoutintonewmarkets.Ourportfolioofservicesincludeslicensing,advice,companyincorporation,payments,structuringandcompliance.Wecanalsotakecareofallongoingmaintenanceforyouasandwhenrequired. Contactus totakeyourgamblingcompanytothenextlevel!
ENTAIN
On a smaller scale, you also have Malta-based Tipico, which provides sports betting and casino games. Already active throughout Europe and with branches in Germany, Austria, Croatia and Gibraltar, it has recently moved into the Colombian and US market. At the end of 2021, it launched an online casino in New Jersey in partnership with Ocean Casino Resort. The plan is to expand to more states over the coming years as more legislation is rolled out. This is an example of the fact that even smaller companies, when compared to
Europe and Asia will remain the big players, so to speak, but ignoring these American markets is not something operators can afford to do.
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?
the huge multinationals, can make it in the US. The American dream of iGaming.
companies and US-brands like BetMGM and Caesars, but it is laying the foundations for more operations in more locations. While it is yet to be established in other states, experts believe Ohio could be the catalyst.
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The launch of BetMGM, comprising Entain's knowhow and MGM's established name and reputation in the US, was a smart move. It allowed the brand to enter the market in pole position, building off the success of MGM Resorts’ online and offline ventures. Entain came in with its expertise in terms of back-end platforms, to create a winning
We expect to see the US online gambling sector continue to grow. Based on current trends among states that have legalised iGaming, the projections are good. These will improve as more states legislate in favour and seek to lessen their existing rules. In addition, growth into other areas such as casino games, slots, esports and fantasy sports will further fuel the sector, creating more possibilities and revenue. Stakeholders that have expanded in the US do not expect any roadblocks in terms of legislation in the future; describing investment, there is relatively low risk. The big area to watch, however, is whether states will move to legalise card games and slots – key drivers of revenue for many operators.
We expect to see many other brands decide to set up shop in the US in the coming years. This will come hand in hand with interest in Canada, Central America and South America as their respective markets continue to evolve.
combination. “I am very, very pleased with where we are today,” Entain CEO Jette Nygaard-Andersen said on the final day of May. “The team here is doing a magnificent job in really understanding the markets.” The company also has its eye on various acquisitions in the region and beyond, including more European expansion and more development in North America.
What are some of the challenges you’ve found moving into the US, particularly around all the different licensing regulations in each state?
want better-value customers, and if an affiliate is remunerated by the calibre and quality of what these customers bring to the sportsbook it’s the best thing for everyone. So I do think there will be an evolution in New York towards revenue share as this market evolves, because it’s still in its infancy. One can’t look past this fact really. When people say “it’s the end of the first innings, the start of the second,” that’s what it feels like, like we’re at the start of the second
The proof will be in the pudding. It’s still comparatively early days for us in New York, most sportsbooks are reluctant to go into revenue share deals even though one knows that, actually, in the long run a revenue share model is in everybody’s interest – for sportsbooks and affiliates. Sportsbooks
Will Armitage discusses the challenges
How does an affiliate’s relationship with an operator differ in the US from Europe? The main difference is that European relationships have been built long term. In the US, relationships are just starting out. The main difference is affiliates earning income through cost per acquisition (CPA) in the US, rather than revenue share as mentioned earlier. US operators are very much shareholder -obligated right now, they have to meet
latest markets to come online. The variance of different rules and requirements across these states is staggering. It’s essentially the United States of 50, 51, 52 countries, or however you want to frame it. I think Europe can be viewed in the same way, each country is vastly different; so if you apply this to the States you can see it is, in terms of gaming regulations, a united nation of countries. But we were aware of that before we undertook our US expansion, moving from Europe. It’s part and parcel of what one has to do, it’s part and parcel of being an affiliate. In the US, you have to do things properly and abide by the rules. In a way, for a brand such as ours, as a new entrant, it puts off other people. The reason being it costs a fortune, and the administrative annoyance is staggering, so people don’t want to go through this. It’s costly and time consuming, but if you do things properly it can be a success.
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BestOddsVIEWCo-Founder
They’re all so different. The interesting one is New York because from an affiliate perspective it was comparatively easy if you want a good partnership with a sportsbook. If you’re a good affiliate, you can essentially passport yourself in. But for other states, you have constantly changing landscapes, you need to give fingerprints, shoe size and all sorts of things. Obviously, this is an exaggeration but it was unbelievable how many rules and regulations certain states had, and the number of hoops one had to jump through to become an affiliate. That’s just to get set up in a state; when it comes to revenue share, that opens another can of worms; it’s another level of complexity.
For an affiliate, how difficult is it to get regulatory licences in different states? We’re licensed in every state where one can be in the US, even in Maryland, which is one of the
There’sinnings.ahellof a long way to go. If you look at the big states that aren’t yet online, and the sophistication of an American bettor – for Brits and Europeans, the idea of betting is etched into our cultural DNA, the US not so much. Aside from a minor few who’ve bet offshore for many years, the average American looks at sports betting thinking this is novel, this is fun – I’ll go for one particular sportsbook. There isn’t yet a sense of seeking value, seeking the best odds. It will come and, for us, it’s about being an educational tool in the US market; it will build out our brand to eventually become a destination for US bettors. This is the nub of what we’re trying to do: build a destination.
THE CHALLENGE:AMERICANANAFFILIATE’STAKE
Is it an advantage to be paid in a cost per acquisition (CPA) model rather than revenue share in New York, given the state’s high 51% tax rate?
European a liates face moving into di erent US markets
Getting locality down to a tee can really help. It harks back to what we were saying about US states as being akin to 50 different countries. The key is to tailor yourself to the local market as best you can. In a company of our relatively small size, it’s tough to be local everywhere. So everything has to be bang on in terms of content, to appeal to as many different types of people in different regions as possible. But locality is key,and it is something we will push as we evolve because each state is a different country – one has to do that to be a success.
I fear for us it’s both! Competition, competition, competition, from all sides. In terms of the
financial benchmarks, listen to analysts on Wall Street and focus purely on that. Imagine if operators were to take a pause, take a breath, and say “for the medium and long term what makes the most sense for my business?” But none of them are doing that. They’re all held accountable to their shareholders.
How do you plan on creating the noise to build your brand in the US? What’s the roadmap?
One never knows what will happen next, but it’s quiet so far in terms of the States, with nothing major on the horizon as of yet. I think when – and I do think when rather than if – California and Florida go live, US sports betting will move firmly into the mainstream. For an affiliate, the US is an exciting place to be.
Within the next three months, we’re hoping to launch our V2 website. We want to continue to stand out and not be just “another” affiliate site; we’re always striving for originality. Being a brand for the long term is what we strive for, so using the hare and the tortoise analogy we’d much rather be the tortoise; little by little, step by step. We have a version of our site coming
affiliate space, the sophistication and calibre of tech and business nous are highly impressive. Some affiliates I doff my cap to; they are very good at what they do. It’s tough for a brand new US brand that in the UK would resonate with millions of bettors. In America, we have to create our own noise to craft our own destination, our own brand. This is our long-term plan. We want to step up to the big table and sit with the goliaths. Step by step, we hope to get there.
If you were a major, well-funded, unlisted sportsbook, I think you’d have a very exciting journey in US markets. That’s where a brand like Fanatics would be very interesting, for a merger perhaps. They’ve got the brands and there’s a lot of excitement around that. Ultimately, when you look at the industry as a whole, it's the same process of choosing a bet, placing a bet and either you win or youThelose.question is whether people will be drawn to a brand and stick with it. If you look at the success of FanDuel and DraftKings and how branding had been predicated on their fantasy audience, this is the reason they’ve done so well when flipping the switch to sports betting. The question around Fanatics is whether it can transfer its social media followers into bettors. Because it’s a further gap to say “I love you on social” and “I’m going to place a bet with you on Broncos vs Seahawks.” For fantasy sports, FanDuel and DraftKings, it’s easier to close that gap, if people are going to compete in fantasy sports, betting on it is just a small additional step.
Will you face more competition from affiliates like BestOdds who have moved over into the US, or competition from US-founded affiliates?
Will Armitage
In terms of markets and the US, there’s a huge amount to do. As each state evolves it’s our job to be present, to be ready. What’s interesting is the market keeps evolving at the moment; everyone was excited about the US and rushed to get in the door, then everyone rushed to get into Ontario which, unlike the US, has turned into a huge disappointment. It’s really been a damp squib, owing to the stringent guidelines laid out by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).
Then you have brick-and-mortar companies, your MGM Resorts, Caesars and Wynn, operators with brand recognition. Obviously, Wynn has not had the rip-roaring success expected. But the likes of BetMGM and Caesars, which have deeper pockets, and operators with greater business nous will appreciate that a great app experience will be important. I will expect these established names to eat into FanDuel and DraftKings’ lead,Then,eventually.ofcourse, there are smaller international players – for them, it's tough. They have to be more agile, offering more exciting and novel bets to create a dent in the market. What’s stark is an operator like bet365. What are they doing in the US market at the moment? Not much, aside from peering over the parapet and taking an occasional look at how things are going. I think that’s a particularly novel approach too and from an outsider’s perspective it’s intriguing. But one can have a crystal ball and a crystal ball can be wrong. Regardless, there’s a lot of movement ahead.
“If you were a major, well-funded, unlisted sportsbook, I think you’d have a very exciting journey in US markets”
later in the year and plan to move into different verticals in the coming years, all the while not losing sight of who we are and what we’re trying to be; the bettor’s best friend.
What other plans does BestOdds have for the next 18 to 24 months?
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LOOKING AHEAD TO G2E 2022
This recovery also means the gaming industry is once again getting used to hugely crucial exhibitions, a staple of life in this field for several yearsICEnow.London has already made a successful return to the banks of the Thames, while IGA has more recently made a proper comeback to the big time in California.
The last couple of years have certainly taken their toll on the gaming industry, with the land-based sector in particular feeling the negative effects of the shutting of doors and the mass exodus to online.
Also looking ahead to the event with much excitement is G2E Event Vice President Korbi Carrison, who told Gambling Insider: “We can’t wait to reconvene with the global gaming community for another G2E. Every year, the show features the brightest minds in the industry and highlights the latest innovations in gaming – and G2E 2022 will be no different."
But there has always been a well-known – yet perhaps unspoken – industry-wide belief that the digital world will never replace the buzz of an in-person event.
There is, of course, the small matter of G2E Digital, the year-round gaming resource featuring content for the global gaming community.
than last year’s event, which was of course impacted by the many restrictions in place across the world at the time. Gambling Insider will be present at the event, with our journalists joining the Gaming America team to provide in-depth coverage.
And that excitement is what will bring faces from all over the globe to Las Vegas this October.
“G2E is bookmarked in the global gaming community’s calendar every year as the most dynamic marketplace for new products and ideas,” said Miller.
As noted by G2E, the event invites a wide range of key figures from gaming and connects “industry leaders, influencers and media to accelerate business, and set the stage for the future of gaming.”
G2E's list of attendess includes countless industry professionals invited to take part in the much-loved land-based event. Verticals will include the likes of iGaming, sports betting, lottery, game developers and bingo halls, as well as table games providers, payments modernisation vendors, digital and physical security vendors, and marketing services among many others.
AGA President and CEO Bill Miller looked ahead to G2E 2022, telling GamblingInsider just how significant the event is for the global gaming industry as a whole.
G2E Asia is another major industry event to have returned, with the latest edition taking place at the end of August at Marina Bay Sands in UpSingapore.next,however, is one of the very biggest and most iconic exhibitions the industry has to offer, with The Venetian Expo in Las Vegas preparing to welcome huge numbers to the highly-anticipated G2E 2022 from 10-13 October. It is expected to be bigger and brighter
But the situation has improved massively in recent times, proven by Las Vegas now posting over $1bn in revenue for 16 months in a row. It’s been a superb turnaround for the region and indeed the land-based industry in general. Patrons have been returning to their favourite casino floors for a flutter, and employees have returned to welcome them.
“This year’s event will once again feature the top suppliers, buyers and leaders in gaming. On behalf of the AGA, I look forward to welcoming the global gaming community to Las Vegas this fall.”
One important body that will, of course, play a huge role throughout the event is the American Gaming Association (AGA). The body has a say on all significant issues within the US gaming industry, such as supporting policies which promote industry reinvestment and innovation, and prioritising issues that provide industry members with the greatest business value possible.
Gambling Insider previews the highly anticipated G2E 2022, which takes place at The Venetian Expo in Las Vegas this October
While Covid-19 was, at the time, a unique situation, it unwittingly created multiple opportunities for fraud. The UK Government’s bounce back loan scheme being the obvious and, possibly, the most flagrantly abused. Back in the betting world, such was the panic at eroding revenues, and therefore share prices, that some operators were happy to take feeds first and ask questions later.
A recent news story, describing the efforts of a gang who faked IPL cricket games last month, has once again bought into the spotlight the importance of data integrity and reliability. During the Covid-19 lockdown, the provenance of data streams was of particular interest. Operators, desperate to provide betting content that did not include the word “virtual,” made deals with “competitions” and “events” that would prove most difficult to authenticate. In particular, there were allegations about “ghost” matches involving table tennis, as well as a string of fixed games that reportedly led all the way back to Australia.
Our in-play goalscorer service, on the other hand, is by its very nature operating within a more micro context. To maintain precision, we have a team that operate as guardians of the data generation pathway.
Now that the world has adapted to the ongoing health crisis and we have live sports to watch and wager on, the topic of data security and provenance has come to the fore – again. With online wagering accounting for an
Jeevan Jeyaratnam
To achieve live cash-out, for example, an operator must have faith in the accuracy of its data and pricing supply. At Abelson Info, we supply live pricing data for in-play goalscorers. To do so we rely on three core elements, two of which are handled by third-party data suppliers. We ingest live pricing of match markets that complements a live scouting event feed. The product of those components are input into our proprietary algorithms, which in turn outputs player
Abelson Info was established to provide fixture and results services to the industry; and, in fact, we still do. We have supplied industry operators with our service over many years. Our contracts with them require that we source a huge number of independently verified kick-off times to ensure, as accurately as possible, that events and their start times are legitimate. We are, therefore, adept in data verification, albeit at a macro level.
ever-increasing percentage of operators’ revenues, the value in live betting opportunities and in-play cash-out has never been greater.
To ensure the system is robust and fast enough to react to changes, we use official data suppliers, where possible, that includes both Genius Sports and Stats Perform. To ensure pricing resilience we only use feeds with direct API integrations.
Our traders are instrumental in ensuring that important changes within a match are accounted
From a data resilience perspective, our in-play feed uses a data structure that allows different components to group and process relevant data blocks simultaneously, helping to reduce latency. There is constant real-time monitoring of all data streams and we use algorithmic scaling to meet demand at the busiest times. We err on the side of caution, ensuring that there will be enough resource available, rather than running the leanest setup.
Jeevan Jeyaratnam, COO, Abelson Odds
Thesepricing.threesystems have equal importance, without any one of the components we are unable to provide live pricing. Therefore, it is of vital importance that we use reliable feeds and best-in-class cloud computing as host for the algorithms and subsequent data stream.
How have companies developed risk management strategies to reduce live trading debt?
All of these processes help ensure that we have a system that is robust and accurate enough to maximise revenues, and therefore reduce debt, for the operators using it.
FEATURES BIG QUESTION 56 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
for. For example, a team pushing a centre-back into a striking position as they chase a goal. These nuances are almost impossible to account for using current automation techniques.
Equally, third-party data, delivered in a time-sensitive fashion, will always be prone to error, we employ sanity checks to ensure that data is reliable. For example, checking that a substituted player is not credited with a goal later in the match, or when prices for an event change drastically without any meaningful change in the state of the game. If we experience a sanity failure, then a game is immediately suspended while a trader checks what has happened.
Beyond the power of the odds, security tools are a critical feature of a sportsbook providing safeguards on profitability. As recent headlines have highlighted, the need for timers is one such example, a safeguard placed between taking and validating bets on live events. As fans of soccer will already attest to, the impact of the video assistant referee (VAR) in overturning game situations has proven pervasive, making delaying them for a few seconds essential. Reversals of refereeing decisions can take away goals, award penalties
We built flexibility into what we offer due to a number of external and regulatory factors. In France and Portugal, for example, where the level of taxation is very high, we simply wouldn’t be able to offer similar odds to sites licensed in Malta or Curacao. That’s why it is important to offer an operator choice on the styles of odds they need. Very strong, very aggressive odds, with a very high rate of return to players or some that are more conservative, responding to higher taxes.
In addition to this, limiting the risks on sports data means improving the flow of data providers, giving it a certain solidity and robustness in ensuring the sportsbook serves as a real catalyst for raw data feeds, being especially true in pre-match situations. Good risk management is the expertise to launch markets and open events at the right time. There is an entire chronological perception to this effect; the closer you get to the event, the more you can raise the odds because the market has stabilised and is confident. Again, it’s best not to confuse speed with quality. Being the first to release a market can quickly turn into a perilous exercise, especially on sports events with little media coverage.
How have companies developed risk management strategies to reduce live trading debt?
seconds or even minutes after a goal has been scored. This has a strong impact not only on the score but many other markets too; such as ‘next goal,’ ‘over-under,’ ‘next team to score, and so on. Suspending settlements during a potential VAR situation is a guarantee of quality for us, and perfectly encapsulates the fact that speed of settlement does not always rhyme with excellence.
Fixed odds calibrate odds linked to winnings, mitigating financial risk and diluting it with several bets included in the offer. To this end, having a trading team in place to guarantee the offer, as well as the analyst equipment for monitoring player behavior, is the key ingredient.
FEATURES BIG QUESTION 58 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
achievement of a target GGR%.
For all these reasons, having a fully dedicated trading team is a major plus, adding up to a powerful sportsbook offering.
The analyst team has more of an eye on player behaviour. It’s about managing operator risks on a financial level and a regulatory one, with respect to addiction or fraud.
David Bonnefous, Director of Operations, Sportnco
David Bonnefous
At GiG and Sportnco, this is what we offer. Our strength is the ability to absolve 100% of the risk management, entirely covering the
“Our settlement procedures rely on official sources, attempting to duplicate that source as much as possible, although even this information is not always reliable. It's easy to see how a hasty settlement can therefore be a risky and expensive error”
Risk management for sports betting is as much about profitability as it is about compliance, with successes measured on the results of intelligently pinned fixed odds. Without stating the obvious, it’s not as simple as it sounds.
Our settlement procedures rely on official sources, attempting to duplicate that source as much as possible, although even this information is not always reliable. It’s easy to see how a hasty settlement can therefore be a risky and expensive error. It’s best to be smarter than that, and in deciding to take more time to validate, we can offer that higher quality of service.
In the end, the addition of automation and security tools only go so far, human perception and expertise are still important criteria for risk management. In this respect, the presence of a trading team adds significant value. Traders allow an influence in the offer, can set up competitions, open markets and manage financial risk. Traders can lower and raise odds depending on the market, and add game alerts. Their perceptions allow for suspending bets that are not stable, can apply marketing requests from individual operators and, indeed, by offering dedicated odds to each operator, they meet both financial needs and compliance needs.
casino builds the watchlist themselves, in which people are placed in different groups. You might have one of self-excluders, known felons, advantage players, aggressive panhandlers, prostitutes – or even VIPs on the other side of the list, it’s not all bad guys. What we’re doing in real time is looking at the video to say, ‘is there a face in the frame?’ If so, we’re looking for distinguishing features – what we call landmark features – such as the eyes and nose, and turning that into a digital vector of the face.
Oosto CMO Dean Nicolls talks through facial recognition inside casinos, and the purposes it has beyond the security o ering
the casino and other main areas. Our solution is based on AI; but more technically, there are neural networks that are running and what we do is analyse every frame of every video as it’s happening in real time. We’re not looking at everyone, essentially what we have is a very limited watchlist – which starts at zero. Then the
“Historically, these places would have 1,000-2,000 people on the watchlist. How could a security guard possibly remember the faces of all those people?”
Dean Nicolls
60 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES FACIAL RECOGNITION
DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?
How does your facial recognition system work?
The way our system works is with the existing camera infrastructure. At most casinos, they will have hundreds or thousands of cameras, of which they’ll typically use us for a small percentage of – mostly when people are entering
Keep in mind, it isn’t the same as going through immigration at an airport where you will be looking directly at a camera; we’re dealing with a situation in which most of the cameras are high up and far away. The person could be entering with a group of people, obscured from the camera’s view; so, as we analyse that frame, we compare that image to all the images we have saved in the watchlist – which all happens in less than a second. Then, if we find a match, we can alert security – or hospitality, if it’s a VIP – that this
people, and all you’re seeing is the top of somebody’s head – well, our solution isn’t going to work very well. This is where we say we need to reposition the cameras. Or, in some cases, we need a higher quality of camera, meaning that even if you’re far away you can get a crisp image when you zoom in. But for the most part, casinos have cameras down at a good level; we don’t need to tell them to have higher resolution cameras – they already know that. Our ability gets better over time because we’re fine-tuning it, figuring out the balance of false positives and false negatives because you can over-tune it; so, this is where you work with the casino to find the right balance.
person has just entered the casino; we're now armed with who it is and where in the casino they are.
FACIAL
Are you aiming for expansion in other markets?
“The other thing is privacy, which is a big term. It encompasses not only how the data is handled but where it's managed”
That didn’t always used to be the case. It used to be more of a security play, but what we’re finding now is there are two groups within a
casino and they each have very different budget levels. First, there’s your security team, then there are the people that are supposed to be looking after the whales. Those people looking after the whales have much bigger budgets because they’re generating 60-80% of the revenues, so they want to identify those guys much earlier on in the process.
Are there limits to the amount of people the system can begin to recognise? There are. This is why we take a lot of care when we sign up a casino, it’s not a plug and play; we need to understand where the cameras are. Sometimes the cameras are very, very high, so if you’re dealing with one that isn’t of great quality with a high turnover of
The other important part here is that not all solutions are the same. What I mean by that is we train our algorithms to work expressly for these kinds of conditions, real-world conditions where the person isn’t looking directly at the camera, they’re far away; we might only have a profile, they could be wearing a mask or sunglasses – because in many cases people know they’re not allowed inside – though our solution works well even under those circumstances. Your ability to detect those kinds of people under those kinds of conditions is only as good as your underlying AI algorithm. And, when you train your algorithms to work under those kinds of environments, they’re naturally going to perform better. You see facial recognition is a whole slew of technologies, especially coming from places like airports, where you look at a sensor which can recognise you from your passport photo at a 1/1 ratio. What we’re trying to do is make that on a grander scale and in a busier environment.
The other thing is privacy, which is a big term. It encompasses not only how the data is handled but where it's managed. It even has to do with how long someone is on a watchlist for, right? So, if somebody is a criminal, are they a criminal forever? For that reason, we have very, very granular controls that allow casinos to set that. The other thing we can do, which is specifically relevant in Europe, is we have the ability to blur people not on the watchlist on video playback – that’s primarily for GDPR purposes. If you’re an innocent person, that means when the people are playing the footage back using our solution, they can blur out all the good actors and only see the people that are on the watchlist.
With setting up this system in the casinos and reading all of the data in real time, how stringent are you on data protection? It’s a great point, especially with GDPR. You might think a lot of the data is traversing from the casino to our central servers, or to our cloud servers – that’s not the case. Everything is done locally; traditionally in a Vegas casino, all the servers are sitting on the premises and they are running our algorithms themselves, so we’re not getting that data on our servers. Now, naturally any data that goes from the camera to servers still needs to be encrypted; and it is, both in transit and at rest, but it isn’t going anywhere on our servers.
FEATURES RECOGNITION
What’s interesting is that, in some cases, like for an advantage player, I always think security would have escorted them out of the building – but they don’t. It’s not illegal to be a card counter, so they’ll often let them play games, slots and as soon as they’re at a blackjack table, the dealer knows what to watch out for. However, the actual value is the real-time notification that this person is in the casino. When you go to a video surveillance room in one of these larger casinos, you’ll literally hear an audible alarm – at which point everybody springs into action. The value of that is when you remember, historically, these places would have 1,000-2,000 people on the watchlist. How could a security guard possibly remember the faces of all those people? It’s virtually impossible, right? And so that’s why when casinos deploy our technology, and many on the Vegas strip have used it, it’s becoming more typical. We’re providing real-time alerts and the number of detections is going up 300-400% because you’re automating the whole process. The VIP example in London’s Les Ambassadors Club is going to become typical because your high rollers represent 0.5-1% of all the players but they contribute 60-80% of the revenue. You need to spot them quickly, so casinos like that are getting very smart about identifying them and making sure they get the white glove treatment.
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What added value does this bring to the casino?
Absolutely. We’re obviously in Europe, and we’re expanding in Asia-Pacific – while Macau has its own set of challenges there, as well. I think even within the US we’re looking to expand, because most of our footprint is in the larger Vegas casinos. However, right now we’re spreading to Native Indian casinos. I was absolutely shocked because one of our customers is out of Tulsa, so I went and visited them a couple of weeks back and was surprised at how large those casinos are. They’re every bit as large, in terms of square feet, as a Vegas casino – and they have the same amenities. They are the ones who are much more bullish about talking about facial recognition, because they know they have the law behind them, and at the heart of everything they are doing is the customer experience.
The casino still has the raw video footage from all the cameras, which they need to keep for compliance purposes – so they are taking the right due diligence – but the retention of the footage is up to them. Facial recognition is nuanced, and when used ethically it can help solve a lot of problems like catching bad actors, while simultaneously really improving the whole player experience. This is the reason most of our customers are deploying our system.
“Tulsa casinos are every bit as large, in terms of square feet, as Vegas”
ERMANTRAUTYURY
HRISTOVSIMEON InteractiveAmusnet Product Manager
CORNIDESIRINA
CORNIDES Operating
MILLARJEFF Evolution DirectorCommercialNorthAmerica
Industry leaders from Evolution, Atmosfera, Amusnet and Pragmatic Play discuss how live gaming has evolved, why the vertical is so popular and what the future holds
Yury Ermantraut is the Chief Executive Officer at Atmosfera and founded the company in 2020, which has since achieved great results with a modern management style including team partnership, democracy, coaching and a directive style. The company’s portfolio already consists of eight Live products including popular games such as Live Roulette, Bingo, Keno, Music Wheel, and now Atmosfera is working on a new upcoming release: Blackjack.
ROUNDTABLE: INNOVATION IN LIVE GAMINGERMANTRAUT
Atmosfera CEO
64 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES ROUNDTABLE
Simeon Hristov has 16 years of experience in the gambling industry, 10 of which are from being a Product Manager. He knows the business extremely well because he has been working in most of its verticals – Sports Betting, Lottery, Land-Based and Live Casino.
Pragmatic Play ChiefOfficerOperating
Irina Cornides is Chief Operating Officer at Pragmatic Play, a role she has held since January 2022. She is responsible for supervising the commercial, product and operational functions to ensure the seamless delivery of Pragmatic Play’s high-quality products to partners and players. Irina has extensive experience in the iGaming industry, which she joined in 2004. Most recently she was Chief Commercial Officer for Asia at Gamesys (now Bally’s), where she led the fastestgrowing division within the business.
Jeff Millar oversees Evolution’s growing commercial opportunities in North America. The gambling industry in North America is changing fast in the digital age, and Jeff is leading the way to assist with this exciting transition. For the last 11 years, Jeff Millar has licensed online gambling software to operators in regulated markets in the US and Canada. At Evolution, he leads a diverse and talented team in the distribution of casino games that can be played over the internet from desktop computers or mobile devices. Jeff has been in the casino gaming industry for 25 years and is always striving to help his business partners reach their goals as consumer behaviours change.
HOW HAS LIVE GAMING EVOLVED IN THE LAST FEW YEARS?
65GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM ROUNDTABLE FE ATURES
WHICH ASPECTS OF LIVE GAMING ARE MOST POPULAR?
66 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES ROUNDTABLE
68 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES ROUNDTABLE
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO LAUNCH A SUCCESSFUL LIVE GAMING PRODUCT?
69GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM ROUNDTABLE FE ATURES
HOW DO YOU SEE LIVE GAMING CHANGING OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
Thus, over the past seven years or so, horseracing has declined from an estimated 50% share of total global sports betting to around 35%, with the post-PASPA sports betting explosion in the US at least partially responsible for the widening of that gap.
72 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES LEE RICHARDSON
However, global horseracing most certainly has its own issues to deal with; with annual growth in handle of just over 4% per annum
In the UK, horseracing handle is overwhelmingly done through fixed-odds betting; elsewhere in the world, it’s mostly pari-mutuel (tote) betting that
When I first walked into a betting shop in the UK, in the mid-1970s, horseracing was by far the most popular sport to legally wager on – and not just in the UK... the world. TimesAccordingchange.to GBGC, the data expert and Gambling Insider partner, global horseracing handle in 2015 was $114bn, just about level with global betting on all other, non-horseracing sports. Since then, other sports betting has grown to an estimated
over the past seven years, it’s thus likely barely grown at all in real, inflation-adjusted terms, including within the UK.
THE BETTINGSECOND-FAVOURITENATION’SSPORT
Lee Richardson MBA , CEO of Gaming Economics and regular Gambling Insider contributor, addresses the overall state of horseracing in the UK, which is facing a critical juncture ahead of the Gambling Act review
$298bn for 2022, with horseracing expected to total around $159bn.
Set against that declining share of the global betting market, horseracing also has a declining share of the domestic UK market, and for a wide variety of reasons.
Lee Richardson
A new £1.3m industry TV advertising campaign, launched in mid-2022 to boost racegoing attendances, and a new BHA ‘industry strategy think-tank’ launched around the same time, may both be laudable endeavours but both run the risk of being too little, too late. A couple of bright spots on the horizon may be TV coverage and media rights income, plus opportunities for better exploitation of consumer data.
Having followed the sport since my teenage years, I’ve also been involved in racehorse ownership and still go racing as often as I can. I’ve even played a small role in the sport’s history, while working at the British Horseracing Board in the 1990s, helping win the right to host race meetings with betting in Britain on a Sunday; making the sport more commercial and attractive to new sponsors. It’s still a sport I care about, deeply.
From the betting perspective, the position is complex, challenging and critical. The Tote, which offers pari-mutuel betting on horseracing, has undergone ownership change and is now operated, under a variety of guises, by the industry itself. But it hasn’t launched any significant new horserace betting products for over 20 years, and its small share of horseracing betting is static at Forbest.the fixed-odds bookmaker – and
Although racing’s income is largely driven by betting-derived revenues, collected from punters through the statutory Horseracing Levy system, other race-day income remains vital for the courses who stage the sport seven days a week.
The sport saw zero on-course betting for almost a year, and retail turnover on the sport – already under structural change as highlighted above – was hugely impacted by the Government-mandated closure of betting shops throughout the UK, for over a
Gambling Commission is now making operators put in restrictions. This is already having an effect on levy and media rights payments. We are seeing that in the returns for April and May, and it’s a big threat to the industry’s revenue.”
as outlined by Entain’s experience noted above – horseracing is simply no longer as important a betting product as it once was. Additionally, the UK Government’s pending – and much delayed – Gambling Act 2005 Review White Paper, anticipated to include new consumer affordability checks, is already hitting racing’s revenues.
“Second because the Gambling Commission are going ahead and, for their own reasons, implementing a lot of restrictions. So, even if the White Paper comes up with limitations on operators at relatively high levels by comparison with what was predicted, the
While the industry rightly received plaudits for keeping ‘the show on the road’ during C-19, it seems increasingly likely that fundamental, structural change to the sport has already occurred, which now needs urgent, new responses from the industry.
That revenue stream, too, is under extreme pressure, with recent average daily race going attendances down an unprecedented 54% when compared to 2019, the last full pre-pandemic year.
73GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM LEE RICHARDSON FEATURES
Rob Wood, the company’s CFO and Deputy CEO, said "there’s no doubt that over-the-counter is subsiding and it’s mostly the traditional products, I’m afraid, horseracing and greyhound racing in particular. That’s where the declines are.”
Some industry estimates have forecast the annual impact to British racing’s revenues of intrusive affordability checks on low levels of consumer spend at £100m.
Half a decade on, those overall yields are estimated to have stayed pretty flat, with online growth largely offsetting a sustained decline in the retail, off-course sector. A 27% reduction in the number of betting shops over the past five years – from almost 9,000 in 2016 to an estimated 6,500 today – is just one of the reasons for racing’s declining share of total betting
Resultsrevenues.fromEntain – which owns Ladbrokes and Coral, two leading UK High Street and online brands – from March 2022, underlined the continuing scale of this change in consumer betting patterns.
The aftermath of the pandemic, plus a current, and accelerating, ‘cost-of-living-crisis,’ appears to suggest that a day at the races has become an expensive, highly discretionary consumer activity in mid-2022.
The BHA’s Saumarez Smith has also spoken of the need for the sport to improve its use of data, "as this is one of the biggest opportunities for the growth of our industry. Pretty much every major rival sport has invested huge amounts in data projects, realising that unless they fully understand their customers and their behaviour, they cannot optimise their business, nor maximise their share of the consumer wallet.”
Horseracing continues to be a fascinating part of the British sporting landscape, with heritage and tradition like few others, while remaining a significant, daily betting medium for millions of Butfans.if it’s to have any chance of holding onto that place among fans and bettors alike, for future generations, the industry needs new, innovative and cohesive leadership, with a fresh narrative to help win new bettors, fans and racegoers. And it needs it now.
Even July 2022’s "Super Saturday" – where the top-tier tracks of York, Newmarket, Ascot and Chester all race – showed average attendances were down almost 20% versus 2019.
Like all other sports, UK horseracing was badly impacted by the pandemic, with cancelled fixtures – including a Grand National, the nation’s favourite, where more people bet on the race than vote in a British General Election – followed by racing being held behind closed doors.
Newly appointed Chairman of the sport’s governing authority, the British Horseracing Authority’s (BHA) Joe Saumarez Smith, told a recent industry conference: "We are quite worried. Partly because of the delays in publishing it… we need certainty because it is hard to make policies without knowing what the Government’s thinking.
Horseracing is Britain’s second-largest sport in terms of employment and revenues generated annually. Official Gambling Commission figures showed domestic off-course betting on horseracing in Britain generated £4.6bn turnover in 2016, yielding £333m in GGY, with online betting on racing accounting for a further £5.4bn in turnover and £353m GGY.
ITV took over the sole domestic free-to-air TV coverage of British horseracing in 2017 and has since arrested the decline in off-course audiences, with the Cheltenham Festival 2022 recording its highest TV audience in over 10 years. ITV Racing has since won broadcasting awards and a BAFTA gong now beckons. Betting turnover is always boosted by TV coverage and such exposure remains a vital channel to win new customers, and better inform the viewer. Media rights income for overseas coverage of British horseracing is also growing, albeit from a small base.
dominates, sometimes through holding a monopoly market position. But that difference only tells a fraction of the story.
year, between 2020 and 2021. Footfall in shops is still well down on pre-pandemic levels.
Lee Richardson asked what’s next for horseracing in our previous article; Racecourse Media Group Director of Marketing Clive Cottrell speaks exclusively to Gambling Insider Editor Tim Poole about attempts to bring the sport to a younger audience
“When the pandemic struck, we were all speculating about racing being curtailed. But when it became a reality, it heartbreakingwasto think our viewers could disappear overnight"
also generate quite a lot of our revenue through international betting, providing pictures around the world to circa 20 territories. More recently, we’re looking at how else we can support our shareholder racecourses – all of our fees go to shareholders. One way we were looking at how we can broaden the appeal of the sport, accessing a younger audience – which is the Holy Grail for the sport – is social media. There seems to be a bit of a void on social media for racing. It’s never going to be easy to get a young audience that’s completely new into racing. We looked at different ways to achieve that and talking on platforms they engage in is the first step. But while ITV do a great job of showcasing the live sport, they don’t necessarily gauge the essence of what a live raceday is like for those who actually attend. There’s a broader aspect to it than the live sport, there’s the fashion side of things, the hospitality side and the social side.
74 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES RACECOURSE MEDIA GROUP
Maybe we are best positioned to do this, having the access we do. The Racing TV brand is a strong brand but its limitations are it only really appeals to avid horseracing fans. So we thought we needed to create a new brand – and that brand is #raceday. We thought the best way of doing that is through utilising influencers, those who already have significant fanbases and communities on their social media accounts. We started to use people like Frankie Foster, who was on Love Island, and Amy Christophers, who was on Married at First Sight last year. If we can portray them having a great time on a racecourse to their fans – and get their fans to consider horseracing – maybe that’s half the battle. It’s the first step.
What kind of numbers have you generated? We launched June/July 2021 and have, since then, tried to access new audiences – and
Can you tell us about your background in the gambling industry? Have you always been a horseracing fan?
RMG, I’ve personally been here 12 and a half years; it was set up almost 20 years ago now as the media rights business for the main
shareholder racecourses in Britain. Really, the objective is to generate revenue off the back of those media rights – we’ve been doing that pretty successfully and we now represent 35 of the British racecourses, including the Jockey Club and some of the large independents, like York and Goodwood. And we recently acquired the rights for all of the Irish racing as well. We generate revenue in a variety of different ways. Historically, the bedrock was the paid TV business, which we still run and has 62,000 members, all of whom pay their £25 ($29.52) a month subscription fee. And it was also about the LBO rights, which we sell the pictures into for the high street bookmakers.
My father was a massive racing fan and used to take us racing, so I picked up on that vibe many years ago. I started off in marketing at a financial services company in my first role. Then I worked in a direct mail business for collectible plates, figurines and dolls. I met my current boss at that organisation; at a subsequent job he joined Coral and there was an opportunity to join him, where I spent six years with Coral, Gala Coral and launched Gala Bingo online. After that, I did a year at PartyGaming as Head of Brand. My boss then moved here and there was an opening after a couple of years to look after the commercial TV business, where we sell Racing TV into pubs and clubs. I did that for a year and was offered the Director of Marketing job after that, and have been here 11 and a half years since then. It’s a dream job really, as horseracing’s my passion.
But more recently we’ve been working to provide live streams for our partners on their websites, which is the biggest growth area. We
THE HOLY GRAIL OF THE SPORT
Can you talk us through Racecourse Media Group (RMG) and the company’s role within the industry?
When the pandemic struck, we were all at Cheltenham speculating about racing being curtailed. But when it became a reality, it was heartbreaking to think our volumes of viewers could disappear overnight. Obviously, we didn’t race for a couple of months. We were quite quick to tell our ongoing members they could halt their payments while there was no racing. But, to our surprise, the members that did churn came back immediately when behind-closed-doors racing returned – and we reached a subscription number of 65,000.
But we also use it as an opportunity to nurture new talent. Twitter, as a platform, is the main domain for horseracing fans. There are quite a few people on Twitter who are striving to be part
of the horseracing broadcast media. So it’s quite easy to pinpoint people, like Zoe Smith, who had no experience within horseracing but was passionate about it. We found and gave her an opportunity, and she’s subsequently got a job in the industry. So there are some people we use who don’t quite have the critical mass of fanbases but have got a passion for the sport.
have had a lot of fun doing it. To date, we’ve generated something in the region of 45 million views on TikTok, with 36,000 followers and a 5% engagement on those views. While we’re still learning, we feel we are starting to get some traction – and the great thing is we’ve got the support of the industry. Most people feel it’s the right thing to do.
RACECOURSE
In terms of the influencers, do you target anyone specific – is it TikTok in particular or did you try it with Instagram etc? No, initially we started out with Instagram. But TikTok’s rise has been dramatic and it became more evident that there was a greater opportunity on TikTok. That’s where we’ve seen a lot of the strong growth since the turn of the year. In terms of the talent
Was that a factor in you choosing to emphasise what can happen ‘off the speak?
Absolutely. There are examples of thrills and spills that happen during a race that isn’t necessarily the finish but you’re most successful content date connections
I would actually have to say, having been
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I would actually have to say, having been at Cheltenham and a baseball game in California this year, I found the baseball a little trickier to follow than I thought I would. The racing, however, was more exciting, in my opinion… It’s different, isn’t it? You’re sat in your seat at a baseball game. But there’s an opportunity to get around a racecourse. You can make your choice about whether you want to go to the paddock, the stalls or if you’re happy sitting at the bar! Our job is to convey that variety you can have at the racecourse, which others may not be aware of.
MEDIA GROUP FEATURES
I would. The racing, however, was more exciting, in my opinion…
Clive Cottrell
and influencers, it’s quite an interesting one. We ideally want talent that has some interest or involvement in racing – but it’s not a prerequisite. Someone like Frankie Foster, while he’s known for his Love Island appearance, was brought up in Cheltenham, is used to going to the Festival, loves horseracing and knows a lot about the subject matter. Someone like Amy Christophers loves sport and is best known for her involvement in broadcasting on football – but enjoyed her day at the races. And we actually quite liked the dynamic of someone who knows their racing and someone who doesn’t.
is perhaps less of an opportunity for a ‘TikTokable’ or ‘Insta’ moment than a sport
Absolutely. There are examples of thrills and spills that happen during a race that isn’t necessarily the finish but you’re right. One of our most successful pieces of content to date was watching the race with some connections – the owners
Looking at content that goes viral, outside of the finish line at a horserace, there is perhaps less of an opportunity for a ‘TikTokable’ or ‘Insta’ moment than a sport like football... with crazy tackles, 30-yard screamers or spectacular own goals. Was that a factor in you choosing to emphasise what can happen ‘off the track,’ so to speak?
What are the main obstacles you face and how have you found the reception so far? You mentioned your engagement levels but, given how tough it is to attract new audiences into racing, are you making the level of progress you need? Yeah, I think so. As we alluded to before, it’s not an easy task. Unless you’ve been brought up with horseracing, it’s something that is not the easiest to understand. There are quite a lot of different criteria to follow in the sport. But I don’t think that means you can’t have a nice day out. I think it is that taking of people on a journey – and learning every time you do go. What we wanted to do was create content that is engaging, watchable and fun, to present racing as something that’s a fun day out and a great social occasion. I think we’ve achieved that, in part, but we’ve only been doing it for a year. There’s more to come and we’re still learning but I’m pretty pleased with the start we’ve made.
day out. I think it is that taking of people on a What we wanted to do was create content that
racing as something that’s a fun day out and a that, in part, but we’ve only been doing it for
a baseball game. But there’s an opportunity to get around a racecourse. You can make your the bar! Our job is to convey that variety you not be aware of.
“Unless you’ve been brought up with horseracing, it’s something that is not the easiest to understand. There are quite a lot of different criteria to follow in the sport. But I don’t think that means you can’t have a nice day out"
and the trainers. Just to experience their emotions and delight – that’s the winning ingredient for social media: being able to portray that emotion and raw sense of excitement, which racing gives you. Perhaps a traditional broadcaster isn’t necessarily able to show that – which is something that appealed about this project.
76 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES RACECOURSE MEDIA GROUP
The White Paper has been coming out for months and months now, and there is probably bigger uncertainty than ever before in terms of when it will happen, as well as what’s in it. It would be difficult to speculate right now on what this will be and when. It’s hugely important to horseracing, depending on the measures that are in it and whether they would bring a risk to the sport. Some stakeholders have quoted a potential £100m risk to the industry, which is worrying. RMG’s standpoint is that we absolutely advocate supporting the Government in their efforts to minimise gambling-related harm. But, at the same time, we want that to be done in a measured, proven and effective way – rather
through data collection or sponsorship. But for now we are focused on growing the platform and the viewership.
than blanket measures that may or may not have a benefit in terms of reducing gambling-related harm.
On the business side, do you have any gauge on conversions into betting, but also conversions into horseracing attendances? Is it a costlier method of marketing via social media?
Not so much. We film with an iPhone and we contain costs pretty well. The talent we use are invested in the project, so might command higher fees for doing other things, but they really want to do this and enjoy it. So it isn’t that costly for us; we see it as an investment at the moment. Unlike our usual history where we need to generate revenue off the back of rights, this is seen as more of a long-term play. Ultimately, there will be a commercial imperative down the line, which might be
We want new initiatives to be evidence -based. It’s difficult to suggest that some ofthe measures to have been mooted will actually achieve that goal. We’ve been pretty active, actually, as an organisation around safer gambling. While we don’t take bets, we need to recognise that there are people who may be at risk from gambling-related harm that watch our content. And so, as a business, we’ve developed safer gambling policies, safer employee gambling policies. We’re very careful that we have the adequate signposting in our broadcasting and have signed up with Responsible Affiliates in Gambling, which means we go through an audit once a year. We absolutely support responsible gambling but we encourage anything that’s come in to be evidence-based, rather than imposing restrictions on personal freedom and choice – that perhaps don’t make any difference.
Finally, we haven’t had the Gambling Act review in the UK yet. After so many delays, what are your thoughts on the review process thus far?
Hay: Looking at the figures from our research, about 17% of bettors who had payment trouble just left and never came back to an operator’s site. Our research indicated that 30% of bettors would consider trying to sign up again, which simply means that one in five players will just sign up with one of your competitors. An operator will never get those players back; US trends at the minute show once a player is signed up and happy with one operator, the chances of them switching to another are incredibly slim.
Is now a crucial moment for payment providers to drive greater traffic to US online operators?
At the end of the day, as an operator, you aim to create entertainment. The product needs to be on par with the experience and fun factor you get from an app on your phone. The casual bettor is not going to have patience; if in 15 to 20 seconds they can’t figure out an operator’s payment solution, they are going to leave and likely go to a competitor. It’s because we’re on that curve, moving out of the phase in which early adopters have all signed up; and heading towards the period in which operators will be looking to convert casual players. So now we’re at a critical juncture where early adopters have signed up and casual conversion rates need to go up. We’re seeing this in our discussions with operators,
There are several payment options in demand, which provide a sure way for operators to offer familiarity to players. PayPal is the most in-demand tender type players want, with 64% saying PayPal would be an important service. Apple Pay is high in demand too, with 47% of users saying this would be important for them when depositing and withdrawing funds. Even cash is still important to people, particularly in the sports betting vertical. Cash is still a must-have tender type for any operator that is starting. Essentially, payment types that don’t require players to put in additional finance information are the ones with the greatest level of
Is it important for payment providers to improve their offering to convert as many casual gamers as possible? Webb: Picking up on choice, it’s all about the right mix that’s important. Operators will reach a point where they have diminishing returns, so it’s having the right mix of providers in your arsenal that provides people the experience people are used to. This all ties into trust: things customers are comfortable doing. Personally, I’m comfortable connecting to my PayPal account vs entering my bank account details and routing number. For other people it’s the opposite, so you have to have the right mix of options.
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Webb: 100%. You could get away with a lesser payment service in the early days more so than you can now. There are also a lot of available payment types, particularly in states like Colorado and Maryland. So there is a lot of competition between payment providers; improving their services is vital to attract the interest of operators. What’s more, new start-up operators are entering the market. These start -ups are focusing on creating better gameplay experiences, which will go after the segment and make sure they have the best payment solution possible.
Hay: That’s on the deposit side, but even on the withdrawal side we saw similar numbers. Around 50% would withdraw their funds through PayPal if they were able to. Direct depositing to a bank account was still high, though: 37% of players wanted this option available. There are also options people would like that are less widely
support, in addition to debit cards which remain a popular traditional payment option. Honing in on choice, 32% of players said in our research they would deposit higher amounts more often if they had access to their preferred payment method. So there is this great retention point in there should operators get it right.
THE PAYMENTSUS PROBLEM
FEATURES PAYNEARME
who are aware of players having issues with payments. We hear things like “we know we can’t get away with this anymore” and “we need to put research into ensuring all facets of our payments experience are a better one.”
PayNearMe VP & Head of Marketing Anne Hay, and VP for iGaming and sports betting Leighton Webb, talk through how deposits and withdrawals are affecting acquisition and retention rates in US markets
What can be done to optimise the player experience?
Hay: Imagine a note that just said, “Your card has been declined, here are three other options.” Just a simple message like this can create such a difference; it’s messaging that isn’t commonly available to players in the US today. If you were to receive that message you may think “oh, my bank doesn’t take it, let me try PayPal, let me try Cash App,” as opposed to “I’ve no idea why you declined my transaction, but I’ve already put my details in one time, I’m not doing that again!” Imagine how much easier it would be if you were given three other acceptable offers when your bank card was declined. Even having cash as an option could make a big difference. If all else fails, cash has universality in the US so this would largely be accepted by many as an alternative tender type. This way, the player always has a way to place a bet.
"It's important to note that a player acquisiton is not made until a deposit is made. So payments are an integral part of acquiring and retaining players"
Webb: Some players are not receiving their funds for up to a week, but critically they’re not being told why. Players aren’t being told what to expect; they aren’t being run through the process of depositing and withdrawing by the operator. So it’s really about operators optimising their services to things which are as clear and seamless for the customer as possible. Operators should be able to tell players at the point when a player is typing in their bank number whether their card is acceptable or not. This is just one example of how operators can streamline the process, saving potential customers time and speeding up the onboarding process. It’s all about optimisation and being pixel perfect. Every additional step a potential player has to go through is an opportunity for them to drop out of the flow. This isn’t iGaming-specific, it’s a universal issue for payments. If you can improve every touchpoint, you will improve the overall operation drastically and see far greater conversion numbers.
Furthermore, half of players would play and withdraw more often with their preferred payment choice. So that’s quite high, people would play more if they knew they could withdraw their money faster and the way they want to. This is a trend we’ve found to be more significant for younger men across the board; which isn’t too surprising given the higher value of a win for a younger player, compared to older players with higher incomes. In total, 61% of frequent players said they would withdraw more with faster payouts, so that is a real point where operators can improve the player experience. If you look at it, 40% of players surveyed had to wait longer than 24 hours to receive their withdrawal; that’s a high percentage. Money moves as money moves but there are a lot of new technologies operators can use to speed up the process. There are business models whereby withdrawals can be auto-approved once players have used an operator frequently enough, so it’s just about implementing that.
Webb: It’s also worth noting that the speed of withdrawal can have an impact on the frequency of betting. If a player is waiting for a withdrawal longer than 24 hours, they may be reluctant to place another bet until they have received their withdrawal. Players want to be able to use their winnings to place another wager.
Across the board, players indicate the biggest pain point on both the depositing and withdrawal side was when the process took too long. In total, 29% of players faced delays when depositing, while 39% had an issue with the length of time it took to withdraw funds. So if the barriers that are there were taken away, there would be a significant increase on the
There are also issues around privacy and trust; 28% of casual bettors find this a concern in terms of the information they share or are asked to share on an operator’s site. Of those that expressed concern, providing information a player does not want to disclose would drive 26% of players to leave a betting app. So operators need to think about privacy, trust and what information players would be willing to share and who with. This is a pain point for casual bettors, in particular. If these issues are not addressed it’s ultimately going to lead to several players leaving online sportsbooks.
Hay: To conclude, I think it’s important to note that a player acquisition is not made until a deposit is made. So payments are an integral part of acquiring and retaining players. Players want to think about the match they’re betting on or the game they’re playing; they don’t want to be thinking about payment types. Consumers expect payments to be seamless just like in all the other aspects of life. So removing deposit and withdrawal barriers clears this path for players to bet more frequently. When players don’t have to consciously focus on payments, this drives up interaction with the application or website, improving a player’s experience. This is really what is going to win for operators at the end of the day.
available. Cash App is not widely used and 39% of users expressed a desire to use this. Players also expressed a desire to cash out their funds at an ATM, walking into a physical location that’s not a casino to withdraw their winnings. This is a solution PayNearMe offers which isn’t widely available yet, but one that one in four players would like to have access to.
ROI of many operators. Even if it’s a couple of percentage points, that still equates to a lot of money for the operator. Casual bettors are facing issues, too. Also, 11% of casual bettors are not receiving the funds they withdraw for up to a week. If you’re a casual player and it’s taking that long, you’re going to be put off betting very quickly.
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How can payment deposits/withdrawals become more streamlined?
they refuse to try and sign up again as a result. So it’s clear payment declines are still an issue.
Webb: One of the main issues around payment declines is that the banks being used are not supported on an operator’s site. This is because several banks are not supporting something called Gaming High-Risk Transactions, so people with these bank accounts will see their cards declined on an operator’s site. The second part of this issue is: what is the operator doing to save its potential client? Operators should be redirecting players to use a different tender type that is accepted. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on this. On many operator sites, there is no information available, aside from letting a player know their deposit has been declined. The 17% of people who leave and never return to an operator cite confusion over their declined card. People become immediately frustrated and want to move on to other things. This is a big pain point for operators today within the overall depositing process.
Hay: Optimising the player experience is really about removing as many barriers as possible that a player might face when depositing funds or trying to make a withdrawal. From the research, players indicated that slow transactions, long waits and payment declines were major obstacles to overcome. Overall, 52% of bettors said they had issues with declined payments when signing up for a new betting application, and a percentage of that number have said
of gambling operations. The laws consider such activities as aiding and facilitating gambling, and impose imprisonment terms ranging from a few months to a couple of years, along with a monetary fine on advertisers. States that permit skill games for money or money’s worth do not place any prohibition on advertising thereof – subject to such advertisements being complaint with other laws discussed below.
GAMING LAWS
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Regular Gambling Insider contributor Ranjana Adhikari and her associate at IndusLaw, Arjun Khanna, assess the advertising landscape for online gaming in India
Advertising laws in India are scattered. They have been formed keeping several considerations in mind, such as what product is being advertised; the content used in the advertisement; and where the advertisement is being publicised. From this lens, we have covered laws that apply to gaming advertisements in India from a product, content and platform perspective.
CONSUMER PROTECTION
PRODUCT AND CONTENT SPECIFIC LAWS
In addition to the above laws, India’s central regulation on consumer protection, the Consumer Protection Act 2019 (CPA) inter alia aims to safeguard consumers against misleading advertisements that falsely describe products or services, conceal relevant information or give a false guarantee of the product to mislead consumers. The statutory authority under the CPA has also recently issued Guidelines for the Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements 2022 (Misleading Advertisement Guidelines), which impose specific conditions on advertisements across all formats and mediums. The Misleading Advertisement Guidelines require promotional material to be truthful and honest in their representation by not making tall or unsubstantiated claims about their products or services. They also prohibit all forms of surrogate advertising i.e. advertising something prohibited or illegal under the pretext of advertising something that isn’t prohibited. They have also introduced conditions when disseminating advertisements that are specifically targeted at minors and impose due diligence requirements on endorsers involved in an advertisement. Advertisers guilty of misleading consumers can have their advertisements taken down by the central authority and be subject to heavy monetary fines.
CONTENT
Agnostic of the medium and category of advertisements, there are several laws that regulate their content. To name a few, the Indian Penal Code 1860 and Information Technology Act 2000 penalise the transmission of any obscene material over the physical
and electronic medium, with the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act 1986 prohibiting advertisements from showing women in a vulgar or obscene light. Similarly, if an advertisement carries or displays the Indian national flag without due permission, the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act 1950 gets triggered. Violation of these laws are criminal offences which are punishable with up to five years in jail, along with monetary fines ranging from INR 500 (approx. $6) to INR 1,00,000 (approx. $1,265).
LAWS THAT GOVERN GAMING ADVERTISEMENTS IN INDIA
Gaming in India is regulated by each state (province) and is bifurcated into two categories of skill and chance. Most state laws permit offering games of skill, with games of chance for stakes i.e. gambling being prohibited. Their advertisements are mainly disseminated via – radio, newspapers, broadcast and digital media. Some state gaming laws which prohibit the offering of or conducting gambling activities also prohibit the printing, publishing and distribution i.e. advertisement
With a growing user base and an increasing number of operators vying for the attention of consumers, gaming advertisements in India have become edgier, more colorful, and plentiful across platforms – be it print, radio, television or digital. While that has struck a chord with users, it has also caught the attention of the regulators. Therefore, it is increasingly pertinent for advertisers to educate themselves with the laws applicable to the industry and be mindful of the repercussions in the event of non-compliance. This article seeks to provide a broad overview of what to expect from the regulatory landscape for online gaming advertisements in India, along with recent developments that can impact the marketing ecosystem.
ADVERTISING RESPONSIBLY IN INDIA: WHAT BUSINESSES MUST COMPLY WITH
Ranjana Adhikari
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India has no overarching central law for advertising. However, there are medium and sector-specific laws, along with a voluntary self-regulatory body, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI). ASCI has issued an advertising code (ASCI Code) prescribing broad guidelines for advertisements, including for them to be honest and truthful in general. While ASCI is not a government regulator, the ASCI Code has been given statutory force by being mandatorily applicable to all advertisements on cable and satellite television, as per the Cable Television Network Rules 1994, framed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 (Cable Television Act). Accordingly, television broadcasters must mandatorily adhere to it for the purposes of advertisements. The Supreme Court of India has also noted that the ASCI Code is part of the existing complaint redressal mechanism for television programs. Thus, advertisements broadcast on cable television, DTH, IPTV or other broadcasting media regulated under the Cable Television Act must adhere to the ASCI Code.
GUIDELINES ISSUED BY THE ADVERTISING STANDARDS COUNCIL OF INDIA (ASCI)
and its allied rules. In addition to the ASCI Code and RMG guidelines, broadcasters must also adhere to the Advertisement Code under the Cable Television Act, which regulates the content of advertisements by prohibiting those that are, inter alia, vulgar, obscene or discriminatory in nature. A violation of the Cable Television Act or rules can result in a jail term of up to two years and/or a fine of INR 1,000 (approx. $12) with subsequent offences attracting up to five years in jail and with a fine of INR 5,000 (approx. $63).
LESSONS TO LEARN
Print media in India is regulated by a statutory body, the Press Council of India, which in addition to the ASCI Code has issued Norms of Journalistic Conduct prohibiting newspapers and other print periodicals from publishing advertisements that are unlawful or illegal. Since most states in India consider gambling to be illegal, advertisers must analyse the relevant gaming laws in each state before marketing their products in the print media.
The state Government of Tamil Nadu, a southern state of India, recently set up a committee to recommend a new law for online gaming, including studying the possibility of banning advertisements of online gaming in the state.
In the hope of getting a bigger piece of the gaming pie in India, advertisers should ensure they don’t offer prohibited products or market themselves illegally. Before publishing advertisements, they must study: the regulatory position of gaming in each state; the advertising laws applicable across each medium; ensure truthful representations; not mislead consumers or violate content or obscenity laws in their dissemination.
BROADCAST
OTHER RELEVANT DEVELOPMENTS
“With the meteoric rise of online gaming in India, governments are looking to regulate the industry, with a check on its marketing equally on the agenda”
In addition to the above laws, there has been a recent heightened increase in governments monitoring the advertising space. In June 2022, the central ministry for Information and Broadcasting issued an advisory to media outlets (print, broadcast and digital) to refrain from displaying advertisements of online betting platforms. According to the Government, promoting activities that are largely prohibited in India can have socio-economic effects to the detriment of the younger members of society.
Arjun Khanna
Given the rapid penetration and impact of the internet, advertising on digital media is by far the most lucrative market for advertisers - whether it’s on social media, OTT platforms or any other platform on the internet. Currently, India does not have a uniform regulatory regime for digital media marketing but, as good practice, digital media platforms comply with the ASCI Code and their allied guidelines to the extent possible.
can, as a last step, forward the complaint to the concerned regulatory authority or government department for appropriate action.
DIGITAL MEDIA
PLATFORMSPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS
With the meteoric rise of online gaming in India, governments are looking to regulate the industry, with a check on its marketing equally being on the agenda. A recent report from ASCI observed that in comparison to last year there has been a 472% increase in the number of advertisements they examined; with 94% violating the ASCI Code and RMG Guidelines in one way or another.
ASCI has also issued specific guidelines on online real-money gaming advertisements (RMG Guidelines) which, inter alia, require: (i) cautionary disclaimers in gaming advertisements about the element of financial risks involved (ii) that the games not be promoted as a successful or full-time income opportunity for users and (iii) not advertising to or depicting minors in any promotional material. ASCI receives complaints and issues notices to campaigns not in conformity with the ASCI Code, and offers advertisers the opportunity to either withdraw or modify their advertisements. If advertisers fail to adhere to ASCI’s directions on such advertisements, ASCI
RADIO
Radio stations follow a Code for Commercial Advertising applicable to all radio stations. It defines an advertisement as any item of publicity for goods or services inserted during the radio broadcast. It expressly prohibits radio stations from broadcasting advertisements on lotteries, other than those organised by a central or state government. It also prohibits advertising of betting tips relating to horseracing or any games of chance.
As mentioned above, television broadcasters in India are regulated by the Cable Television Act
sport relies on regular payouts on the contentious topics of the day, while the privately takes the opposite stance.
It’s perfectly appropriate for members of society and politicians to believe that state -owned commercial gambling companies are a great idea, even if you disagree with them. But if so, they should make the case for such an arrangement themselves and not leave it up to state-owned corporations to interfere in the public debate.
82 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM FEATURES GUSTAF HOFFSTEDT
Those of us who believe that industry and commerce ought to be privately owned may take exception to the state owning and operating, in an open competitive market, vehicle inspection stations, mortgage lenders, gambling companies and pharmacies (all real examples from my home country of Sweden). But apart from their utter senselessness, as privately owned companies offer the same services in the same market, the situation would be tolerable if it wasn’t for the way these corporations court public opinion.
Gustaf Ho stedt , Secretary General for the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling, contemplates the morally contentious points associated with being a state-owned gambling organisation
The problem with this arrangement is that, in a free society, it is the people – through their elected leaders – who determine how gambling operators should be regulated. Not the other way around. In an unfree society, state corporations and authorities tell politicians and the people who elect them what to think
and how to regulate. That is what state-owned gambling companies are always tempted to do. When government officials dictate how society should be organised, the free democratic debate becomes contaminated.
I think the only responsible recourse is to organise an annual bonfire and burn the profits from gambling. My suggestion? Do it once on Walpurgis Night, on April 30, when my country traditionally torches the discarded piles of twigs and branches from the past autumn and winter to mark the arrival of spring. Any other use of these profits will corrupt its recipients.
If states are to own and operate gambling companies, decision-makers, who should be encouraged
In my own country, organised sport relies on regular payouts from Sweden’s state-owned gambling company. It’s no surprise then that leagues and teams tend to adopt the same position as Svenska Spel on the contentious topics of the day, while the privately owned gambling industry takes the opposite stance. Politicians and the public are then urged to “listen to the leagues and teams.”
The most blatant example of free speech being contaminated by state-owned gambling companies comes from Finland, where a substantial share of the profits from Veikkaus – the Finnish state’s gambling company – is distributed to political youth associations. In other words, gambling profits go to the country’s future decision-makers, who should be encouraged to think freely and broadly on every societal issue – including on whether or not gambling monopoles are a good idea. Instead, tomorrow’s Finnish politicians are financially dependent on a state-owned corporation that is doing its utmost to protect Finland’s gambling monopoly.
THE CASE FOR BURNING GAMBLING PROFITS
Finland’s gambling monopoly.
State-owned gambling companies across Europe have been busy telling society how the activities of their own and all other gambling businesses ought to be governed. No one is left wondering what state-owned gambling companies believe should be done to combat match-fixing, or how gambling advertising can be best regulated, as these views are fed to politicians and the public on a daily basis.
Most people who object to the curious practice of states owning and operating gambling corporations tend to build their case around the way such companies unfairly compete with the privately owned industry. They are wrong. The most serious issue is state-owned gambling companies’ self-imposed role as opinion leaders.
Gustaf Hoffstedt
It is one thing for the political majority in society to decide that gambling products should be marketed and sold by a state-owned company. That is a bad idea since it goes far beyond what is usually considered to be at the core of a state’s business, such as safeguarding national security or an independent judiciary. But it is not so bad as to constitute a serious attack on the foundations of a democratic society.
That’s what we sell. Positive experiences. The failure to do so is
Gambling Insider contributor and industry marketing veteran, Alex Czajkowski , discusses how macroeconomic indicators can in uence the determination of optimal wager amounts. Our industry’s main job is to sell experiences, he argues, not just to maximise revenue generation...
Nothing is worse than dropping in $50 and losing it in 10 spins at $5 a spin. “I can’t win at that casino,” the player says, followed up by a much stronger-worded response in less polite company... These factors don’t add up to a positiveNewbiesexperience.mayor may not know how (or when!) to adjust their price per spin. So we set our slots at the minimum bet. The numbers work out the same, the RTP is the same; sure there is (online at least) an infinitesimal cost of powering that game for 50 spins instead of 10. But the player has a better time.
But there is no KPI that we use on how fast we get those revenues. Give your players a positive experience, point them at games you think they might enjoy (low to medium-volatility slots). If they prefer to play 21 or baccarat, they’ll find those tables. If they prefer the rush of a bigger bet and greater return on a higher volatility slot, show them; give them a taste. What we get paid for is delivering a positive experience to all of our players.
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Do that and the money will come. Just look at penny slots in Vegas.
Alex Czajkowski
PENNY SLOTS
I hear my intelligent colleagues at various firms talking about setting the optimal default bet on their slot machines. But what are they trying to accomplish? “Maximum revenue generation from players.” I disagree. Our job is to make sure our players have a positive experience and get their money’s worth.
WE LOVE PENNY SLOTS
what gives you churn. Let’s say we’re in a country with a low GDP and a large, younger demographic like Indonesia. We set the default spin to the lowest possible price per spin. Or a country with a high GDP and a declining, ageing population, like Japan. We set the default spin to the lowest possible price per spin. These macro-economic factors will change the lifetime value of your players (lower GDP, lower player values; higher GDP, higher player values).
In 2021, table games in Las Vegas accounted for $4.8bn in revenue, $1.29bn in blackjack and baccarat $1.2bn. Sports betting was $432.1m. That’s impressive – and it was Vegas’ best year ever in fact. And yet slots generated $9.83bn in total revenue. Penny slots, meanwhile, generated $3.8bn, almost three times the revenue of those suited-and-booted baccarat players.
Experienced players know what they want to spin at initially. They know their bankroll and that to get that possibly high-returning feature they’ll need 100-200 spins; so they plan accordingly – and hope. But they play at a level and for sufficient time that, win or lose, they had a positive experience.
Miss Hach, my fifth grade teacher a hundred years or so ago, used to fine us a nickel for every week we were late returning a book from her library. “To use on the nickel slots in Vegas,” she used to say. That puts her in the minority of Vegas players, right? After all, Vegas is about high rollers, table games, VIP sections and limos. Like we see on TV and in movies… She would be in a minority sitting there sticking nickels in a slot machine. Right?
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THE INSIDERSROBERTZIEMS ARUZE GAMING8588 8986HAMZA AFIFI SOFT2BET MARTIN CHEEK SMARTSEARCH
In every issue, GamblingInsider commissions guest columns and interviews with people at the heart of the gaming industry – to discover more about the challenges its leaders, pioneers and innovators face. These contributors form The Insiders
"Attracting and retaining players requires a unique, innovative and diverse game portfolio"
With the recent trend of having larger screens on gaming cabinets, it has become difficult to differentiate which cabinet is from which gaming manufacturer. Aruze’s latest design stems from the original Muso design and is intended to further distinguish the Aruze product from other manufacturers.
Attracting and retaining players requires a unique, innovative and diverse game portfolio –not only of game titles but of play styles as well – to satisfy today’s diverse gaming demographic. While today’s players love traditional slot experiences, they are also ready for new gambling adventures; including those that combine traditional play with new technologies, like hybrid ETGs, to create surprising and modern gaming experiences that today’s players love.
Can you tell us all about Aruze’s Muso cabinets and how you will display them at G2E?
How does Aruze vary its products across America, Australia and other branches/markets?
them coming back.
Our over 4,000 sq ft booth at G2E will display a multitude of our Muso cabinets, in various combinations, from three pods to four, five and six pods. We will be showcasing the Muso Curve 55 – Midnight Edition Cabinet with its unique honeycomb pattern and eye-catching graphics designed to attract attention from all over the gaming floor.
We are confident these key features will be identifiable as Aruze gaming cabinets even from a distance.
Today’s casino players are a diverse mix of traditional slot enthusiasts and digital natives. With technology woven into every aspect of our lives, current casino goers have different entertainment expectations than players from even a few short years ago. Play style preferences are as varied as the demographics, but the constant among them all is the desire to win. The excitement from a well-executed wagering journey draws players in and keeps
Due in part to regulation, every game will have different specifications tailored to its market. However, Aruze also customises its games according to each market’s player preferences and local trends.
85GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM INSIDERSROB ZIEMS
Aruze Gaming President Rob Ziems and Muso 32 cabinets, ahead of the duo's moment in the sun at G2E
Aruze Gaming provides innovative and surprising gambling products for today’s players. Our hybrid ETGs, video slots, and Activ-Play(TM) gambling devices provide players with new ways to have fun, whether it be via electronic table games (ETG), video slots, Activ-Play(TM) gambling devices or other unique gaming platforms.
Using the 55-inch screen, we removed the organic patterned back panel lighting, which was a distinctive feature of the previous model (MUSO Curve 43/ Triple 27), and instead adopted a lighting concept based on a cool hex/ honeycomb pattern and midnight black color that maximises the lighting effect.
Generally, what do you look for in your next big product – and what does it take to create a high-performing casino product?
Attracting & retaining players
To produce games for each market, Aruze has game designers who focus on the specific market, customising the games based on regional preferences. Instead of evaluating the game using a simulator, game developers actually play the game while considering the psychology of players and making detailed adjustments based on their experience.
discusses the supplier’s Muso 55
Casino operators need to diversify their portfolios and appeal to a wide range of demographics with new and surprising gaming solutions, ones that blend traditional gaming experiences with new technologies to create new playstyles. A win for both casino operators and today’s players. Aruze brings new play styles to life with Lucky Roulette, Go Go Claw and our Roll to Win and Shoot to Win Craps. We will continue to leverage technology to create new ways to play.
Muso Curve 55 is part of Aruze’s new Premium Core product line, and one of only a handful of cabinets of this size and calibre available for sale in the market. Properties can now own this EGM with the most up-to-date technology while having access to the latest compelling slot themes.
What main factors did you consider when designing the Muso 55 and Muso 32?
Given the right partner, opportunities for those entering the iGaming market in North America are huge. As we see it, there are several important factors operators must focus on to hit the ground running: wealth of content; speed to market; localised products; a deep knowledge of player preferences; and effective marketing tools to attract and engage players.
The conclusion is that aggregators will play an essential role as US states and Canadian provinces continue to open up. We believe the right solution enables every stakeholder to win, with innovative content produced by the minds of thousands of talented members of the iGaming community, rather than just dozens. A plethora of choice and real creativity within products and engagement tools will benefit everyone, from operators through to players.
The US is the fastest-growing online gambling market in the world. As it stands, even at this early stage of state-by-state rollout of regulation, the US made up 10% of the world’s online gross gaming revenue in 2021, and the latest projection is that the overall online sports betting and gambling market in the country will be worth $24.1bn by 2026.
In Canada, meanwhile, the combined market for online sports betting and gaming is estimated to be over $2bn in 2022. This includes Ontario, a city touted to ultimately become one of the largest iGaming markets in North America, which is estimated to generate $2.54bn by 2026. So it is natural that we expect Canada to become a key focal point for our business.
"When everyone is on board a speeding train of growth, operators unquestionably seek to streamline their time to market in an organised manner"
It is a well-worn comparison of the current state of play across the United States and Canada as being akin to the California Gold Rush of 1849. It is also a very valid one, given the staggering numbers that continue to emerge from North America.
with data as well as partners to deliver games that resonate regionally will be a key differentiator.
When everyone is on board a speeding train of growth, operators unquestionably seek to streamline their time to market in an organised manner, with trusted professional suppliers that really know how to deliver and support iGaming content. Fast integration makes it a seamless process for operators to partner with an aggregation platform, but what really makes these partners stand out is the option to take some rather than all available content, making for a more targeted approach – depending on the size of the business and regions they want to operate
Pariplay Director of US and Canada Adrian Bailey explains why aggregation platforms can offer game innovators a fast track to market, by circumventing complex regulation to provide the latest in localised content
86 GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM INSIDERS ADRIAN BAILEY
Unlocking game aggregation in North American markets
Within.each state and province so varied in terms of player preferences, it is vital that the games delivered fit local desires. While a buffalo -themed game appeals to players just about anywhere, players in New Jersey may not favour a UK-style pub fruit machine. Similarly, players in West Virginia might have little emotional connection to a branded game based on a soccer star. Providing an entertainment experience that tells a story is a key driver of entertaining players. They love to be immersed in other worlds, lands and stories, and we strongly believe working
When it comes to fast access to markets, an aggregator partnership is the most efficient and cost-effective route for all game studios. As an example, it has taken Pariplay almost 12 months to complete the process for our provisional iGaming supplier licensing in Michigan. That means a lot of time, labour hours and costs have been incurred simply to be approved, even before considering the technical set-up, game certifications and integrations with our customers. It’s a tremendous undertaking for any company large or small. For smaller studios, this arduous process could mean a consequential lack of focus on producing content or signing commercial deals. In the end, aggregators can be seen as providing the dreamers of gaming innovation with a realistic way to achieve their visions – at a mere fraction of what it takes to get in front of US gaming regulators and major operators.
Soft2Bet has seen exceptional growth in the last year, both as a company itself and also in terms of the new strategic partnerships we have formed.
Soft2Bet’s Director of PR Hamza Afifi discusses how the company has grown since starting out six years ago, as well as entering new markets and in-person industry events
We have recently celebrated a new milestone this year: 1,000 employees, just in time for our sixth anniversary. We are extremely proud of the people in our company as it’s their hard work and determination that has brought about the success we have seen over the years.
What would be your advice to new companies starting out in iGaming, given what you’ve learnt as a company? Every company goes through ups and downs, particularly as this industry is constantly changing and evolving. However, the key is to persevere and focus on the bottom line; what does our company stand for and what makes it stand out from the rest?
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Industry events enable partners from all parts of the globe to congregate in one place, to meet and learn about the latest technological developments by means of exhibitions. These conferences are vital as they generate a new energy that stimulates innovation and helps the industry move forward.
A lot can happen in six years
The Soft2Bet team is constantly improving our various in-house solutions to adapt to the
Congratulations on your sixth anniversary. Do any highlights stand out in particular?
We have increased the number of game providers to 95 and the number of payment providers to 110. Hence, our portfolio has diversified significantly, now consisting of a whopping 7,000 games and 400 live games.
With the industry continuously evolving, how have recent changes influenced the latest iteration of your platform?
How difficult is it to enter new markets? Obtaining different licences has been a top priority for us since the beginning. However, many of the markets that exist today, both in and outside of Europe, did not exist six years ago; so the opportunities for growth have increased Nonetheless,substantially.beingableto secure entry into any market is no small feat. It takes a large amount of time, preparation and resources to achieve this, and all departments have to carefully follow the strict rules of each regulator.
We also re-launched our new and improved Betinia brand to the Swedish market and prepared a large-scale offline promo marketing campaign, which spanned numerous platforms including TV, outdoor billboards and display advertising.
This platform is also aimed at enhancing our aggregation capabilities, while covering all our bases in terms of security, data protection and overall fault tolerance. It has a greater capacity to successfully integrate an array of systems like never before, including providers, social media and mobileMoreover,applications.withthe rising number of mobile phone users, the various companies that we partner with and the increased interest in our brands, it’s safe to say this is just the beginning; and we are continuously refining our brands to perfection. This will ensure we have consistent business growth across all platforms.
Exhibitions such as ICE are an opportunity for us to stand out from the rest, showcasing our many new projects, updating partners on our plans for the future, as well as learning from other businesses and competitors. For us, attending and participating in these international events and conferences is a powerful method we use to present our business to both prospective and existing clients.
changing climate of our industry. We have also launched a brand new product that has seen many changes, including the introduction of several cutting-edge features that serve to improve our players’ overall casino and sports betting experience. The features include but are not limited to an increase in stability and speed, with respect to the processing of customer requests.
How important are in-person industry events for the industry?
Of course, the next step would be to hire experienced professionals who can confidently form strong teams, are motivated to reach those goals and follow through with the implementation of new ideas.
This year has also been centred around expanding our global footprint to reach a broader audience. We are pleased to say that we have successfully secured two licences; Danish (gambling licence from the Danish Gambling Authority, Spillemyndigheden) and Irish (gambling licence from the Irish Revenue Commissioners). We also have a keen interest in making further acquisitions in the near future.
That’s especially true as the war in Ukraine rages on. Since the conflict began, an unprecedented 7,200 individuals and 1,250 entities have been added to the thousands of global sanctions in place.
The problem is exacerbated by those firms who, according to the regulator, ignore both financial and threshold triggers, and lack adequate control and checks on both their customers and their source of income.
On top of sizeable fines, there’s the very real threat of licences being suspended or withdrawn entirely. There’s also reputational damage of being named and shamed, and the intensive audits and far-reaching inspections that will weigh heavily on businesses.
Caesars Entertainment’s then-record fine of £13m in 2020 serves as an important warning in this respect. Among its failures, the company allowed a politically exposed person (PEP) – someone who is at higher risk of bribery or corruption thanks to their position – to lose £795,000 in just over a year.
Digital-led daily monitoring is absolutely vital, allowing firms to account for changing global sanctions and immediately identify those who are now subject to tighter rules. This includes designated persons (DPs), PEPs or relatives and close associates (RCAs).
Even customers with no discernible link to Russia or the Kremlin may now be subject to sanctions. Without appropriate checks, firms could be seen as an enabler for evasion and liable to further fines or criminal prosecution.
Gambling compliance?with
The reality is that the large number of rapid, potentially high-value transactions has long made the sector an easy target for criminals to
end at registration. Regulators are looking for firms to show consistent checks throughout the customer’s journey.
Using EV as part of cloud-based software, or integrated into an existing system, means thousands of in-depth checks can be completed in seconds. By utilising automation, AI and facial recognition to streamline onboarding, compliance can start to feel like competitive advantage rather than hardship.
You only have to look at the growing number of companies named and shamed by the Gambling Commission to see the problem. In August alone, Entain and its brands Ladbrokes, Coral and Foxy Bingo were fined a record £17m ($20m) for social responsibility and AML breaches.
Of course, compliance doesn’t begin and
Like many industries in the current climate, the gambling sector is feeling the heavy burden of anti-money laundering (AML) compliance.
launder ‘dirty money.’ However, as technology has advanced and customers have moved online, the opportunities for financial crime have only increased.
SmartSearch Managing Director Martin Cheek explores the ever-important issue of anti-money laundering amid the growing number of fines for gambling companies
One of the biggest advancements has been electronic verification (EV), which supersedes open-source searches and removes the need for manual checks on hard documents such as passports, IDs and driving licences.
There’s no question that the industry is facing a monumental task. But thanks to continued innovation and global digitalisation, the technology is available to remove the gamble and ease the compliance burden. It’s now up to firms to make it a priority.
It therefore feels like a pivotal time for the industry, especially as the size and volume of fines increase and the regulator promises stricter penalties as part of its crackdown. In truth, the only thing slowing down the pace of reforms is a skeleton UK Government and an ongoing leadership battle.
With the business-never-sleeps mentality of the sector, firms can implement 24-hour monitoring without manual intervention. This means any positive customer matches automatically trigger enhanced due diligence, showing the proactiveness regulators are searching for.
In the same month, we saw LeoVegas fined £1.3m and Smarkets fined £630,000. That’s not forgetting betting giant 888 receiving a hefty £9.4m fine in March for the same offences.
Without question, this should all serve as an urgent call to action to businesses: to step up their due diligence, and take advantage of digital advancements to modernise onboarding and strengthen client monitoring.
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Going digital with access to high quality, robust data allows firms to protect their business, speed up and modernise processes and keep their competitive advantage; all while demonstrating consistent checks and controls to regulators.
With real certainty, EV allows firms to weed out the bad actors and truly verify a customer’s identity – a key component of the Know Your Customer (KYC) procedure.
These two games join the catching gaming experiences provided by RacinGo - Wild™, Underwater Riches™, Kingdom Gems™ and Catch the Gold™ with the Wild Multiplier, Super Reels, Best Symbols and Sticky Wild features, respectively.
FBM keeps increasing its slots portfolio and brings a renewed multi-game product for the Mexican casinos. FBM Easy$Money Link maintains its attractive progressive jackpots (Mini, Minor, Major and Grand) and brings two new slots and features to the portfolio available in this multi-game experience.
MDX Shuffler
WHAT’S NEW ON THE MARKET?
When enjoyingRainbow Falls™, players will taste magical sessions adorned with the Triple Wild feature during free spins. In this game mode, wild symbols can appear on reels 2, 3 and 4, occupying the full column and increasing winning combinations for players.
The MDX Shuffler is the first device on the market capable of sorting multiple decks of cards – with a one to 10 deck sorting capacity. This eliminates the risk of “edge shorting” cards, tackling the risk by randomly rotating the card feeder elevator 180 degrees throughout the shuffle. The process of “edge shorting” is a technique used by some gamblers to gain an advantage over the house, where a player attempts to determine whether a face-down playing card is likely to have a high or low number.
The MDX Shuffler mitigates this risk by lengthening the time between card shoe changes.
New games, new features, new emotions! That is what FBM Easy$Money Link brings to players in Mexico. Rainbow Falls™ and Viva Mexico™ are the two slots joining the initial multi-game pack (RacinGo - Wild™, Underwater Riches™, Kingdom Gems™, and Catch the Gold™), and they come with two surprising features – Triple Wild and Stacked Wild.
Light & Wonder’s MDX Shuffler, the winner for Casino Product of the Year at the Global Gaming Awards Asia, is a multi-deck electronic shuffler with the capacity to shuffle up to 10 decks of cards.
FBM GAMING LUCKY SIX EASY$MONEY LINK
Ahead of the heavily land-based G2E trade show, Gambling Insider previews some of the exciting products now available on the casino oor
Viva Mexico™ takes players on a trip to Mexico with brand new graphics and sounds, including the typical maracas, pinatas and a special feature – Stacked Wild. As a result, when players get in free spins mode, the wild symbol takes overthe entire reels one and five, leading players to big wins.
The combination of the six titles affirms FBM Easy$Money Link as a modern, diverse and appealing multi-game product, able to provide memorable entertaining sessions in casinos across the Mexican country. This is only the first step of a global expansion plan for this product that will cover several markets in Europe and Asia.
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LIGHT & WONDER MDX SHUFFLER
XLucky Six – Easy$Money Link
Dallmeier offers a Casino Operating System (COS) called HEMISPHERE® SeMSy®5, a software platform, which helps casinos to easily, control and optimise their core areas: gaming, surveillance and marketing.
processing of many different data sources and interfaces. From video to incident reporting, marketing data and much more. The user selects from a wide range of applications that help casinos maximise efficiency and workflows. For example, casino surveillance users can control their complete video surveillance system and quickly create a “digital evidence file” that includes corresponding video, notes, reports and
Refined details like the large foot well, two XL start buttons and the indirect LED lighting concept with intelligent game-synched colour effects ideally contrasting the black metro finish create a sophisticated blend of ergonomics and ambiance. Further design elements, which the DIAMOND X™ 1.55J shares with its sister cabinet are the modern front door panel with the characteristic facelift of the grill
DIAMOND X™ 1.55J
and the player interface options: button deck as a standard and a 15.6” TouchDeck™ player interface complemented by two presenceversion,perfectlyAG,Rothwangl,LINK™launchesspace-optimised,mechanismwellcomponentsaccessgrantingbemountinga1.55JDIAMONDconceptimprovedasphysicalextra-largebuttonsanoption.ThemaintenancefortheX™includesmonitorthatcanhydraulicallylifted,excellenttothekeyasasafoldingforsafetransport.TheDIAMONDX™1.55JnowwiththeexclusiveXTENSIONfortheinternationalmarkets.JakobVPGlobalSalesNOVOMATICsaid:“TheDIAMONDX™1.55Jcomplementsthe2.32multi-screendeliveringahighlyintriguingonthegamingfloor."
INTRODUCING DALLMEIER’S CASINO OPERATING SYSTEM SEMSY®5
“A single pane of glass:” analytics, data, interfaces and video: An essential aspect of SeMSy®5 is the integration, presentation and
PRODUCT REVIEWS
The main advantage of SeMSy®5 is that all functions and data are fully integrated into the SeMSy® video and data management world, saving time and cost with considerably less complex work processes. All in all, important findings from previously unused data sources are utilised and synergies can be achieved.
SeMSy®5
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useful information.
options: button deck as a by two AG,Rothwangl,LINK™launchesspace-optimised,mechanismwellcomponentsaccessgrantingbemountingDIAMONDimprovedasphysicalextra-largebuttonsanoption.ThemaintenanceX™thatcanhydraulicallylifted,excellenttothekeyasasafoldingforsafetransport.TheDIAMONDX™1.55JnowwiththeexclusiveXTENSIONfortheinternationalmarkets.JakobVPGlobalSalesNOVOMATICsaid:“TheDIAMONDX™1.55J
FE ATURES
NOVOMATIC DIAMOND X™ 1.55J Elegantly curved gaming beyond X-pectations: Global Gaming Awards Asia Table Game of the Year winner Novomatic has released its latest product. After this year’s international launch of the multi-screen version, NOVOMATIC now heralds the impressive single-screen version of the DIAMOND X™ cabinet series: DIAMOND X™ 1.55J. Gumpoldskirchen, August 16th, 2022 – After the launch of the DIAMOND X™ 2.32 multi-screen cabinet in March, NOVOMATIC now follows up with the brand -new DIAMOND X™ 1.55 J-curve version of this magnificent video slot cabinet. Its elegant J-curved 1.55” UHD PCAP touchscreen and the exquisite LED silhouette make the DIAMOND X™ 1.55 a safe bet for exciting curve screen game presentation and maximum player appeal.
Customer retention benefits from Smart marketing measures: Eventually, casino operators can gain access to a previously hidden data through SeMSy®’s integration of video technology-based functions (eg people counting, face recognition etc). Plus, data from Point of Sale (POS), Slot Data and Smart Shoes systems and more, can be aligned with corresponding video to make searches more efficient. AI-based gaming automation technologies (like Dallmeier’s Casino Automation Technology CAT) and other analysis technologies are also integrated. Collecting, analysing and understanding this data helps casinos better plan their business and make more informed decisions. For example, casinos can now track action and pace of play on all tables; and improve their loyalty programs based on the behaviour and preferences of their visitors. Beyond gaming, adjacent function such as F&B or retail can benefit, by improving their operational efficiency.
Jumbo Technology – D-27 slot cabinet
FEATURES PRODUCT REVIEWS
Cash handling backed by experience and competence
For the Casino and AGC sectors out Cash Center Premium ticks all of the boxes, with its stylish design, surround lighting, plus the 27” screen this model stands out in any location. The high capacity of notes (12,000) in four denominations plus up to four coin hoppers makes this model very versatile and with the option of bankcard acceptance for Tickets it offers a full range of Thefunctionsreduction of cash in general circulation has generated an increase in electronic transactions including wallet applications, GeWeTe have developed a wide range of functions that can be handled by a single machine and we now have sites offering cash, debit card and Wallet transaction all via a single machine on site.
Cash Center Premium
GEWETE CASH CENTER PREMIUM Recent Additions
With close to 30 years experience in cash handling, everything GeWeTe supply is developed, designed and assembled at our head office in Mechernich, Germany. These include money exchange machines, automated pay stations, ticket machines and deposit systems. Regardless of banknotes, coins and / or cashless cards or tickets are to be accepted, processed, secured and / or issued, we have a solution for you. With our in-house team of development, production, quality assurance, support, service and sales, our principle is to provide a quick and efficient solution to meet your needs. This has made GeWeTe one of the leading cash handling providers worldwide. Our knowledge in conjunction with our suppliers provides appropriate solutions for checking, issuing and recycling banknotes and coins, together with the processing and generating of tickets and vouchers plus the acceptance of bank cards. All relevant aspects of security are always our main priority thereby, as cash handling is a matter of trust, and trust requires the highest competence.
Asia Pioneer Entertainment Holdings Limited (APE), with its subsidiaries, is thrilled to have brought its distribution partner Jumbo Technology Ltd (“Jumbo”) to the casino gaming floor of one of the biggest integrated resorts in Cotai recently. Jumbo, a Taiwan electronic gaming equipment manufacturer, is being brought to Cotai with its awarded product D-27 slot cabinet.
APE & JUMBO: D27 SLOT CABINET
are always our main priority thereby, as
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The D-27 slot cabinet produced by Jumbo contains 27-inch dual screen and 10.1-inch configurable button touch panel. The different coloured LED light bars around the cabinet are recognisable, the LED colours will change with the game’s light effects, which can effectively enhance the gaming ambience of the players. Moreover, the ergonomic design of the D-27 slot cabinet provides a user-friendly and ultimate comfort gaming experience for players. At the same time, it has also been approved in the Macau market recently, and it will be compliant to the DICJ 2.0 standard in the near future.
These include money exchange machines,
The Cash Desk Betting, Cash Center Backloader and Cash Center Slim are our latest additions to the ever increasing and vast range of model from GeWeTe, including the most popular models for the Casino and AGC sector the Cash Center Premium and Cash Recycler Premium
coins and / or cashless cards or tickets are in-house team of development, production, sales, our principle is to provide a quick and efficient solution to meet your needs.
provides appropriate solutions for checking, together with the processing and generating
manufacturer, is being brought user-friendly and ultimate comfort gaming
cash handling, everything GeWeTe supply
PRODUCT REVIEWS FE ATURES
The DiamondRS cabinet also includes:
International Game Technology (IGT) confirmed the launch of the new DiamondRS mechanical reel cabinet in July.
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While retaining some elements from IGT’s S2000 slot machine, the DiamondRS features a 32-inch ultra-HD display, as well as a 23-inch HD main monitor with multi-touch screen capabilities. The cabinet utilises a traditional three-reel configuration, with the addition of IGT Diamond Glass transmissive reel technology, enabling the cabinet to host multiple pay-line configurations and engaging content. Extra features include a wireless phone charger and USB charging point.
• 10.1” LCD player panel which is easier to read and more user friendly
• Physical repeat bet button (bash button) that fits nicely in the player’s hand
IGT DIAMONDRS CABINET
• Standard inductive wireless charger and USB charging port
• Ergonomic and durable button deck design.
"The research-drivenclassiccutgamingmechanicalDiamondRSspinning-reelmachineisaabove,elevatingplaywithdesign"
DiamondRS cabinet
The DiamondRS offers reimagined versions of IGT legacy games, including Double Top Dollar, as well as new titles including Pinball and Double Gold.
The DiamondRS mechanical spinning-reel gaming machine is a cut above, elevating classic play with research-driven design. Honouring IGT’s iconic history while going bigger and bolder, this new cabinet delivers appealing retro styling, modern features, exciting player mechanics and a large content support package featuring top-performing, classic games. Steeped in market-focused research and fueled by passion and collaboration, the DiamondRS™ is poised to be the best stepper cabinet in the industry.
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Regular Gambling Insider contributor and Partner at Melchers Law, Dr Joerg Hofmann , gives an update on Die Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL) – The Joint Gambling Authority of the Federal States
GGL. The most important tools for the purpose of enforcement are IP blocking and payment blocking. Fines and prohibitions can also be issued. Within its first few weeks of competency, the GGL has already initiated two administrative proceedings, targeting the Lottoland and Lottohelden brands. Internet providers have been requested to block both domains. Offering so-called secondary lotteries, as the operators in question are accused of doing, is strictly prohibited in Germany.
The LVA’s competency is transitional because the Interstate Treaty on Gambling (‘IST 2021’) also allows a new authority to enter the scene: the Joint Gambling Authority of the Federal States (‘Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder’, short: ‘GGL’), seated in Halle.
The LVA has reportedly monitored more than 800 websites and detected approximately 150 cases of illegal gambling. Additionally, 90 cases of advertising for illegal gambling were reviewed, letters of notification were sent out and administrative proceedings initiated. Criminal charges were filed in 25 cases of illegal gambling.
At the head of the GGL are two bodies. One of which is the board of directors (‘Vorstand’), which consists of two members who are intended to manage the institution and represent it. In addition, there is the management board (‘Verwaltungsrat’), which in turn consists of representatives of the federal states. Its task is to control the board of directors. Below these two bodies, around 110 employees are expected to make up the administrative department, which is made up of gambling law experts, gambling addiction researchers and IT experts. Its responsibility will be the implementation of the regulatory tasks in detail. While the effective enforcement of the regulations for the purpose of channelling may be highly commendable, the announcement by the GGL board that it would also threaten to impose coercive fines of up to €500 ($511), to implement the IP blocks, generated criticism from internet providers and politicians alike.
gambling. In addition, the tax authorities are to be involved. Ultimately, tax liabilities have negative consequences on both national and foreign licensing procedures. Illegal gambling is thus to be made more and more of an unprofitable, obstructive business model.
“The most important tools for the purpose of enforcement are IP blocking and payment blocking”
The plans put forward as an offer of cooperation, namely that internet providers should implement IP blocks immediately without prior administrative proceedings at the call of the GGL, were largely met with rejection on the part of the providers. In the aftermath, political representatives also pointed out that such network blocks should continue to be understood as an ‘ultima ratio.’ In addition, fines of the aforementioned amount can only be imposed on the basis of IST 2021, i.e. on gambling operators themselves – but not on the internet providers.
Now, the responsibility for combatting illegal gambling and advertising rests entirely with the
From a bird’s eye view, the interaction of regulations, responsibilities and transitional tasks in Germany appears like a thicket of impenetrable information. A chronological view seems appropriate.
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The transition of tasks occurs in stages. Accordingly the GGL has been dealing with enforcement and supervisory measures since July 1, 2022. Subsequently, from January 2023, the responsibility for licensing will be transferred to the GGL. Time will tell how the handover of the still-pending proceedings will be executed and whether it might cause any delays.
While regulatory oversight had previously been centred at the Regional Council in Darmstadt, Hesse, the Federal State Administration Office of Halle in Saxony -Anhalt (‘LVA’) assumed responsibility for licensing poker and slots for the first time on 1 July 2021, and on a transitional basis. Until 30 June 2022, payment blocking was handled by the Ministry of the Interior in Lower Saxony. IP blocking, which was introduced with the IST 2021, lay upon the LVA until 30 June 2022.
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Furthermore, this measure, its rollout and approach clearly show the tone the GGL wants to take and where its priorities are likely to lie. Co-chair Benjamin Schwanke explained: “We will remove players from the market who do not comply with the rules of the Interstate Treaty on Gambling, have not applied for a licence or have been rejected. Criteria for prioritisation in enforcement include market size, awareness and advertising behaviour/volumes.” The GGL also intends to establish a dedicated public prosecutor’s office in Halle, targeting illegal
