JUNE/JULY 2012
JUNE/JULY 2012
Sportsbetting and the Olympics
INFORMATION, INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS FOR THE BUSINESS OF INTERACTIVE GAMING
CONTENTS 04 Events Calendar 06 Webmaster News 12 Backlink Profiling 15 Opening Pandora’s Box? 16 Social Measurement and Monitoring 18 Building a Niche Olympic Betting Site 20 Negative SEO If you didn’t know that the Olympics were descending on London this summer then you certainly will after reading this issue of iGB Affiliate. What this edition will also remind you is that when opportunity comes knocking at your door, you can’t afford not to answer. ‘Olympics? ‘Opportunity?’ Yes, the Olympics do bring opportunity to affiliates, and not just to be entertained at the games by your sportsbook affiliate managers. Couple the Olympic SEO opportunities with the Penguin update mixing things up in SEO-land, and you could find yourself outranking the traditional SEO stalwarts if you take advantage of this fortuitous circumstance. Good luck, but before you do anything at all, make sure to read this edition’s article entitled ‘Marketing at the Olympics’.
22 How to Win With a One Man SEO Team 25 Interview: Jochen Dickinger, bet-at-home.com 28 Dealing with US Land-based Operators 29 Sportsbetting and the Olympics 30 Introduction 31 Strategies, Marketing and the Olympic Opportunity 38 Marketing at the Olympics 41 What’s Next for In-play Betting? 42 In-play Betting in Numbers: GamblingData Report 44 The Psychology of In-play Betting 46 The Fall of an Empire: a Full Tilt Poker Timeline 48 Poker Affiliate Forum: 2012 Forecasts and Predictions 50 The Mobile Gambling Market 52 Social: the New Business Paradigm 54 Online Gaming, iPads and Tablets 56 Integrate your Marketing 58 Turning One-off Customers into Repeat Business 59 The Industry’s Key Performers
Michael Caselli, Editor in Chief
64 A Year in Words 66 What is Ring Fencing? 67 Google Penguin Impact Examined 68 Data Centre: International Market Snapshot 70 Data Centre: UK Search Trends 72 Market Place 74 Nobody Asked me, But…
Editor in Chief: Michael Caselli michaelc@igamingbusiness.com Editor: James McKeown james@igamingbusiness.com Publisher: Alex Pratt alex.pratt@igamingbusiness.com
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under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. Application to reproduce extracts in other published works shall be made to the publishers. Full acknowledgement of author, publisher and source must be given. iGaming Business Affiliate Magazine is published by iGaming Business Limited of 33-41 Dallington Street, London, EC1V 0BB, UK. The views expressed by contributors and correspondents are their own. Editorial opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the Publisher. The Publisher does not accept responsibility for advertising content. Cover image: istockphoto.com
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affiliate events calendar Due to their popularity and wealth of information, analysis and discussion, conferences have become an integral part of the affiliate industry and a key communications bridge between affiliates and affiliate managers. Whether used for networking, education or just an excuse to meet up with friends, the affiliate conferences listed below provide all the tools you need to improve your business.
Casino Marketing Conference Las Vegas July 24 – 26
The iGaming Congress at G2E Las Vegas October 3 – 6
The Casino Marketing Conference is a senior-level conference that addresses marketing challenges across all facets of the gaming industry, including commercial casinos, tribal casinos and racetrack casinos – virtually any gaming venue around the world. More than 100 different gaming operators and companies involved in the gaming industry attended the 2011 event from throughout North America and beyond.
The Internet has been a game changer for the gaming industry. This conference will address the potential impact of Internet gambling legalisation in the US, and advise the gaming market on how to react to the changing face of the industry and take advantage of new opportunities. This information packed programme will appeal to existing offshore Internet gambling operators, as well as commercial casinos, Native American casinos, manufacturers and affiliates.
www.casinomarketingconf.com
www.globalgamingexpo.com
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Affiliate Summit East New York August 12 – 14
Barcelona Affiliate Conference & iGB Espana Barcelona October 11 – 14
The Affiliate Summit was founded for the purpose of providing educational sessions on the latest affiliate marketing industry issues and fostering a productive networking environment for affiliate marketers. The event brings thousands of attendees from affiliates, networks, merchants, agencies, and vendors together to meet, network, do business and learn industry best practices.
After a triumphant return to the Catalan capital in 2011, the iGB Affiliate events circuit will once again be visiting Barcelona for its 2012 autumn affiliate conference, the original home for this leading European affiliate event for the online gambling industry. This year’s event will also incorporate iGB Espana with a separate zone and conference session specifically for the Hispanic market.
www.affiliatesummit.com
www.igbaffiliate.com
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
X. Alonso Spain
M. Ă–zil Germany
K. Benzema France
Friendship lasts for a lifetime. Victory for an eternity. Welcome to the world’s biggest sports betting arena.
webmaster news
PurpleLounge.com Goes into Liquidation After temporarily suspending the operation of its PurpleLounge.com online casino and poker operation in May, Media Corporation has announced that it has now decided to liquidate the lossmaking service. The London-based firm is also behind the Eyeconomy.co.uk Internet advertising service and stated on May 1 that PurpleLounge.com had been “trading materially behind the same period of the previous financial year”, which will result in “increased losses for the company as a whole”. Media Corporation acquired Intabet Limited appointed Adam Fraser-Harris to the role of Interim Chief Executive Officer in place of the outgoing Sara Vincent and unveiling Phil Jackson as the replacement for the departing Justin Drummond in the position of Chairman.
“Since their appointment, Adam and Phil have been conducting a strategic and financial review of the enlarged group,” read a statement from Media Corporation. “It has become clear during the review that the financial and trading position of the PurpleLounge.com division is no longer tenable due to historic operational and financial failings within the business. Accordingly, it is with regret that the board announces that it has made all of the staff within that division redundant and will be instructing lawyers to file the relevant documentation to put the relevant companies into liquidation.” The statement from Media Corporation revealed that it will “specifically request” that liquidators investigate the financial arrangements within PurpleLounge.com and “review the position as to player funds”.
“The board regrets any corporate failings in the past and seeks to assure shareholders that it is exploring routes to try, in some way, to mitigate the expected player losses, though this is against a background where the group has loaned well over one million pounds to the division since its acquisition in October of 2009,” continued the statement from Media Corporation. “The board does not believe that the group will incur any further liabilities in respect of PurpleLounge.com over and above the realisation of the above loan. Notwithstanding the difficult decision it has made, the board believes that it can put the poor trading of PurpleLounge.com behind it and will be working to bring the group back to profitability as quickly as possible.”
Exchange Wagering Delayed in California The Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) horseracing organisation used a recent board meeting to delay a vote on whether to authorise exchange wagering for one year. This most recent delay will come as a blow to operator Betfair as it had hoped to have its Betfair TVG subsidiary conducting exchange wagering from San Diego’s Del Mar Racetrack as early as June. “The concept of exchange wagering has been a polarising issue among the stakeholders in California racing and this action will give us additional time to study this betting alternative
and consider if it is in the best interests of the industry in our state,” said Mike Pegram, Chairman for the Thoroughbred Owners of California. TOC President, Lou Raffetto, added, “We will continue to seek alternative revenue sources and have not slammed the door closed on the concept of exchange wagering. We are simply putting this contentious issue on the back burner until we can analyse it further and, hopefully, build a consensus within the industry.” The Thoroughbred Owners of California took its decision despite strong lobbying from Betfair TVG and the 75-year-old Del
Mar Racetrack with officials from the California Horse Racing Board state agency due to meet later this month in order to discuss the issue. “This is a bleak day for California horse racing,” read a statement from Betfair TVG. “Not only has the TOC turned down millions of dollars of guaranteed revenue in 2012, it has aligned itself to a track ownership group with a long record of broken promises. We look forward to a fuller explanation of their motives because, presently, any rational observer who takes time to examine the full facts behind this decision will struggle to comprehend it.”
Betradar Secures Scandinavian Lottery Deals Sports and betting-related data supplier Betradar AG has signed deals with Veikkaus Oy and Norsk Tipping AS for the deployment of its Live Odds Service in their betting offer. Betradar revealed that it now serves over 30 state lotteries on four continents with its extensive product and service portfolio while the Finnish and Norwegian Live Odds Service agreements follow similar arrangements with Tipp3 Austria and Sazka. “We are very pleased to welcome Veikkaus Oy and Norsk Tipping as new partners of Betradar’s Live Odds
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Service,” said Carsten Koerl, Chief Executive Officer for Sportradar. “We are convinced that together we can shape future developments and play an active part in the creation of an even more exciting live betting offering for the Scandinavian market.” Tommi Jokinen, Live Betting Product Manager for Veikkaus Oy, added, “Veikkaus Oy was the first national bookmaker to launch its live betting service back in 2004. We have, since then, steadily increased live betting turnover. In order to raise our service to a whole new level we decided to turn to market leader Betradar.
Veikkaus Oy is also the Finnish national sportsbetting agency while Norsk Tipping offers Norwegian customers a wide range of lottery, sports and instant games. “Norsk Tipping will launch a new and innovative live betting product, Liveoddsen, for Euro 2012,” said Ole Morten Bratberg, Head of Odds Compilers for Norsk Tipping. “With Betradar’s Live Odds Service we can achieve a great number and variety of events per week for our customers. Thanks to the support of Betradar during the development and testing phase, we are now looking forward to Euro 2012.”
webmaster news
Intralot Goes Online and Mobile in South Africa Intralot has launched fixed odds online and mobile betting sites in South Africa under the JustBet brand. The firm’s licence covers sports and horseracing betting facilities in the area of Western Cape in South Africa and Internet, telephone and mobile betting for players across the country. “With our new websites we are offering to our customers in Western Cape, and countrywide, the opportunity to bet online in a responsible way at any time and at any
place of their convenience,” said Dr. Yannis Rondiris, Managing Director of Africa SubSahara Region of the Intralot Group. “The trend-setter of the gaming sector worldwide, Intralot, has brought innovation to South Africa with pioneering gaming solutions that satisfy all players’ needs and habits.” The sites, which went live on June 1, offer markets on a broad variety of sports, with emphasis on football (soccer), rugby, cricket, tennis, and selected golf events.
Gala Coral Reports Q2 Growth Gala Coral Group Limited has released its financial results for the second quarter of 2012 showing a three percent year-on-year increase in turnover to £284.4 million. May saw Gala Coral conditionally agree a deal with Rank Group worth £205 million that would see it offload 23 of its land-based UK casinos with the London-based operator revealing that its statutory gross profit for the 12 weeks to April 7 grew by four percent year-on-year to £220.6 million. Gala Coral stated that its second quarter earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation improved by £300,000 year-on-year to £71.8 million despite “an estimated £2.2 million negative impact of weather” and “the movement of the Grand National into quarter three in 2012”. Regarding its remote gambling division, Gala Coral declared that gross profits had risen by four percent year-on-year to £17.1 million with active customers up 39 percent
for Gala Interactive and nine percent at Coral Interactive while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation improved by four percent when compared to the same period in 2011 to £7.1 million. “This quarter has seen another solid performance by the group,” said Carl Leaver, Chief Executive Officer for Gala Coral. “The trading environment for leisure and retail businesses remains difficult but within this context all of our businesses have delivered gross profit growth in the quarter with growth over the first half standing at five percent. “Following the end of the quarter we announced the proposed sale of our casino division to Rank in a deal that will deliver excellent value for our shareholders and debt investors. This last month has also seen the launch of the first of our new websites, GalaCasino.com, with positive early results.”
Licence Issuance Underway in Spain After months of delay and negotiations, Spain has awarded its first set of online gaming licences to operators including bwin.party Digital Entertainment, William Hill, Jaxx Ag, 888 Holdings, PokerStars and Sportingbet. According to a report from the Reuters news service, 59 companies had applied for Spanish online gambling licences with officials in the nation hoping that the attached 25 percent gross gaming revenue tax will help the cash-strapped country rein in its spiralling deficit. Recent weeks have seen Spain raise approximately €87 million in back taxes from online gambling operators including Sportingbet, bwin.party and 888 while the nation’s Treasury Department revealed that
it was currently in the process of informing successful candidates but would not yet make the full list public. Spain is one of Sportingbet’s main European markets but the firm’s operations there have been suspended since March due to local company Codere winning a legal injunction, which is a restriction the London-listed company revealed it will now apply to have overturned. “The grant of the iGaming licence negates part of the injunction, which was imposed on Sportingbet’s Spanish business on March 27, 2012 and thus allows Sportingbet’s Spanish business at Miapuesta.es to commence trading when this regulated market opens,” read a statement from Sportingbet.
Nevada Gives Green Light to Licence Applicants Technology provider International Game Technology (IGT), British bookmaker William Hill and online and land-based supplier Bally Technologies are the latest firms to have received a recommendation from the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) for an online gaming licence. “We are honoured to be one of the first recommended providers by the Nevada Gaming Control Board,” said Patti Hart, IGT’s Chief Executive Officer. “This important step will allow IGT to better support our customers as they expand their offerings to their players to include interactive wager based entertainment. We are thrilled to be at the forefront of this exciting and necessary expansion of gaming in the US.” William Hill made its initial foray into Nevada in spring 2011 when it agreed to purchase American Wagering Incorporated, Club Cal Neva and Brandywine Bookmaking LLC. “We are extremely pleased to have the Nevada Gaming Control Board's recommendation for licensing,” said Ralph Topping, Chief Executive at William Hill. “We now look forward to our hearing with the Gaming Commission in two weeks’ time. Nevada regulators have been extremely fair and detailed in their assessment of our entry into the state, and we are grateful for their decision today.” Bally Technologies was the first company to receive a recommendation from the NGCB for a supplier licence. “This is a historic day for Bally Technologies, for Nevada and for the gaming industry,” said Richard Haddrill, Chief Executive Officer for Bally. “We are very grateful for the Board’s recommendation and are excitedabout being the first company recommended by a US state for licensing to offer online gaming products and services. We are proud to achieve yet another milestone in our 80-year history and look forward to further supporting our Nevada casino customers with our technology in this exciting arena.” The final decision on IGT, William Hill and Bally will be made by the Nevada Gaming Commission on June 21.
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webmaster news
Caesars Entertainment Loses CFO Caesars Entertainment Corporation has announced that Jonathan Halkyard has resigned as its Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer in order to “pursue an opportunity outside of the gaming industry”. Halkyard’s responsibilities are to be assumed by other members of its senior management team including Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President Gary Loveman on an interim basis. “We have an experienced team of senior leaders who will oversee the finance functions and ensure that we maintain our momentum as we execute on our growth plans,” said Loveman. “We have made significant progress in improving our operations and balance sheet and will ensure these efforts continue. Jonathan has played an important role in managing the company’s financial position and in helping us return to the public equity markets earlier this year. We thank him for his service and wish him well in his future endeavours.”
NeoGames Awarded Danish Licence Online scratch card and instant win games provider NeoGames has been awarded an operator licence by Spillemyndigheden, the Danish Gambling Authority. “We have high hopes and are thrilled to enter the newly regulated market in Denmark,” said NeoGames Managing Director Shay Bar-Joseph. “As we have learnt in other regulated markets, such as Italy and Belgium, there is a true market need for an offering that does not necessarily focus on hardcore casino, but rather combines a softer and more mass market approach. The fact that we already have a few customers that will launch their sites immediately is yet another demonstration of our strategy.” NeoGames said that it has already signed deals with a number of skilled and experienced marketing and media companies to launch websites targeting the instant win and soft casino market in Denmark.
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Australian Results Boost Sportingbet Sportingbet has announced its unaudited financial results for the three months to the end of April and revealed that total amounts wagered grew by almost ten percent year-on-year to £555.9 million. Sportingbet recently reached an agreement with officials in Spain that will see it pay €17.2 million in back taxes in order to qualify for an online gambling licence and declared that net gaming revenues for its most recent three-month accounting period dropped by over 20 percent year-on-year to £43.4 million although its Australian business experienced a 116 percent rise in net gaming revenues when compared with the same period in 2011 to £18.1 million. Its Australian division also saw total amounts wagered improve by 78 percent year-on-year to £369.1 million, Sportingbet reported, while mobile accounted for 34 percent of online net gaming revenues in April. Sportingbet blamed the “underlying recession and regulatory uncertainty” alongside “the imposition of new betting taxes and the suspension of our Spanish
business” for its poor results in Europe, which saw the total amounts wagered decrease by 38 percent year-on-year to £186.8 million while net gaming revenues dropped 47 percent when compared with the same period last year to £24.2 million. Overall, Sportingbet declared that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation before exceptional items and share option charges for the three-month period fell by 33 percent year-on-year to £10.8 million while its operating profit plummeted by £10.4 million when compared to the same period in 2011 to £1.6 million. “Our Australian business, which accounts for over 90 percent of our profits, continues to go from strength to strength,” said Andrew McIver, Sportingbet CEO. “The integration of Centrebet is nearly complete and our combined Australian business grew net gaming revenues by 116 percent in the quarter. Europe continues to be impacted by the recession and the effects of regulation. As we have demonstrated in Australia, the long-term benefits of regulation are clear but take time to manifest themselves.”
bwin.party Enters Social Games Market bwin.party Digital Entertainment has announced that it intends to spend up to $50 million over the next two years to fund its expansion into the social games sector. The company has already agreed to purchase “a number of assets” from Velasco Services Incorporated and Orneon Limited for $23 million, of which $17.25 million has already been paid, that should speed its entry into the market. bwin.party declared that these acquisitions include “a number of existing business-to-business social gaming contracts” along with “significant software engineering resources” that will form the foundation of its new Win social games studio complete with its own dedicated development teams. “We have chosen a ‘build and partner’ strategy, one that provides us with both the resources and additional management expertise to execute our planned extension into social gaming, which is an exciting and fast growing area of digital entertainment that is the latest addition to our business strategy,” read a statement from Jim Ryan and Norbert Teufelberger, Co-Chief Executive Officers for bwin.party.
“We are focused on building a meaningful stand-alone enterprise that will operate outside our core realmoney gaming business but which will benefit from the group’s significant resources and assets. Our investment will enable us to launch Win, our dedicated social gaming studio, with its own development centre that will increase our speed to market both for social as well as mobile games. “Intent on securing a meaningful position in the marketplace, we expect a €5 to €10 million impact to clean earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in 2012 and 2013. However, we are excited by the potential of this new market and believe we can deliver attractive returns in the medium-term through relatively modest investment funded from operating cash flow over the next 18 months.” The company also revealed that the former CEO for Myopia, Barak Rabinowitz, has been recruited to lead a specialist management team for its new Win social games subsidiary that is also set to include Alex Usach, Dennis Hettema, Dan Matkowski and Tilli Kalisky.
webmaster news
Gigi Levy Steps Down at 888 Gigi Levy has stepped down from the board of directors at 888 Holdings with immediate effect. Levy served as 888 Holdings’ Chief Executive Officer for four years before stepping down in April last year “to pursue other interests”. However, the 40-year-old subsequently agreed to remain on the operator’s board of directors until a replacement could be appointed and was re-elected as a nonexecutive director at the company’s annual general meeting last month. 888 released a trading update concerning its financial performance over the first quarter of 2012 showing that total revenues had increased 25 percent year-on-year to $94 million while the number of active customers for its casino and poker operations had enlarged by 87
percent year-on-year to 566,000 due to “successful new customer recruitment and marketing initiatives”. “Our focused strategy has led to another excellent quarter with ongoing strength in poker driving March to the highest ever monthly revenues in the history of 888,” said Brian Mattingley, the recently appointed Chief Executive Officer for 888. “Poker has continued its robust performance in the early stages of the second quarter with our other product areas seeing an expected return to seasonal patterns. As stated at our full-year results, there are significant growth opportunities offered by the liberalisation of new markets, which will take investment to realise. We will continue to invest throughout 2012 in order to build market share.”
Delaware House Approves Intra-state iGaming The US state of Delaware has taken another step towards legalising online intra-state gambling and expanding sportsbetting after proposed legislation passed through its House of Representatives on Tuesday evening. The proposed Delaware Gaming Competitiveness Act of 2012 made it through the House Gaming and Parimutuels Committee last month before being put forward for a full House of Representatives vote earlier this week and would authorise Internet gaming for players over the age of 21 in the state under the control and operation of the Delaware Lottery. Supported by first-term Democrat governor Jack Markell, the proposed legislation, which is also known as House Bill 333, made it through the House of Representatives by a vote of 29 to 8 and would also authorise online slots and table games while expanding keno beyond Delaware’s three existing casinos to at least 100 sites.
The bill is now scheduled to go before the Delaware Senate for a vote and would, if passed in its current form, additionally authorise residents to wager on National Football League (NFL) games in at least 20 sites other than casinos. The Delaware Gaming Competitiveness Act of 2012 was sponsored in the House of Representatives by John Viola, who stated that the proposed legislation represents ‘the next logical step’ in the evolution of the state’s gambling industry. The Act would enable state officials to eliminate the $4 million in slot machine fees currently paid by casinos in ‘The First State’ while table gaming duties would be slashed from $6.75 million to around $3 million. In return for these breaks, casinos would be asked to spend an equal amount on traditional business expenses such as marketing, capital improvements and debt reduction.
Gambling Commission to Investigate Social Gaming The UK Gambling Commission government watchdog will undertake an investigation into the rise of social gaming with a view to determining whether the market needs to be better regulated. According to a report from the Daily Mail newspaper, social gaming has largely avoided the attention of UK regulators as games are usually played for free and as such haven’t been viewed as real gambling.
“The key question is; is it gambling or not,” read a quote in the Daily Mail attributed to John Travers, Corporate Affairs Manager for the Gambling Commission. “We are monitoring developments and assessing any wider implications for licensing objectives.” The Daily Mail went on to quote Travers as saying that social gaming was “at the perimeter” of current legislation.
West Brom and Bodog Part Company English Premier League football side West Bromwich Albion has ended its shirt sponsorship deal with online gambling firm Bodog Europe halfway through a two-year arrangement. The rumoured seven-figure deal, which was unveiled in late-June 2011, was described at the time as the largest in the club’s 133-year history and saw the logo for Bodog replace that of emergency domestic repair service HomeServe on the team’s home and away shirts. “We have enjoyed a wonderful relationship with Bodog,” said Mark Jenkins, Chief Executive Officer for West Bromwich Albion. “It is a vibrant brand and has been a pleasure to work with over the course of what has been an important season in the club’s history.” The club declared that it had enjoyed an “excellent working relationship” with the operator behind the online casino and sportsbook at Bodog.co.uk while its supporters had benefited from a ‘Baggie of the Month’ competition to win VIP match tickets as well as many betting initiatives. “The mutual decision to part company with Bodog was not an easy one for the club based on the fact we were very happy with our relationship,” said Adrian Wright, Sales and Marketing Director for West Bromwich Albion. “However, the club has been presented with an attractive new opportunity and Bodog was more than happy to accommodate our request to step aside and enable us to pursue a different avenue.” Ed Pownall, Public Relations Director for Bodog, added, “We have very much enjoyed working alongside West Bromwich Albion during another successful season for the club as well as teaming up once again with Roy Hodgson. We would like to thank the fans, the club and the playing staff and wish them and the new club sponsor all the best for the future.”
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BACKLINK PROFILING 1: SERP REALITY CHECK – WHO ARE YOUR REAL COMPETITORS? Knowing what your competitors’ backlink profiles look like is key to understanding how to outrank them in the SERPs and where to draw the line in your link-building efforts. However, before doing so you need to be able to differentiate the spam from the good, and make sure you are focusing on the right sites. This article will explain how to do so. We have all been there: we have a quick check at the SERPs for our moneymaking keywords and a few sites seem to be constantly outranking us. How can these terrible sites outrank us? Why can’t we beat them? These questions are more than legitimate, and possibly the best starting point for an effective SEO strategy and linkbuilding campaign. However, focusing and trying to emulate the wrong kind of sites can make you lose focus, time, money or, even worse, your beloved money-making websites, due to some serious penalties or to the effects of Google’s recent Penguin update. Therefore, the first step of every serious backlink analysis should concern the choice of our target competitors. In this article, we will go through a simple process you can follow to understand who to compare yourself with, how to quickly create the right competitors’ roster and how to gather all the data you need to finally identify your real competitors.
Step 0: What game are you playing? Nobody knows the answer to this question better than you. Just like in poker, you should choose your game carefully, depending on your bankroll, on the amount of time you can invest in it and on your attitude and skills.
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●●How
much money have you invested in your affiliate business, and how much money is it generating for you? ●●Are you one of the big guys running your affiliate empire full-time or are you running some sites in your spare time? ●●Are you a business-minded person focusing on a long-term strategy or a tech-savvy hustler looking for a quick win, ready to burn a few sites each week to start some new ones in no time?
By asking yourself these three basic questions you should be able to understand what kind of affiliate you really are, and what range your competitors should therefore fall into. If you are a mid-size poker affiliate trying to rank for mid-tail and long-tail keywords, you shouldn’t consider big-brand poker rooms as your direct competitors. On the other hand, if you are a purely white-hat SEO (do they still exist?) working for a big network of trustworthy affiliate sites, you should not compare the sites you are pushing with sites whose domains.look.like-this-or-evenworse-for-free.info. Note: In this article, we will assume you are running a relatively conservative, grey-hat (after Google Penguin white-hat does not exist anymore, in our field), mid-size affiliate
TRAFFIC
site, generating a relevant amount of money but not able to compete directly with the ‘big guys’ in terms of budget.
Step 1: Create your competitors’ roster Now that you know what game you are playing, the first thing you need to do is create a list of the sites constantly occupying the SERPs for your target keywords, including your own. The quickest way to do so scientifically is to use a SERP checking/scraping tool like AdvancedWebRanking1. Checking page one rankings for a broad set of the keywords you are getting traffic for (minimum 100); you should compile a list of the sites ranking more often in top three, five and ten (this is what AdvancedWebRanking calls a Visibility Report). You should then limit the list to approximately ten to 15 sites and remove all big brands and off-topic sites (online magazines, Wikipedia, etc) as they are playing a different game and you most likely would not be able to compete with them anyway. In preparation for the next steps, I recommend exporting the list obtained to an (Microsoft) Excel file, without forgetting each site’s visibility score. I also recommend adding each site’s IP address to the list, so to spot possible relations between different sites. Note: AdvancedWebRanking will automatically recommend you the sites to show results for in your Visibility Report (select all of them) but if you are using different software you may have to manually add them. A quick way to generate such a list is to export all sites ranking in Google’s top 100 for a few of the main keywords in your niche, by customising Google’s SERPs depth to 100 and using SEOQuake’s2 CSV export function.
Step 2: Get on-site data Now that you have your preliminary list, you need to understand what’s happening on these sites. Again, the tool that can help you here is SEOQuake. Using SEOQuake’s Check/Compare URLs and domains function, you can quickly pull the following information for each site: http://www.advancedwebranking.com http://www.seoquake.com
PageRank, indexed pages and age. Once the parameters have loaded, you should export them to a CSV file and add the results to the Excel file created at the end of Step 1.
Step 3: Get off-site data Once your on-site data research is complete, it is time to get some raw backlink data. My tool of choice in this case is MajesticSEO. Using its Bulk Backlink Checker you can easily and quickly pull all kinds of quantitative data about your target sites’ backlinks. Also, in this case, I recommend exporting all data to a CSV file and adding them to your Excel file.
Step 4: Spam-hunting time Combining the URLs from Step 1 with the data from Steps 2 and 3, you should now have a good overview of your potential competitors, allowing you to easily spot odd profiles. The main things you should watch out for are: ●●Very new sites: a few months old and already ranking for lots of keywords? Most likely, the site will be gone just as quickly as it came. ●●Very old sites: pre-2000 sites are either authorities or ‘revived’ sites. Do you play the same game they do? ●●Sites with high PR and very few backlinks: possibly the result of a change of domain. You should double check their backlinks to see if you can find the old site’s name, and its backlinks. ●●Sites with very few pages: 30 pages and ranking for 100 keywords? A little too ambitious to be normal. ●●Non-US sites with many .edu/.gov links: do you see any reason why a significant amount of US-based educational and governmental institutions should be linking to a non-US gambling site? In most cases, Google doesn’t – just give it a bit of time and you will see the result. ●●Sites with high Ref.domains/IPs and IPs/Subnets ratios: most of these sites’ links are coming from sites on the same IPs or on the same Subnets… I doubt it’s a bizarre coincidence. Looking and each of these occurrences and, even more so, looking at all of them as a
whole should allow you to easily identify the most spammy competitors of the roster, which you should filter out and have a more careful look at. This same data will also allow you to easily see which competitors are far out of your league in terms of age, size and backlink volume. My recommendation is to be realistic and remove them from your backlink profiling targets. Most of the time, you should end up with just four or five sites left: these are the sites you should focus your analysis on. In the next installment of this series on backlink profiling we will see how to check your competitors’ backlink profiles, emulate it and beat it. In the meanwhile, feel free to ask any follow-up questions you may have at m.monari@bizupmedia.com.
Matteo Monari is the COO of BizUp, a result-driven Internet marketing agency specialising in competitive segments and international link building (http://www.bizupmedia.com). With a background in Languages and Human Computer Interaction, Matteo has been a successful Internet marketing specialist for more than six years. During his career, he has worked for some of the biggest affiliates and operators in the iGaming world, helping them to successfully expand their businesses across Europe. After heading the SEO department of Europe’s leading content-on-demand company, Matteo is now leading BizUp’s link building team, providing links in five languages to clients in more than fifteen different countries. You can follow him on Twitter as @matteo_monari and contact him at m.monari@bizupmedia.com.
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Opening Pandora’s Box? James Lowery, Head of SEO at Latitude Digital Marketing, examines the impact of Google’s Penguin update on the iGaming affiliate community. On April 24 2012, Google changed how its ranking algorithm scored links and changed the game about what mattered in SEO. Overnight, iGaming affiliates around the world found that previously strong sites with great rankings and high traffic had nose-dived. Google said the Penguin update was part of its on-going high quality sites algorithm but, at first, it appeared almost arbitrary. Sites with great content saw their traffic decimated, content websites that had been built as a labour love were as prone to penalisation as the most aggressively optimised low quality sites. Within the SEO community, consensus about Penguin came quickly. Leading up to April, Google made noises about changing how it treated anchor text in links. Until fairly recently, SEOs would recommend that people get links using optimised phrases as anchor text to make pages appear more relevant. Real people link using shortened URLs, brand names, ‘click here’, or ‘more info’, and they link from places like Facebook or Twitter rather than networks of sites. Real people link differently to SEO people, and as more and more of the links online are made by real people, this has made pure SEO links look increasingly obvious and less relevant to what matters when it comes to recommendations and authority. In an industry like gaming where the prevailing wisdom is that it’s tough to get ‘natural’ links, website owners across the board got a kicking. Big brands weren’t as badly hit as affiliates because, generally speaking, brands tend to have more people linking to them because they’ve heard of them. People link naturally to websites such as 888.com or Ladbrokes because they’re in the news whereas affiliate sites aren’t. Penguin was so hard, so fast, and so indiscriminate that it felt like a weapon,
and pretty quickly, people began to realise it could be used as one. If links could hurt your rankings, then surely they could be used against others.
Negative SEO Negative SEO is not new. For years, it’s been theoretically possible to harm other people’s rankings as easily as you can improve your own, and Google recognises that. There was a clause in Google’s Webmaster Guidelines that said: “There’s almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.” That’s gone. Now it says: “Google works hard to prevent other webmasters from being able to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.” When asked about whether the latest backlink considerations could be used to attack a competitor, Matt Cutts and the rest of the search quality and web spam team at Google have cited Google’s guidelines or stated that time spent on negative tactics would be better invested in optimising your own presence. That’s not reassuring. Gaming is hugely competitive. For a term like ‘casino’ which has around half a million searches a month across Google, the difference between position four and position three could mean an extra ten thousand visitors each month. With a one percent conversion rate, £50 per funded account means £5,000 in extra revenue. Under penguin, websites where the bulk of links have been focused on a single anchor text variation have been hit hardest. Big link networks like BuildMyRank have been completely de-indexed, and old school techniques like articles and directories have been devalued. These techniques are pretty cheap. If someone wanted to harm your rankings, getting a thousand directory links, spinning a hundred articles, and buying a hatful of links from
a spam network would only cost a couple of hundred pounds. Add automated blog comments and forum posts using Xrumer, and the numbers of links increase, but the cost doesn’t. In weeks, all your hard work could be destroyed.
What can you do? You work in a highly competitive field where the odds are against you. On the one hand you’ve got Google doing all it can to promote trust – which ultimately means big brands, and a marketplace where limited investment can mean substantial returns. Tracking the inbound links to your site via MajesticSEO will give you an early indication of what’s happening. Big increases in the number of links you weren’t aware of will tell you that something’s happening, but it won’t give you much time to react. Having a Google Webmaster account will provide you with a warning about links before a penalty, but not much before. The risk of negative SEO means that you need to focus on the strength of your site. You’re less likely to be affected by the actions of others if your profile is clean and relies more on brand rather than keyword anchor text. You need to look at your site and ask whether it really adds value to users. If you get penalised, a reconsideration request to Google is much more likely to be successful if your site adds value to the user experience. If all you do is pull traffic in and then push it on to another site, Google doesn’t want you at its party. Legitimise your website with frequently updated content; go beyond just having affiliate links – add links to useful resources, video tutorials and social media services. With Google Penguin, Pandora’s Box is open, and negative SEO is more of a reality than ever before. Gaming is not about friendships – the stakes are too high – and anyone who has a chance to take an advantage, whether legal or not, is going to be tempted to take it. Reading this, you’re probably tempted too. Don’t. You only make it more likely that someone will go after you.
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Social Monitoring Matthias Bachor of Searchmetrics explains how to monitor and measure the effectiveness of your social media. Social media is a way of life. In one minute, there are 30 hours of video posted on YouTube, 100,000 Tweets, and six million Facebook page views. Businesses who don’t participate in social media are missing out on communicating with an increasingly large number of customers. In fact, from 2009 to 2010, Facebook added 100 million users – a 145 percent growth rate. By comparison, in 1997, the entire Internet had only reached 50 million users.
However, the problem is that unlike traditional marketing and advertising or even search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM), it’s incredibly challenging to measure the impact and value of social media – especially when you consider all the channels out there. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Delicious, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon, just to name a few of the top social media sites, all have
The Internet Minute
30 hours of video posted on YouTube
100,000 Tweets
6 million Facebook page views
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different users and different benefits. So how do you compare and quantify social marketing? Do you know the number of Facebook ‘likes’ vs ‘shares’ vs ‘comments’ for your website? Do you know how this compares with your competitors? Can you combine this with detailed analyses of LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Delicious, and StumbleUpon? Here are a few things to consider when developing your social media measurement and monitoring metrics. 1. Be sure you actually monitor and measure your social media outreach. According to eConsultancy’s State of Social Report (November 2011), “41% of more than 1,000 companies and agencies surveyed had no return on investment figure for any of the money they had spent on social channels as of October 2011.” Perhaps these companies were exaggerating when answering the question, but there are always ways to measure some of the expense – whether likes, or retweets, or Pins, or usergenerated content. 2. Understand what you need to measure. One current methodology, proposed in ‘MIT Sloan Management Review’ advocates tracking metrics in three categories: brand awareness, brand engagement, and word of mouth across each social media application in order to measure effectiveness. So, for example, in measuring a Twitter account for brand awareness you would look at the number of number of Tweets and followers. For brand engagement you’d look at the number of followers and the number of @replies. For word of mouth you’d look at the number of retweets. It’s a lot of information, especially when you consider that you must measure
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Top 5 Facebook Countries by Users 2012 (millions) USA
INDIA
INDONESIA
BRAZIL
MEXICO
141.2
68.1
49.1
45.4
25.6
Source: eMarketer
your blogs, Twitter accounts, social bookmarking, forum and discussion boards, product reviews, social networks (such as Facebook), and video and photo sharing (Flickr, YouTube, and Pinterest). And each of these categories has different variables under the three categories. 3. Have a list of all the brands and sites you need to monitor and know that this list will change based on internal and external factors. For instance, when Motrin launched a video that offended many mothers in November 2008, the misstep was compounded by a failure to monitor and respond to the turn the program had taken. Obviously, we are all the wiser three years later, but just for the sake of discussion, in retrospect the campaign and hashtag #motrinmoms, generated by outraged consumers, should have been carefully monitored. 4. Be aware of all the accounts you need to monitor. According to Altimeter, companies now face an overwhelming number of corporate owned accounts – an average of 39.2 Twitter accounts, 31.9 blogs, and 29.9 Facebook accounts. If it isn’t possible to reduce the number of official social outlets, then they will need to be monitored.
customer relationship management. The MIT Sloan Management Review conducted the 2012 Social Business Global Executive Study and Research Project and found four distinct areas including marketing that benefit from social media. The other three might surprise you: innovation, operations and leadership. According to the study, these areas “are where social business is creating significant opportunity and, for some companies, significant value.” The toy company Lego, for instance, is launching a new product line based on a suggestion from an adult – not a child – via the company’s Lego enthusiast website. Within 24 hours of submitting the idea, the proposal received 10,000 ‘votes’ from other enthusiasts – which brought it to the attention of Lego management who believe that customer collaboration is the key to innovative new products.
Growing importance
5. I ntegrate your social site monitoring for each brand – combining tracking data from relevant sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. Without this capability, social media marketing really becomes just another shot in dark – an intuitive sense, rather than a campaign based on customer analytics. One way to do this is by choosing a tool that provides one social visibility score. 6. Remember it’s about more than just ‘converted customers’. If almost 60 percent of companies and agencies do perform some sort of ROI tracking (see point 1), it’s likely that some of them have imposed old marketing constructs – leads, converted customers – onto social media tracking. Of course, most people realise that this misses out on the cost savings generated from providing consumers with online forums to solve usage problems, but it also misses an important point that now the marketing objectives themselves are being provided through social media instead, it shifts the related costs. 7. Calculate the business value of social media. Just as you must consider ROI beyond converted customers, you must consider that the business value of social media moves beyond marketing and
Social networks continue to grow in importance. Facebook now has 800 million (and growing) active users. LinkedIn has 100 million users. More than 200 million tweets are sent each day. However, social media monitoring does take work – and, ideally, dedicated resources. Although we don’t know which social media platforms or mechanisms will dominate in ten years, we do know these communication tools will only continue to gain importance; recent studies show that over 80 percent of organisations have indicated their intent to increase investment in social media moving forward. That’s a great reason to spend more time on improving your ability to be successful by managing, monitoring and measuring it.
Matthias Bachor leads global marketing initiatives for search and social analytics software leader Searchmetrics. He brings over 14 years experience in online marketing, previously working with various Internet companies helping to build high-performance websites, managing online shops and optimising multiple campaigns. You can contact Matthias directly via email at m.bachor@searchmetrics.com or via Google+ (https://plus.google. com/111526970413036813842).
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BUILDING A NICHE OLYMPIC BETTING SITE As the UEFA Euro 2012 football tournament concludes, the next major sporting event on our horizon is the summer Olympics in London. Creating a website for a niche such as betting on the Olympic Games can be as problematic or simple as you make it, depending on your approach and how you tackle the process. Using Euro 2012 as an example, it is possible to create such a niche site and generate decent rankings, traffic and commissions. This article will explain the processes you can undertake to get a niche site off the ground – especially for sporting events that are either seasonal or occur on two or four year cycles – and how to get the most out of it. You can apply many of these principles on future websites, whether you want to try an Olympic betting site or something like the 2014 World Cup.
website up and running the better your chances of ranking for a topic. One month before the event is very short notice but it is still possible to pull it off, get traffic and make some money. We will also assume you are on a limited budget – there is no point in spending too much money not knowing what your ROI will be. So you can buy a domain and hosting for around $50 for a year or go down the ‘freemium’ route using hosted or blogging sites. Examples include Live Journal, Wordpress.com or Blogspot/Blogger. The advantage of using some of these sites is that you can get traffic from the networks by writing content and not have to build a single link. At the time of writing, Google is giving itself more traffic via its own networks like Google+ and blogspot. For simplicity, we’ll recommend you start your site with blogspot.com.
AffiliateBible.com and, sure enough, he has launched beteuro2012.org, which is currently doing well. There is nothing wrong with writing content that doesn’t convert but if all of your content is focused in this manner then none of the traffic you do generate will convert into sales. Let’s look at examples of bad converting and good converting content.
Bad converting content ●●Michael
Phelps going for more gold medals ●●Summer Olympic Games schedule ●●Medal count by countries ●●Most memorable Summer Olympics moments
Good converting content ●●Bet
on Michael Phelps to bet on Summer Olympics 2012 ●●Odds for total Olympic Golds for Great Britain ●●Sportsbook promotions for London Olympics ●●Where
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Looking at the problem objectively,
Selecting a domain
the solution is somewhat simple: create a website that is optimised, write really good content and build links for it. The good news is that, theoretically, niche sites have less competition so by creating the pages you have an easier chance of ranking well. Conversely, if you tried to create a generic casino portal, the competition is tough; their sites are well established, they have thousands of pages and thousands of links… sometimes more. With a niche site like Olympic betting, you still have a chance to create a website, get content and links and see traffic come in. You can also apply these steps on other niche sites for future sporting events. Here is a breakdown of the steps towards creating your niche site: ●●Creating a website ●●Content and conversion ●●SEO, link building and traffic
Whether you buy a domain or select one on blogspot you should pick your domain wisely. There are many arguments in the SEO world about whether exact match domains are important anymore but in my opinion, they will always be relevant. Whatever your domain is, you are either building up a brand or you want the name to be self explanatory. For example: ●●davesblogoftheday.blogspot.com ●●betonsummerolympics2012. blogspot.com
Creating a website
Content and conversion
When creating a website you are also picking a topic; for the time being, we are going to focus on Summer Olympics Betting 2012. The sooner you can get your
This is where a lot of people get their websites wrong – I have been guilty of this myself in the past. One person I have learnt a lot from on this topic is Graeme from
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Which is a better domain to select? With the first one, I have no idea what the blog is about but if I was searching for ‘bet on swimming summer Olympics’ and I found the second site, I’d probably think I’m at the right place. Do it firstly for conversion and secondly because there is still some relevance for exact match domains.
Again, there is nothing wrong with writing content that won’t convert, just don’t expect your traffic to click on any of your banners or links. If a person is searching for a schedule, they probably don’t have any interest at all in betting and the conversion rate on this topic is going to be extremely low. That said, this is still useful information to have on a website especially for your visitors that do like to bet and perhaps found your site through a different page. Writing previews of events will also get you traffic but, again, is unlikely to improve your chances of converting. The bad converting examples listed will get more traffic but lead to almost no sales while the good converting content examples will generate less traffic but will contain the depositing players you are looking for. Have a look at beteuro2012.org as a great example for content ideas and website structure. One last note on content is to try to get into the mind of what the user would want to
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search for and what appeals to them. If you have a page focused on ‘Michael Phelps Odds for Summer Olympics in London’, then try to write more content focused on things that matter to the odds. So, rather than write about the swimmer write more about his chances of winning in relation to the odds and/or list the best odds for Michael Phelps.
Go niche Olympic betting is a niche topic, but you can go even deeper. Every country is a niche you can focus on, using sites dedicated on betting for all the events for a specific country; such as athletes from UK, Canada, Sweden, etc. Likewise, you can also focus on individual games like swimming and list all of the latest odds and betting options on all the swimming events and swimmers.
SEO, link building and traffic On-page SEO SEO is still a big mystery to many people and it doesn’t need to be. If your content is good then you’ll want to make sure that it is presentable with well written page titles and descriptions.
Link building
Traffic
Links will help you rank and there are enough options available where you don’t have to buy them. In general, just try to focus on social media links and sites that are as relevant as possible. So, for Olympic betting as a topic, you’ll want links from sites that talk about the Olympics, sports and betting/ gambling and, increasingly, the links that are becoming more influential in 2012 are those from within social media. There are now hundreds of these sites but you can simplify things by sticking to the main ones: Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and YouTube. There are also many sports and gambling webmaster forums available as further sources of links and information. When approaching link building, it is also worth noting that link exchanges are not as helpful as they used to be and could actually be harmful. In addition, Google+ ‘shares’ are having a bigger impact on ranking, which is no real surprise given that it is Google’s own social outlet, but guest posting is still the way to go.
SEO shouldn’t be your only means of traffic. Social media outlets can be treated like search engines themselves and they offer the chance to gain more traffic without having to be dependent on a search engine. Ironically, a site that has a stronger social media presence tends to get better search rankings as a result. For a while, too many webmasters cared about getting a nofollow link with a high page rank regardless of if that link came with relevant traffic. Go for links or places that can get you relevant traffic regardless of whether the link is nofollow or not.
If you need a coach to help with your website, contact John Wright from Gaffg at john@gaffg.com.
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LIVING IN THE WORLD OF NEGATIVE SEO Within the recent blog network penalties handed out by Google and the WMT (webmaster tools) warnings that many affiliates will have received, we have seen undisputed proof that being linked-to from the wrong areas can get you penalised. The real issue is ‘what if you’re innocent?’ YoU’Ve BUiLt GReAt content, you’ve interacted with the community and built a website to be proud of, only to have a competitor throw a load of ‘spammy’ network blogroll links amongst other filth to your site resulting in you being penalised. So what do you do now?
Submit a re-inclusion to Google In all honesty, this approach is likely to get you nowhere. Google receives thousands of these every hour and if it ever gets to yours, the fact that you’re in gambling will probably weigh against you. I’ve tried this with some of the world’s biggest brands (inherited issues) and that was after we’d cleaned up an awful lot of the rubbish. The response was still something of a disappointment.
the 301 quick fix This isn’t necessarily an awful idea assuming that you can get away with it in terms of branding. Many businesses are unwilling to take this approach but if you’ve picked up a penalty and lost your traffic then what do you have to lose? It should be noted that this probably won’t work if you are switching from ‘example.com’ to ‘example.net’, but changing from ‘example. com’ to ‘examplepro.com’ works most of the time. Don’t just take my word for it: “I’ve seen a bunch of these and weirdly, the 301s do seem to (often) remove the penalty in cases where it’s a true penalty.” Rand Fishkin – SEOmoz.
ignore it, play dumb or blame it on an SEO company then you are far more likely to survive than if all of the unscrupulous links disappear overnight (in addition to which you risk taking out links that are helping you). If you still get penalised then react; send an email asking for help because you don’t know what you’ve done – then act. Following that, try asking nicely to be re-included – although as per my previous point, it may not be the quickest solution.
“Google receives thousands of (re-inclusion requests) every hour and if it ever gets to yours, the fact that you’re in gambling will probably weigh against you.” Pre-empting the penalty Pre-empting the penalty is the best course of action, and many affiliates ask me what they can do to stop competitors from negatively attacking their site. Unfortunately, the answer is ‘nothing’, other than not appearing on their radar which means not ranking, rendering the whole point moot. But, there are a couple of steps you can take to make yourself a less appealing target.
1. Stop buying bad links the Google WMt warning email Ignore it! If you do anything about it then Google knows that you have been building links. By admitting to this you are guaranteeing your penalty; if you
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One of the key issues is that you bought bad links to begin with. Pre-empting a manual penalty is much more likely to be successful than trying to get out of one after you have received a warning.
But, you need to keep buying links, right? Maybe, but if you are going to do it then you need to be much more careful than previously. Make sure you time your link building efforts together with your social media – you will also need to consider
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metrics much more than you used to. Think about deep link ratios, brand vs nonbrand anchor split, tld type, IP location, theme, image link proportion and quality split (SEOmoz’s authority is a reasonable indicator) and remember that the quality of the content containing the link is paramount. Be smart, check out a site which hasn’t been overly optimised to compare against your own efforts and see what’s natural.
contacting the webmasters. But, this will again make you a less appealing target.
Social is the way forward Whilst gambling might not be the easiest of products to get people talking about, it certainly isn’t the hardest. Remember that Google knows when your links went live so if you got a huge amount of links but nobody mentioned anything
“ Pre-empting the penalty is the best course of action… it is much more likely to be successful than trying to get out of one after you have received a warning.” 2. Clean up the bad links Start working on this now as you will see the benefits later. This task can be somewhat daunting and you may have to be prepared to shell out some cash in ‘admin fees’ to the more unscrupulous webmasters out there. There is no quick fix with this; best to just analyse your link profile, sift out all of the bad links and get
socially, what sort of message does that send out? Probably that you bought them. After all, if people aren’t even willing to tweet about something, why would they link to you? The fact is that they wouldn’t, so you need to tie-in link building off the back of the social boom and the easiest way to do this is by incentivising it. So think competitions where you enter by
tweeting, or articles where you’ve asked for input from relevant people in the niche – promoting deep page content which you build your links to will do you far more favours. And remember: a good social profile covers a multitude of sins.
Mike Litson has been in Search Engine Optimisation for several years and specialises in competitive markets, predominantly iGaming. Having worked with many major players in the sector he has a solid understanding of what goes into making a successful campaign, both on and off site. Focusing mainly on SEO, Mike is also very well versed in SMO, PPC, Affiliate Management and Email Marketing believing that none of the skills are mutually exclusive and that having strong knowledge across online marketing channels can provide unique opportunities. Mike currently heads up the Blueclaw iGaming and affiliate department.
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How to Win With a One Man SEO Team This article looks at what I would consider to be an optimised process for a small in-house SEO function. Having built SEO departments of all sizes ranging from large scale iGaming specialist agencies through to small affiliates, the one thing I can be sure of is this: performing SEO in-house is the best way forward. We won’t go into the many reasons why this is true here, as we’ve covered it in great detail in previous articles. Let’s look at the most typical of affiliate SEO departments… the lone gunman. You’ve employed or contracted an SEO expert to work on your affiliate site(s). In a department of one, process is crucial as the lone SEO will we tasked with executing everything; this may even include running PPC and maintaining a social media presence – so they’ll be under a great deal of pressure with everything falling on their toes.
and the on-site development, as well as between the strategy and the off-site development (link building). An experienced set of eyes will be required to oversee the strategy – only with experience can an optimiser get a feel for the kind of subtle adjustments required along the way. Things such as wrong page ranking for a specific term, or introduction of new target phrases into the strategy are just two examples.
Firstly, who do you hire?
One man SEO team
Typically, there are a few ways to approach this: 1) You hire a strategist: someone with experience and a proven track record in delivering results through the SEO or integrated search strategy. If you’ve hired the right SEO, he/she will be expensive and this leaves you with a problem – who will execute the strategy? 2) You hire a delivery guy: ‘the doer’, the hard working, attention to detail guy who delivers the strategy. These guys are far cheaper and if you hire a diamond, they will ultimately get you to where you want to be. But who will devise and oversee the strategy?
The most effective way to operate with a one man SEO team is to hire the delivery guy and outsource the strategy development and on-site optimisation, as this is usually a one-off task. So unless you’re a big affiliate, you will probably not want an expensive SEO on your payroll, when your budget would be better spent on link building. The experienced SEO may oversee the delivery of the strategy on a monthly basis and make any required adjustments by Skype – you can hire the experienced SEO either on a retainer or on an hourly rate, but if you can swing a partially incentivised performance-related deal, then do so.
So what needs to be done?
Outsource your technical SEO – if correctly implemented, it will stay done
1) Strategy and research 2) On-site SEO 3) Ongoing off-site SEO 4) Ongoing review of strategy against KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) Naturally, a delivery guy will need a well-researched strategy to work with and will need a process to follow. They will bridge the gap between the strategy
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Platforms like WordPress and Drupal can be optimised out of the box. Bespoke developments may need more work – get the experienced technical SEO involved as early in the development process as possible. Don’t wait until the build has been completed if you can possibly help it.
Your lone gunman will be best leveraged through managing relationships with various suppliers of links and coordinating the SEO recommendations with the web developers – never become dependent on a single link network no matter how well shrouded they are from detection. Spread the risk. Always assign your in-house guy a female alias. In all seriousness, if you’ve hired a male, create the outward facing persona of a female. In every instance where I have implemented this strategy, this has proven to: 1) Get higher response rates from webmasters 2) Get better prices on link deals In every SEO department I’ve built, this (for me at least) has become a standard approach, and it works very well in iGaming. Note: Do not use this technique for an Arabic Forex site. It will have the reverse impact. In the outreach process; you should soften your opening email to encourage an informal dialogue. This is probably one of the most powerful techniques for optimising your outreach process. One of the key metrics you should monitor (outside of the usual response rate) is response to flirt ratio – the use of flirtation in email communication with suppliers of links is proven to drive the price down massively. You may be wondering why I would want to share some of these techniques and lose a competitive advantage. The truth is that there is another step we also use which maximises response to flirt ratio and renders the negotiating webmaster unable to negotiate (an ace card up my sleeve, which I may even share with you at the Barcelona Affiliate Conference). There are a number of tools out there for identifying quality links. I personally use LinkResearchTools.com; a powerful suite of link tools for identifying links which also helps find the webmaster’s contact details. For recording link deals
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and rank tracking I use Raven Tools. This should be all you need and more for a small yet effective SEO operation.
Before commencing with SEO… Does your site already have a history? Before investing in any activity you should eliminate the possibility of there being hidden penalties on your site. This is a simple procedure which can be completed in one step and provide valuable insight usually within four days. Simply put, it involves redirecting your domain to a subdomain and waiting to see if any of your rankings move up. Often, the backlink profile of a site will reveal abnormalities that are likely to trigger subtle penalties – an experienced pair of eyes should recognise these issues at a glance.
The biggest key issue with SEOs working in-house is this… They lose their bottle. Or to put it another way, they can become crippled by fear. This is another good reason to outsource the expertise in the case of one man teams. In larger teams where you bring the experienced SEO in-house, the best way ensure your in-house guy remains confident is through SEO counselling. He will be far more effective if he has access
to an external SEO, be it just to discuss his thoughts or bounce ideas off. This is massively overlooked and is crucial when the SEO becomes isolated. As ever, the key to success is just to get on with it as soon as possible. Don’t wait for the perfect moment to take action. The perfect moment never comes.
Remember... ●●Follow your instincts when hiring expertise ●●Don’t
believe the hype
If you have any specific questions email me directly at paul@mediaskunkworks.com or follow me on http://twitter.com/paulreilly or stalk me on http://foursquare.com/ user/paulreilly
Reward your one man SEO team – set goals and share the success Your SEO strategy will mutate as opportunities appear, so be prepared to adapt to things like fortunate double listings, magically appearing low hanging fruit, favourable algorithm updates, unfavourable algorithm updates and penalties. These will become apparent as your experienced SEO reviews performance. Sometimes, a keyword may appear to get stuck; if this happens, follow the money, adapt and refocus on what will generate the easiest wins. Again, the experienced SEO will guide you on what can be realistically achieved.
Finally… Beware of charlatans – the SEO industry is full of snake oil salesmen. Be careful. If you do need an SEO evaluation, feel free to contact me personally. I’d be more than happy to help.
With over 12 years’ experience in search engine optimisation, Paul Reilly is one of the most experienced and influential professionals in the industry. With a wealth of experience in highly competitive sectors, Paul has worked on many of the UK’s largest brands in the toughest spaces, both in-house and at large reputable search marketing agencies. In most recent years Paul has focused and specialised in online gaming. Paul is the founder of MediaSkunkWorks, a new and pioneering service provider which dissects the traditional agency model, building world-class, hand-picked specialist teams either in-house or as outsourced think tank and creative problem solving services.
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
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INTERVIEW
THe here and now “The future is always interesting,” says Jochen Dickinger, Board member at bet-at-home.com AG, but that nothing is of more importance to his company than the present. iGB Affiliate talks to Dickinger about a successful 2011, the impact of the affiliate sector on the company’s wider business and what we can expect from the sportsbook for the remainder of 2012. Let’s start with the background to your affiliate program and how it directly benefits your overall business. We started the affiliate program in November 2005 and, since then, we have been welcoming new partners every day. In addition, I believe that part of the reason behind the program’s success are the family values that are employed throughout every sinew of the company. Integrity and openness is very apparent resulting in people being very secure about where they stand both within the company and as a strategic partner.
2011 was a successful year for the company. We achieved sales in betting and gaming of around €1.78 billion, which is in comparison to €1.48 billion the previous year. Gross gaming revenue (betting wagers less betting winnings), the key number in online gaming, increased to approximately €73 million in contrast to €66 million in 2010. At our offices in Austria, Germany, Malta and Gibraltar, we have 200 highly qualified and motivated staff and we have 2.8 million (as of May 2012) registered and satisfied customers. When we listed on the (Frankfurt) stock exchange in December 2004, we embarked on an important journey into a successful
“ Ultimately, affiliates are happy when they feel that a program is rewarding them for their efforts and is likely to continue doing so for the long run.” In terms of how it has affected the business, with the aid of our affiliate program partners we have managed to significantly increase brand awareness in recent years, establishing the bet-at-home.com brand as a reliable partner in the gambling industry. The program therefore makes a significant contribution to the continuation of our growth curve. The last couple of years have seen significant growth for sportsbetting businesses. What sort of year was 2011 for bet-at-home.com?
future. In this way, we demonstrated that we intend to remain true to our growth strategy into the future. Indeed, we have recorded double digit annual growth percentages, so this considerable increase in value will also be reflected in the medium-term share values. Returning to the affiliate program, besides trust, what are the keys to building successful relationships between affiliates and affiliate programs? Firstly, you need to offer a strong product and a solid affiliate program. Without
these, it simply wouldn’t work. For both, you also need a fast, user-friendly website. No less important are excellent customer service and speedy pay-outs. Our affiliates also recognise that bet-at-home.com customer lifetime values are particularly high, something that enables us to have long-standing relationships which, in turn, strengthen trust. Ultimately, affiliates are happy when they feel that a program is rewarding them for their efforts and is likely to continue doing so for the long run. What strategies do you employ in attending to the maintenance and development of your program for the future market? Every day we are putting our heart and soul into the constant expansion of our offer. To be even more attractive to our partners, we also depend on their support and, of course, we appreciate questions, ideas and suggestions of all kinds. Because partner service has top priority, we have a separate department solely to service the needs of our partners. The future is always interesting but much more important to me is what is happening now for the company. At the moment, we offer a €500 welcome bonus across all our products to new affiliate partners. For the UEFA European Football Championships in Ukraine and Poland, all our partners have the incentive of a championship bonus: i.e. every new customer delivers 60 percent revenue share. Furthermore, we offer our partners new promotion materials such as banners, especially developed for the tournament and with click warranty. Attractive promotions are continuously being thought up to try and promote our products further, but I feel that the quality of our products actually do a very good job in promoting themselves.
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INTERVIEW
What is your outlook for the remainder of the year ahead both for your company and the wider industry? We still have many plans for 2012 and, as in the past, we will continue to offer our affiliate partners attractive promotions in the future. Furthermore, we expect considerable growth for the 2012 financial year. Another significant
com, should lead to an increase in gross revenue of at least ten percent. We are applying for more and more licenses in regulated markets and intend to structure massive growth in the non-regulated markets as well. The culmination will be the European football championships in Poland and Ukraine, where we have recently gone on air with our new advertising campaign.
“We anticipate spending €45 million in 2012, so against this backdrop, we expect a renewed surge in growth.” increase in customers as a result of continued, intensified marketing activities and the forging of even closer and, above all, long-term links between the customer and bet-at-home.
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As in recent years, we will again increase our marketing expenditure in 2012: we anticipate spending €45 million, so against this backdrop, we expect a renewed surge in growth.
We have been following a clear growth strategy and have, to date, recorded annual growth figures consistently in the double digit range. This development is sure to reflect in the medium-term share value. We also have teams of technologically innovative staff looking to push and develop our products and services to a wider range of customers than ever before. We will also be looking to grow our already extensive affiliate team to enable us to offer an even more personal touch, catering to each affiliate’s specific needs. Finally, what advice do you have for someone just starting in the industry? Be prepared to work hard every day, listen to other people (both colleagues and affiliates) and learn from your mistakes.
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INSIGHT – OPINION
FORMING AN AFFILIATE RELATIONSHIP WITH US LAND-BASED OPERATORS As the interest and excitement grows around the potential for one or more US states to provide a regulated environment for online gaming, affiliates are once again looking to the American market as a place to do business. The question is; who wants them? WITH NO LEGAL framework in place for the type of relationship that a licensed US operator can have with affiliates, this is an area of their marketing that has not received much attention. Many operators that we speak to are unsure of the definition of an affiliate and, in too many cases, affiliates are seen in a negative light. For those that do understand the value, the majority don’t know where to start; how to find affiliates, what they need, how to manage them, and they certainly have no idea on how to compensate them. Lest you think that this discussion on affiliates is premature, not only can (and should) land-based operators be using affiliates to drive traffic into their casinos today but, in my opinion, the affiliate community itself needs to be proactive in this regard so that it is not left out of the equation. If the casino operators understand the true value of affiliates to their land-based and proposed online operations, their ability to extend their brand and their reach, and in increasing their overall business and revenues, then they would also be interested in seeing this ‘advertising’ channel open to them. Publications such as iGaming Business
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are working to educate the stakeholders, as are experienced online gaming consultants, but while the operators are learning, regulations are being proposed and written and this lack of knowledge extends into the regulatory bodies and governments, as we are seeing in Nevada. As I wrote in a previous article, the proposal to include affiliates as an “…interactive gaming service provider that provides products, services, information or assets to an operator of interactive gaming and, therefore, receives a percentage of gaming revenue …” would likely result in affiliates having to be licensed; an onerous, extremely restrictive and (likely) costly process. Affiliates do not want to have their businesses controlled by the state; I dare say this goes against their very nature. Affiliates can simply be viewed as another marketing channel, and you can be sure that the newspapers, radio stations, magazines and TV stations are not licensed vendors. Moving forward, assuming that you do have the opportunity to become a licensed affiliate for a land-based operator, you will want to look at the business you are doing now, and decide if you need to make any changes. Certainly, it would stand
to reason that regulators would frown on you promoting non-regulated sites, especially those taking US action. You may be required to provide a full history of your business, your finances, and your experience in this space. When dealing with regulators, remember that telling the truth is always the best option, even if you have some history of earning revenues from US player activity. If there is any record of those earnings, they will more than likely be found, and the application could be declined. My hope is that affiliates, operators and regulators all understand that this is a new beginning, and that the focus should be on building respectful and mutually profitable relationships between operators and affiliates moving forward.
GIAN PERRONI is with American iGaming Solutions, (www.americanigamingsolutions. com), a Las Vegas-based consultancy that works with land-based North American operators to provide them with an effective online presence. He is also the owner of AffPoint, (www. affpoint.com), the new central hub for the iGaming affiliate marketing industry. Gian is a frequent speaker at international gaming conferences and a regular contributor to gaming publications. Skype: gianperroni; email: gian@affpoint.com.
Sportsbetting and the Olympics
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feature SPortsbetting and the olympics
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London 2012 – a Change of philosophy? Structuring campaigns around major sporting events is nothing new to sportsbooks and affiliate marketers but, to date, the Olympics hasn’t been an event that has influenced much investment from either party. Will this summer’s Games change that philosophy? We are currently in the middle of the UEFA Euro 2012 Football Championships in Poland and Ukraine with European sportsbooks bracing themselves for a month of fervent betting activity that they hope will eclipse that of the preceding two major international championships. Indeed, many within the industry will point to the 2008 UEFA European Championships in Austria and Switzerland as the catalyst for the online sportsbetting explosion. Many more observers will point to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa as the true reference point for what is now driving revenues in the sector to ever higher levels: mobile betting. Both of these major football tournaments have served as landmarks in the development of the sector thus far; firstly for online and latterly for the mobile segment, with both sharing a common denominator – in-play betting. What the current European championship should provide operators is an opportunity to see how these
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sufficiently matured channels work together and whether this tournament can provide yet another springboard to further growth for the sector.
The Olympics The advance of technology and the propensity of people to bet on a wider range of sports due to greater accessibility, air time and, notably, an increase in live streaming has many believing that the London Olympics will present the best betting opportunity of any Summer Games to date. Our panel of experts will share their views on this in the feature on the opposing page and will differ slightly in opinion. Operators may continue to see London 2012 as a market laden with one-off bettors that will prove difficult to retain given their passing interest in the event, making any developed strategy requiring investment a risk for the bookmaker. The contrasting argument is that the Games could influence the UK public in the same way that the Grand National
inspires many people to make their solitary bet of the year; generating lots of one-off bets on specific events like the 100m final, the men’s football tournament and on British gold medal hopes. It may not be a market flush with potential for retention, but it can provide another touch point with a demographic that rarely engages with betting activity. As James McMaster points out in the following feature, “if the Olympics doesn’t take off as a betting medium this year then it likely never will.”
Restrictive landscape Another key area that will be discussed in this feature is how limited operators and affiliates are in promoting and marketing around the Olympics in accordance with the guidance set down by the ‘Organising Committee’. Gambling Law specialist, Peter Wilson, will provide an overview of the guidelines that prevent certain associations with the Olympics and the London 2012 brand which makes for essential reading for all those implementing campaigns around this summer’s Games. We will also look into some statistics and psychology behind the driver of sportsbetting’s meteoric rise: in-play betting.
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SPortsbetting and the olympics feature
Strategies, Marketing and the Olympic Opportunity To discuss the specific opportunities that exist around this summer’s Olympics and major sporting events in general, iGB Affiliate sat down with Harry Bowden, Commercial Manager at Oddschecker, James McMaster, Business Director at KMi Gaming Consultancy and Keith O’Loughlin, CEO of Boylesports Online. Before we get to the Olympics specifically, what are some of the key facets to marketing effectively and sensitively around major sporting events for a) operators and b) affiliates? James McMaster (JM): For operators, it’s all about good planning to make sure that they focus on the events they believe will gain them the most exposure in order to acquire new players and generate revenues during those periods. To give you an example, certain sponsorship opportunities on the large affiliate and media sites are booked as far as 12 months in advance so marketing
teams have to adapt to this or risk missing out completely. The major sporting events, such as Euro 2012, are ultra competitive for operators so they all seek ways to offer unique messages to players, such as special bets, new promotions and a wide selection of markets. These are all ways of attracting new players. The next challenge is retaining these new players and giving them reasons to bet with them again, therefore increasing their lifetime value. In certain markets, such as the UK, which are well established and saturated with so many operators competing for the same traffic and a finite number of
new players, retention is absolutely vital and companies are beginning to focus on this more than ever before. Keith O’Loughlin (KO): The key to retention is an engaging CRM strategy which focuses on customer segmentation and appropriate targeting. It is unlikely that these customers care about the 3.40 at Haydock on a Saturday so it is important to tailor your message for the audience you are speaking to. JM: The key for affiliates is converting players so they aim to promote the operator brands who they believe are most likely to sign up new players around key events.
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feature SPortsbetting and the olympics
For example, certain operators traditionally convert very well when it comes to football bettors so affiliates would prefer to promote them than a horseracing-focused bookmaker during Euro 2012. The other consideration for affiliates, certainly those on revenue share deals, is which operators are best equipped to retain the players and maximise the revenue they derive from them – therefore, increasing the earnings for the affiliate.
a unique opportunity to build upon this and consequently the Oddschecker brand.
What are some of the most common mistakes that campaigns around these events seem to make? JM: In my experience, poor planning is often the cause of mistakes. Exposure is at a premium and so the marketing teams have to be planning months before these events to make sure they reach as much of the
“ Large scale sporting events are too infrequent and suffer from poor terrestrial TV coverage to warrant resource investment. Two weeks of Olympic betting on sports that few people are well informed of does not make it a lucrative proposition for bookmakers.” As a major sportsbetting affiliate, what sort of strategy do you employ to maximise the opportunity of a major sporting event, and how is your Olympic strategy different to other, more traditional betting events such as Euro 2012? Harry Bowden (HB): We’re focusing heavily on PR ahead of the Olympics and we’re looking to provide a betting context to the top Olympic stories. We do use PR widely as part of our daily marketing activities, however, we feel the Olympics is
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market as possible. There’s no point having the best campaign in place if players don’t know about it. As long as you have the right message in front of the right audience at the right time, you shouldn’t go far wrong.
What would you say has prevented bookmakers in the past from investing more readily in markets for events at the Olympic games – was it/is it simply a case of low market appetite? KO: There are a number of items at play here. Firstly, large scale sporting events
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are too infrequent and suffer from poor terrestrial TV coverage to warrant resource investment in the trading product and marketing of the betting opportunities. Two weeks of Olympic betting on sports that few people are well informed of does not make it a lucrative proposition for bookmakers. In addition to this, the appetite for risk is low. If full-time specialist resources are not warranted you will find yourself reacting to news slower than the sharp players in the market – this is a natural occurrence as specialist trading resources who live and breathe the product (as with football, racing, etc) are not on duty 24/7. On this basis, the ratio of sharp money to casual money is so distorted that making it a profitable proposition from the sportsbook perspective is difficult. Additionally, bookmakers’ risk appetite is closely aligned to market liquidity and efficiency, hence, we will regularly take bets of €20,000 or more on football games. Liquidity and efficiency does not exist on any large scale on Olympic sports, for that reason they rest just above novelty market class.
Would you say that because of its location and where technology is in terms of access and availability to place bets on the move, that this summer’s Olympic Games represents more of a betting market than it has before?
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SPortsbetting and the olympics feature
HB: Without a doubt, the London Olympics will be far bigger than any previous events, certainly from a betting point of view. The constant coverage across the BBC and the locality of events will make a whole variety of sports accessible to the nation. What we continue to see week in week out is people betting with their hearts. The recent Jubilee celebrations highlighted how patriotic Britain is and we expect massive interest for the likes of Jessica Ennis, Tom Daley and Sir Chris Hoy. Traditionally, punters would not bet on sports like athletics, diving or cycling, but given the sheer interest, expectation and patriotism, that is likely to change. JM: It’s definitely the most engaged I’ve known the industry when it comes to the Olympics or any other athletics event and, whilst it won’t drive anywhere near the same revenues as Euro 2012, it could still be an important period of acquisition. The time zone will make it accessible to a truly global audience and, as you say, there are more ways for punters to play than ever before and live betting has grown at an enormous rate over the past few years so everything is in place for the operators. As my colleague Keith McDonnell said at this year’s LAC conference, if the Olympics doesn’t take off as a betting medium this year then it likely never will. KO: The general public doesn’t switch on to betting opportunities based on the
location of the event, so for that reason there is very little unique about the betting opportunity presented by the Olympic Games being held in London. Most people who will watch the Olympics will have a passing interest, and I’m not sure that passing interest will be enough to get them to pull out their wallet to have a bet enmasse. The major events such as the 100m sprint will always attract bettors, and womens’ beach volleyball will attract other interested parties, but I suspect not for betting.
“ It’s definitely the most engaged I’ve known the industry when it comes to the Olympics or any other athletics event and, whilst it won’t drive anywhere near the same revenues as Euro 2012, it could still be an important period of acquisition.” HB: The technological developments will, of course, play a massive part. The rise of mobile has been quite staggering over the past 18 months along with the integration of Facebook and Twitter. The fact that all three are intertwined together makes it far easier for the public
(regular/non regular punters) to stay informed and far more likely to place a bet than seen in previous years.
What sort of betting activity are you anticipating from this summer’s Olympics? HB: This Olympics seems to be a bit of an unknown quantity. Typically, it hasn’t been a priority within the sporting calendar, but there does appear to be a strong amount of interest from our sportsbook partners. There a hundreds of markets already available, with loads more expected closer to the time. Whilst it won’t be nearly as big as Euro 2012, it is certainly a welcome addition to a normally quiet period. KO: If we can break even in trading and register some new genuine punting accounts then we will call it a success. Our expectation is that the punters will be heavily weighted to one-time-only bettors. We would love to be pleasantly surprised if this is not the case. HB: I think the higher profile sports such as football and tennis will certainly attract a lot of money. But what everyone really wants to see happen is for Usain Bolt to win the 100m in a new world record and the home grown British athletes to romp home. With this in mind, I think there will be plenty of action on athletics in general, notably the 100m and Women’s heptathlon, plus cycling and diving.
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feature SPortsbetting and the olympics
Do you think there will be markets that might surprise us – sports that may become more ‘bet-able’ markets due to their exposure? HB: Most definitely, I have already seen markets available for the likes of handball and water polo. I’m not too sure of the scoring for either, but I’m sure odds compilers across the country will be swatting up to make sure they are on top of everything.
Before the Olympics are upon us, there is a certain European football tournament in Poland and Ukraine to contend with. This is clearly a more lucrative event for sportsbooks but how challenging is it preparing for multiple major events in one year so that one campaign doesn’t overshadow another? KO: This year we have a reasonable flow from one event to the next. The Euros will finish, followed by Wimbledon, then the British Open Golf followed by the Olympics and then back into the Premiership season. As our business has evolved, we have become very tuned to planning several
JM: This is a really good point because I’ve been in many marketing meetings in which this topic has been discussed. My personal view is that there are so many dedicated news outlets, both online and on TV, that it is near impossible for affiliates and operators to provide unique content to their players. Many have tried but I’m not convinced they’ve offered any real value to their users. In my opinion, there are other areas they’d be better off focusing on in order to engage people and drive traffic. An RSS feed is a simple way to offer news stories without the need for internal resource and there are many good ones out there.
What are the benefits and, conversely, the negatives of creating a standalone site to house your Olympic campaign? Does it help or hinder particularly if you want to try and retain many of the new players you’ve acquired through the process? JM: The main benefit for an operator is that it offers a streamlined product to punters
“ If bookmakers are to have as much success on mobile as they have had online then it is essential that affiliates are at the heart of it.” campaigns to run in short succession on small and large scales. That is the fantastic aspect of the industry that there is constant challenge and variety of events coming thick and fast throughout the year.
Beyond promoting offers on markets around the Games, how important is content in any marketing strategy for an affiliate? Should they be looking to provide unique content or draw in news feeds from existing authorities considering that they don’t want to be taking on the likes of the BBC for quality of content, unless they have insider knowledge?
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actively looking to bet on the Olympics that is very easy to navigate and offers all of the relevant bets and markets in one place – all good for converting and engaging players. The downside is that it can often make it a disjointed process when you then try to cross sell your players to other products as the messages and branding can be inconsistent. As there are very few high profile athletics events in the sporting calendar, operators simply have to get them betting on other sports and products in order to retain them long-term and increase their margins. I don’t expect to see too many operators offering standalone Olympic sites but instead think they’ll look for ways to integrate the content into their main site.
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What sort of year has 2012 been so far for sportsbetting considering the growth of the product matched up with the contracting of the economy and disposable income? Is it still a sector on the rise? HB: The contracting economy doesn’t seem to be impacting the gambling industry, the sector is undoubtedly on the rise. We’ve seen a substantial increase in traffic to the site and, in-turn, an increase in sign-ups to partners. Betting
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SPortSbetting and the olymPicS feature
is becoming more and more prevalent within society; you are hard pushed to watch a football match without two or three different bookmaker adverts. It’s certainly a competitive market, but if you invest within it then you should reap the rewards. KO: I can’t speak for the industry, but 2012 has been an exceptional year of growth for Boylesports. We have had a major investment in people, technology infrastructure and our web and mobile sportsbook which have seen high double digit growth year-on-year for us. We surpassed all internal records during the Cheltenham and Aintree Grand National festivals for bets taken, and bets per second and our infrastructure suffered no outages, which wasn’t the case for many bookmakers.
KO: I think that mobile access will change the way we all look at sportsbetting over the coming 24 months. I think affiliates will need to evolve somewhat to more of a partnership with bookmakers on a sustainable basis rather than just provide a feed of new accounts. When industries go through great change some non-core business areas like affiliates can be vulnerable, so the more value affiliates can bring to bookmakers the better they will navigate through all metamorphic phases that might be lying in wait around the corner.
If you were advising a startup sportsbetting affiliate on how to approach this summer’s opportunities, given that we have the Euros shortly preceding the Olympics as well as the annual major events, what sort of strategy would you suggest to them as a rookie in the space?
HB: The mobile web will never fully replace the desktop computers, however, it will become the principle medium for transacting and communicating with customers. In-play betting and mobile betting perfectly complement one another and I believe the growth of mobile betting will directly impact the growth of in-play and vice versa. Whilst there are certainly advantages of betting on your mobile, I cannot envisage the desktop coming to an end. People spend so much of both their working and social lives in front of a computer that it seems unlikely that it will die out. I’m sure the likes of Apple or Facebook will bring out another state-of-the-art device in the near future which will change the landscape within which we work.
JM: My advice is to try and focus on the areas in which you feel you can offer something new and unique to a saturated affiliate market – although that’s far easier said than done. With so many events coming up it’s tempting to try and promote them all, but some may find that they convert more effectively and increase their levels of traffic by picking out certain events and offering more detailed, interesting content. This will also have long-term benefits from an SEO perspective.
Keith, how do you foresee the growth of sportsbetting continuing into the next few years and how can the affiliate sector ensure that they are central to that development?
In terms of future growth, where do you see the market going in the next five years – will we see mobile and in-play betting almost completely eclipse the desktop consumer?
How integral will affiliates remain in the product’s growth? HB: If bookmakers are to have as much success on mobile as they have had online then it is essential that affiliates are at the heart of it. Mobile is certainly a priority of ours and we are very aware that we need to remain part of the customer journey
whether it’s online or on mobile. Overall, I think affiliates are having to play catch up and it is up to us to envisage future advances in technology so we are not left behind.
JAMES MCMASTER is the Business Director at KMi Gaming having joined from Betting Partners, where he managed the affiliate program for one of their largest clients, the Bodog Brand. James is one of the industry’s most respected affiliate managers, having been responsible for some of the most competitive and challenging betting markets at Sportingbet prior to joining Betting Partners.
KEITH O’LOUGHLIN is CEO of Boylesports Online. Keith joined Boylesports in 2011 as Head of Online. In 2012, he was appointed CEO to the newly restructured Boylesports Online Business division. His vision is to develop Boylesports.com to be the best sports, games, betting and entertainment business on the planet.
HARRY BOWDEN is the Commercial Manager at Oddschecker.com. He joined the team in November 2011 after nearly three years at Sky Bet. This month Harry looks ahead to the London 2012 Olympics and the impact that it is likely to have for the online betting industry.
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feature SPortsbetting and the olympics
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Marketing at the Olympics As marketing opportunities go, the London 2012 Olympics may stand out as a prime vehicle for sportsbook marketers to take advantage of, but the reality is that due to restrictive advertising regulations, great care must be taken in the development of any campaigns associated with Olympic events so that they do not contravene guidance set down by the ‘Organising Committee’. Peter Wilson, iGaming law expert and Founder of Peter Wilson Legal LLP, explains what the regulations prevent advertisers from doing at this summer’s Games. The combined effect of restrictive Regulations on advertising during the Olympic and Paralympic Games1, and the registration of a number of Gamesconnected trademarks, creates a marketing equivalent of martial law. Breaches of the Regulations are criminal offences punishable by criminal prosecution and fines of up to £20,000 per offence in the Magistrates Court or even higher if tried in the Crown Court. Infringement of trademarks may result in civil suits with injunctions and huge claims for damages. No doubt there will be a real temptation for some businesses to try to find a way to use the draw of London 2012 to their own commercial advantage. Apart from The National Lottery, which is a major contributor to the Games, there are no other gambling operators who are sponsors or partners. With so many sports to bet on (although views about the level of likely interest differ markedly), many operators and affiliates must be looking to gain some material benefit by mentioning the Olympics on their websites. Doing so would raise a number of complex legal issues due to the strict intellectual property rights protecting various registered Olympic marks including the various Games’ logos and the words “London 2012”, “Get Set”, and “Olympic” and even simply the number “2012”. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Limited (‘the Organising Committee’) has produced some guidance (available on the www.London2012.com website) in which they warn against any suggestion of any association or link with the Games that, in
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Flash mobs
Controversy
As to advertising offline, the Regulations severely restrict any advertising by nonsponsors during the Games and they establish advertising free zones around each Olympics event. The Regulations are a reaction to the growth of ambush marketing and other non-sponsor advertising at previous Olympics and other notable sporting events such as the World Cup. Remember the 36 attractive models in orange mini-dresses that caused a distraction at the Netherlands v Denmark match during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010? If you do, that is the point; as the Dutch brewery, Bavaria, succeeded in creating world-wide TV coverage and publicity at a very limited cost much to the chagrin of Budweiser, which probably paid huge sums of money for the privilege of being the official beer sponsor.
What makes these Regulations so controversial is their draconian nature and broad application. Regulation 6(1) provides for a protective advertising free zone around the Games, stating, “A person must not engage in advertising activity in an event zone during the relevant event period or periods.” If a company or individual does so, then they could be committing an offence unless they had authorisation from the Organising Committee, applications for which should have been submitted by the end of March 2012. Directors or other officers of a company will be assumed to be responsible as having arranged the illegal advertising and could have committed an offence, unless they can show that they had no knowledge of a breach of the Regulations and took all reasonable steps to prevent one. The prohibition has various
The Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Advertising and Trading) (England) Regulations 2011 (“the Regulations”). The Regulations came into force on 2 December 2011 and last until 11 September 2012 There are equivalent regulations for Scotland and Wales.
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iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
their view, would extend to the use of any “athletic images” or anything similar that could be intended to evoke the Games. The guidance emphasises the need to avoid, if at all possible, any use of words or imagery to single out bets on the Olympics that might imply some branding association. The recommendation is that bets on the Olympics should be marketed in the midst of other regular sports bets, without any special treatment. It has to be said, however, that the guidance is not the law; it is the Organising Committee’s interpretation of the law and so may be a little on the cautious side for obvious reasons. It is certainly a document that should be taken into account by every sportsbook marketing department and affiliate manager.
It was not the first time Bavaria used a ‘flash mob’; in the 2006 World Cup in Germany, 28 male supporters wearing orange Lederhosen in a similar stunt ended up having to sit in their underwear after Police intervention. At least they got to see the game. The British Police will have a similar right to seize offending articles used in illegal ambush marketing, be it mini dresses or Lederhosen. Should the organisers of flash mobs or other ambush marketing campaigns be punished by the criminal law? The 28 or so sponsors of London 2012 would probably think so as they do not want anyone freeloading on the back of a total £700 million investment in securing a tier one, two or three sponsorship deal. The contra view is that the government has no place criminalising what might otherwise be fair brand competition in order to protect the commercial interests of huge corporations such as McDonald’s, Coca Cola and Visa with what some might characterise as a leading sponsor advertising cartel over a largely publicly funded international event – particularly when the cost of any sponsorship of the Olympics is totally outside the reach of most businesses.
Sponsored by:
SPortsbetting and the olympics feature
limited exemptions including shop signs and the like for existing traders, that is unless they adapt or change their usual business offering, for example, to associate themselves with the Games. There are 25 of these event zones covering all the places where competitive events are being held including Earls Court, the ExCel, Wembley Stadium, Wimbledon, Horse Guards Parade, and the whole Olympic marathon route, to name but a few. There is a postcode checker on the Olympics website www.London2012. com so you can search to see if you are in an event zone. If so, you might want to check that your advertising will not breach the Regulations and that goes for all your advertising, whatever the delivery channel.
and that covers a variety of possibilities including, in the case of an ambush marketing campaign, carrying anything displaying an advertisement, wearing advertising attire or displaying an advertisement on an individual’s body – so forget the painted models. But as an individual you can still go to the games wearing your favourite branded shell suit; as there is an exception for individuals who are displaying advertising provided they do not know or have reasonable cause to believe that they are part of an ambush marketing campaign. And frankly, it seems unlikely that the Crown Prosecution Service is going to take on anything other than the most serious cases and it should not busy itself looking
“ The guidance emphasises the need to avoid any use of words or imagery to single out bets on the Olympics that might imply some branding association. The recommendation is that bets on the Olympics should be marketed in the midst of other regular sports bets, without any special treatment.” The event periods, referred to in the Regulations, are from July 23 to August 13, 2012 for the main Olympics and from August 28 to September 9, 2012 for the Paralympics. During these “closed periods”, all advertising hoardings, temporary signs, etc, will have to be covered over, no advertising banners or balloons can be flown, no street trading can take place (unless authorised), and no flyers or other material distributed. Potentially, you cannot even have a group of friends all carrying the same unofficial branded bottles of soft drink in an event zone in case it is considered illegal ambush marketing. The Regulations are specifically directed at ambush marketing campaigns, described as campaigns intended specifically to advertise goods or services, or advertise persons who provide goods or services (i.e. the brand), in an event zone during the relevant event periods. Advertising includes displaying an advertisement
for companies to prosecute which might cogently argue that any breach was not intended. The real target is likely to be either the orange clothed or similarly mass branded mobs that are trying to harness the goodwill attached to the Olympic events and the mass audience from blanket TV coverage, or the crafty worded comparative advertising undermining the branding of an official sponsor. Having said all that, unless for once, history is not to be repeated, there will still be unofficial advertising during the Games (as there has been in almost every other Games in recent history) and some businesses might think it worth taking a risk with ambush marketing campaigns. The IOC and the Organising Committee have extracted a high price for the privilege of being a Games sponsor (£40 million to be a tier one), so they are duty bound to ensure that the Police enforce the draconian laws available under the
Regulations. The IOC says that any company that tries to create a false association with the Games, or gives the impression that they are an official sponsor is, “cheating Olympic athletes, Olympic Games’ organisers and Olympic fans”. In truth, the IOC will not tolerate anyone trying to undermine the value of what is a multi-billion dollar business. This article is not intended to constitute legal advice and is merely general comment that may not apply to your circumstances, therefore, you should formally engage the assistance of a lawyer for advice before taking business decisions in relation to the matters covered in this article.
Peter Wilson is a regulatory lawyer and the founder of his own niche firm Peter Wilson Legal that specialises in gambling and business investigations. The gambling practice has been built up over 20 years expanding from advising UK land-based businesses to an international iGaming practice with clients in over a dozen jurisdictions. Peter is known for his comprehensive industry knowledge and sensible, practical advice. He lectures widely and provides training and consulting. The firm has a wide ranging and varied business investigations practice and over the years Peter has represented both companies and individuals facing civil and/or criminal investigation by government agencies. His experience over the years includes dealing with allegations of fraud, tax evasion, bribery, money laundering and breach of statutory obligations in matters of gang master licensing, food safety, environmental law, trading standards and financial services. Contact Tel: +44 (0)208 364 1270 Cell: +44 (0) 7880 734 260 Email: peter@peterwl.com
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
39
NEW REPORT
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SPortsbetting and the olympics feature
WHAT’S NEXT FOR IN-PLAY BETTING? Lee Richardson, ONEworks Limited’s Director of European Sales, looks at today’s in-play betting market and how it is likely to develop into the future. It’s certainly no exaggeration to describe the recent growth of ‘in-running betting’ (IRB) on sports as explosive. IRB can be defined as any sports bet struck after the start of the event itself, with up 80 percent of all betting revenues made on that event now being struck by sports bettors ‘in-running’. Just five years ago, the position was probably the exact reverse, with 80 percent of revenues being struck before the event got under way; that’s an extraordinary change in player behaviour, and few people, frankly, successfully predicted the seismic change seen since the UEFA European Football Championships in 2008. Nonetheless, it’s been easy to see why consumers have taken to this new opportunity, and the fundamental reasons for its growth.
of subsequent prices offered on those markets, aided by smarter trading tools. A good indication of the sector’s growth can be seen in the figures published by two listed European operators, who started providing analysts and investors their IRB share of total sportsbetting revenues in 2006, realising the potential of this buoyant new sector. Then, it represented considerably less than ten percent; in 2011, that share had risen to over 50 percent, and both listed operators forecasted this to be “above 75 percent” for 2012 and beyond. The all-important gross win margins have improved too, from perhaps two to three percent five years ago, to a far healthier five to six percent today, achieved largely through operators relying less on guesswork, and employing better tools and more accurate prices.
Live streaming Firstly, we’ve seen an explosion in the amount of live sport being broadcast, whether on satellite TV, over the Internet or via the tailor-made live streaming many operators now provide their customers on their sites. This live-streaming sector for sportsbetting was embryonic just a few years ago; now, the largest sports-rights aggregators are making available more than 5,000 live sports events, up nearly 50 percent from just two years ago, with football, tennis and basketball collectively taking the vast majority of events and betting revenues. This live sport is often shown at convenient times for consumers and is now increasingly accessible through mobile, tablet and other apps, all of which has contributed to the sector’s extraordinary growth. Additionally, we’ve seen a huge uplift in both the range of markets and the ‘depth’
So where does this sector go from here? One could argue that despite all the creative efforts of the operators, the sports bettor is still something of a creature of habit. A typical high-profile football match (still clearly the most preferred sporting event for IRB) shown live on TV, would generate the vast majority of its total in-play betting revenues on the traditional ‘outright’ 1X2 market. In Europe, for every Euro bet during the 90-minute event, perhaps 60 percent would be on the 1X2 outright market, 30 percent on the ‘over-under’ goals markets, and the remaining ten percent on the many other markets available throughout the game. In Europe at least, consumers clearly love playing on the two markets they know and love, on their favourite sports, almost to the exclusion of everything else. That position
would be similar for the Asian operator and Asian player, albeit on the Asian handicaps with the ‘over-under’ markets dominating. Encouraging the consumer to expand their betting repertoire is a constant goal for operators, as this typically leads to margin improvement, and it seems certain that this will continue to dominate operators’ plans for the next decade. Having up to 90 percent of IRB bets made on just two core markets is something operators will surely want to adjust over the next five years. Whether that’s a continued search for new betting markets that better piques the interest of players, or by growing the share of ‘other’ markets through better promotion remains to be seen, but the search will no doubt continue. Adjustment of the pricing of those events will also likely be a future requirement for operators, and a development from suppliers. One notable feature over the past few years has been the gradual ‘commoditisation’ of pricing, particularly on the key markets of the number one IRB sport, football. The increasing use of automated trading tools and the collation of market prices through their associated algorithms have tended toward homogenous prices, thus removing any obvious differentiation for operators who use the same tools, and perhaps tending against customer loyalty. Those operators who choose to use software suppliers with human traders to support their trading platform and trading tools will surely be at an advantage as they continue to find sustainable ways of offering their customers value, and beating their competitors in the ultra competitive in-play market over the next five years. Lee Richardson is Director, European Sales at ONEworks Limited and can be reached at lee.richardson@oneworks.com. www.oneworks.com; enquiries@oneworks.com.
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
41
FEATURE SPORTSBETTING AND THE OLYMPICS
Sponsored by:
IN-PLAY BETTING BY NUMBERS The biggest growth driver for sportsbetting in recent years has been the proliferation of in-play betting, widely cited as the new battleground for European sportsbooks. Here, we examine the industry’s first in-play betting report, carried out by GamblingData, which provides a unique insight into the companies at the forefront of the real-time wagering phenomenon that is driving huge growth across the sector. IN BECOMING THE new battleground
The report
on which sportsbooks now compete against each other both online and via mobile, in-play betting has established itself as the key revenue driver for most, if not all adoptive sportsbetting operators. However, until recently, there had been little independent market research that could allow us to better understand the impact of this dynamic market trend on the nature of betting and the strategies that operators now implement as a result. The first research of its kind to surface was released in September 2011, published by GamblingData in conjunction with Sporting Solutions. The ‘In-Play Betting Report’ sought to examine the growth of live betting in two parts: a qualitative analysis of the in-play offering of five leading sportsbooks in tandem with an examination of the impact that in-play is having on the sector itself. Since then, GamblingData has issued an updated version (Winter 2012 In-Play Tracker) that comprises eight companies over an extended 14-day period to gain a more developed insight into the average number of markets and events that today’s betting operators are offering.
In providing statistics from GamblingData’s Winter 2012 In-Play Tracker (IPT), we can see that live sports streaming has become an integral component of today’s in-play betting offerings; the report detailing how the volume of events streamed by the leading sportsbook operators is matching the rate of overall in-play growth. In its inaugural quarterly IPT report, GamblingData found that Bet365 led the way in terms of both sports covered and events offered within its in-play proposition, while William Hill was observed to offer the most in-play markets per event. Taking place between Saturday November 26 and Friday December 9, 2011, the survey compared the in-play offerings of eight of the leading sportsbooks – 12Bet, Bet365, bwin, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Sportingbet, William Hill and Unibet – within specified ten minute betting windows during the 14-day survey period. The survey was designed to capture information during two ‘football Saturdays’ as well as successive UEFA Champions League and Europa League weeks, but also more off-peak periods during the remainder of the period.
The survey found that Bet365 came top in terms of sports offered, with the Stoke-based firm offering a total of 20 sports, ahead of Ladbrokes and Unibet, which each offered 15 sports, bwin with 13, Paddy Power and William Hill with 12, Sportingbet with 11 and 12Bet with 10. (See Figure 1: Sports offered one or more times in the 14-day trial.) Bet365 also led the competition by some distance in the key battleground of the number of events offered, racking up 534 in total. Sportingbet was next in line with 358 events over the same period ahead of bwin with 317, Ladbrokes with 313, William Hill at 297, Paddy Power with 280, 12Bet at 279 and Unibet at 277. (See Figure 2: Number of events – by company.) However, when it comes to in-play markets offered per event, it is William Hill that emerged at the top of the pile. The company’s average number of markets per event within the 14-day survey came to 53, well ahead of the 30 recorded by its nearest rival in the metric, Ladbrokes. Next best was Sportingbet with 25, Bet365 at 24, bwin with 23, Paddy Power at 22, Unibet with 11 and 12Bet with an average four markets per event. (See Figures 3 and 4: Number of events and average markets per event – by company.)
Figure 1
Sports offered 1 or more times in the 14 day trial – by company
42
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
Sponsored by:
SPORTSBETTING AND THE OLYMPICS FEATURE
Figure 2
Number of events – by company
Figure 3
Number of events (excluding first two days of survey) – by company
Figure 4
Number of events and average markets per event – by company
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
43
feature SPortsbetting and the olympics
Sponsored by:
Mind Games Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies at Nottingham Trent University, provides a brief psychosocial overview of in-play betting. For those of us who watch football on the television in the UK, it is almost impossible to watch a game without seeing the many gambling adverts alerting us to the fact we can now bet on over 60 in-play markets while watching the game. Should I wish to, I can bet on everything from who is going to score the first goal, what the score will be after 30 minutes of play, how many yellow cards will be given during them game and/or in what minute of the second half the first free kick will be awarded. What’s more, it has been estimated that 2012 will see 3,000 live events a month on which punters can bet. There are also sporting events that may come to the fore in the in-play market (with betting on cricket and tennis being ones that I would pick out to rival the dominance of the football markets).
Demand and technology Over the last decade, there appears to have been a marked shift in gamblers wanting instant 24/7 gratification when they bet or gamble. They also want to be able to gamble instantly on anything they desire, so gaming operators have to offer a vast array of games and markets on which the gambler can bet. Consumers also want to be paid their winnings instantly (i.e., immediately after the result or outcome
44
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
is known). Technological developments such as cloud computing mean that instantaneous gambling by (and for) the masses is now a reality. Live betting is going to become a critical activity in the success of the future online and mobile gambling markets. It is already showing that it can be a major revenue generator for anyone in the sportsbetting market (for any company in the sportsbetting market, it is quickly turning from a betting option to a betting necessity). It also means that gaming companies are having to outsource much of their trading and event generation. The move towards cloud computing in the gaming industry is already underway. In 2011, Bet 365 adopted a cloud computing solution to reduce the latency of its core betting system as a way of improving gamblers’ experiences on its website. In layman’s terms, it speeds things up for those accessing the website and can handle large simultaneous demand. The use of cloud computing in Bet 365’s in-play betting system now means that punters can increase their stake in less than two seconds with the system now being able to support millions of gamblers concurrently. More recently, in December 2011, International Game Technology (IGT) announced its ‘IGT Cloud Solution’ that will allow operators to provide seamless gaming experiences across land-based, mobile and online devices. In addition to increasing revenue, companies offering in play options will also use the platform to increase betting session times (and therefore increase their profits), as well as using it to cross-sell to other products in the company’s gaming portfolio (simply as a result of customers spending more time interacting with a company’s games and products). Some companies also view sportsbetting not only as a revenue generator but also as a casino acquisition tool. There also appears to be a changing
demographic with online customers becoming younger, and more tech-savvy, particularly as the new ‘digital natives’ have never known a world without the Internet, mobile phones and interactive television. As the CEO of OpenBet, David Loveday, commented in a news release recently, “The periodic ritual of predicting a daily or weekly series of events is no longer the mainstay. Today’s punter wants to be able to turn on their gadget of choice and instantly be offered an array of real-time betting opportunities with immediate results… Sportsbetting is growing in what is offered, how it is offered, when it is offered, where it is offered, and to whom it is offered… Like the financial markets, volatile events produce increased liquidity, and increased liquidity produces greater revenue to the operator.” This also means that to stand out from the crowd in a fast growing market, gaming companies have to have a USP – something that marks them out as different from their competitors. In-play betting is arguably the fastest growing form of gambling in the UK and the country’s leading in-play bookmaker, Bet 365, made over £500 million last year. What the ‘in-play’ markets have done is take what was traditionally a discontinuous form of gambling – where you make one bet every Saturday on the result of the game – to one where you can gamble again and again. What’s more, gaming operators have quickly capitalised on the increasing amount of televised sport. In contemporary society, where there is a live sporting event there will always be a betting consumer. In-play betting companies have both catered for the natural betting demand but introduced new punters in the process. The weekly or daily bettor is now seeing the whole sporting event as an entertainment experience (a “natural side order to the live action” as I saw it described).
Dr Mark Griffiths is Professor of Gambling Studies at the International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University.
The Global Business of Poker (4th Edition)
NEW 4TH EDITION OUT NOW !
Much has changed within online poker over the last few years. That’s why iGaming Business have produced a brand new 4th edition of The Global Business of Poker. This new report offers you a comprehensive overview of the key markets and includes forecasts up to 2015. If you are in the business of online poker you cannot afford to miss out on this essential business intelligence. This valuable report will allow you to develop and execute a successful online poker experience and give you the key data and analysis to allow you to easily identify and exploit new opportunities. The Global Business of Poker gives you in-depth analysis on the factors affecting growth in the industry; including the Smartphone revolution and it’s affect on poker offerings and how social gaming is now part of the online poker mix. You will �ind a range of intelligence to inform and shape your business strategy. The 4th edition is unrivalled in the breadth and depth of case studies of the major online poker sites and networks. You will be able to clearly see who the winners and losers are in this sector, which business models are the most successful, how companies are increasing revenue and the most effective marketing strategies. The Global Business of Poker will allow you to learn from the experience of others and avoid some of the pitfalls along the way.
Summary of content
Growth of online Poker - Regional Overviews and demographics - Major Poker Properties –Online Poker Market Mobile Poker Market - Poker and Social Media - Poker and TV- Commercial Models in Online Poker - Marketing, Sponsorship and Poker Prize Funds - Regulation - Outlook and Forecasts
To order your copy of The Global Business of Poker (4th Edition) or receive a free executive summary, simply email: reports@igamingbusiness.com and quote 12HS44A or call our sales team on +44 (0) 20 7954 3489.
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INSIGHT
The Fall OF AN EMPIRE With the first anniversary of Full Tilt Poker’s shock collapse fast approaching, Julian Rogers charts the rise, and spectacular fold, of a former online giant. With its quirky cartoon graphics and vast array of peculiar avatars, Full Tilt Poker emerged from the pack to become the second biggest poker site in the world with estimated revenues of $500 million in 2010, according to Forbes magazine. At its peak, upwards of 20 million pixilated hands were being dealt every day. Founded by Ray Bitar and a group of pro poker players in 2004, Full Tilt’s proprietary software, provided by Tiltware, was slick and user-friendly while the lobby was soon full to capacity with all-important players and big guaranteed tournaments, 24/7. In online poker terms, however, this was a late launch; the first online poker site to accept real money wagers appeared in cyberspace way back in the dotcom boom times of 1998. Full Tilt, though, had an ace up its sleeve to get the poker room noticed in an increasingly crowded marketplace. As part of an aggressive marketing assault, the site’s owners made it their mission to sign up a panoply of the game’s brightest talent – from dyed-in-thewool Las Vegas legends to multi-tabling Internet poker starlets. Full Tilt’s moody monochrome TV adverts showcasing the bulging stable of poker pros was a key marketing ploy to entice new players. These pros also appeared on high-profile TV poker games with the famous Full Tilt Poker logo emblazoned across their clothing. Amateurs saw this and put their trust, and their cash, in the site. It was also the first
operator to introduce the groundbreaking ‘Rush Poker’, which is where players are instantly transferred to a new table and dealt a new hand when they fold. Perfect for ‘action junkies’. With poker celebrities playing exclusively on the site, it became a hub for eyewatering high stakes action, particularly on the heads up tables. Finnish pro Patrik Antonius and Swede Viktor Blom (Islldur1) contested a $1.3 million pot on Full Tilt in 2009, making it the largest in online poker history – a record that still stands today. Anyone, provided they had sufficient funds, could lock horns across the virtual felt with the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan (durrrr), Gus Hansen et al. Or you could just observe and learn from the sidelines. For a time, Full Tilt looked unstoppable in its pursuit of the industry’s chip leader, PokerStars. What could possibly go wrong?
Figure 1: Black Friday’s impact on real money cash game player accounts as of May 2011 Site/Network
Net change (%)
Left US Market PokerStars
-7734
-26%
Full Tilt Poker
-5538
-32%
Cereus Network
-1542
-76%
Merge Network
+735
+77%
Bodog
+184
+28%
Cake Network
+155
+28%
+3
+1%
+358
+10%
Still in US
Everleaf Network European Majors PartyPoker iPoker Network
-13
-0.4%
Ongame Network
-102
-4%
888poker
+77
+5%
Source: PokerScout
Dark days Eventually, though, it did go disastrously wrong. Full Tilt Poker imploded on June 29, 2011 when its Alderney licence was suspended (later revoked in September), and was accused by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) of defrauding poker players to the tune of $300 million. Prosecutors labelled the operator a “massive Ponzi scheme” and said the business should have had $440 million in player funds but, in fact, held a relatively paltry $60 million in its accounts. “Full Tilt insiders lined their
Net change (avg. players)
own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited with the company,” said US Attorney Preet Bharara. When the news broke that Full Tilt was in dire straits, a ‘run’ on the bank was inevitable. Full Tilt’s troubles sent shockwaves through the poker world while the negative publicity was exacerbated when the story was splashed across the mainstream media
Full Tilt Timeline June 2004
Full Tilt Poker is launched by parent company Tiltware with involvement from poker pros Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow and Jennifer Harman.
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September 29, 2006
US Congress passes the Safe Port Act which includes a last-minute amendment known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). UIGEA forces many leading online gaming companies to flee the US market. Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars continue to operate in the US.
April 15, 2011
The fated ‘Black Friday’. The FBI seizes the ‘.com’ domains of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker. The US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York serves indictments against various owners.
INSIGHT
and financial press. Accusing the business of being a Ponzi scheme was bound to grab the attention of non-poker players. The game’s credibility was facing its toughest challenge thus far. If depositors couldn’t trust poker sites to ring fence their funds for the sole purpose of playing cards then the whole industry was under threat. Naturally, the salient question on most people’s lips was how this could have happened to a poker operator as large at Full Tilt? After all, poker is a relatively riskfree business, unlike a casino or sportsbook – it is peer-to-peer gambling as opposed to playing against the house. All Full Tilt had to do was process players’ deposits and withdrawals, run the poker software effectively, and take a cut of the action (rake). Was it diabolical mismanagement and/or a Ponzi scheme? The DoJ says the owners and the board used player funds to pay themselves $443 million between April 2007 and April 2011. Co-founder and poker pro Howard Lederer is reported to have pocketed $42 million while Bitar took $41 million. Chris Ferguson, another founding member and 2000 World Series of Poker Champion, was allocated $85 million, although he received (just) $25 million. Even after the business went into financial meltdown, up to $10 million a month was being paid to the owners. It also seems some pros were loaned money from player funds. By September last year, it was revealed that the stricken company owed $390 million to players around the world, including $150 million to US players. It was a complete financial mess and getting to the bottom of what exactly was going on behind the scenes at Full Tilt wasn’t going to be a facile task.
Hidden truths It is thought that Full Tilt began experiencing financial problems in the autumn of 2010 due to the US government’s determination to stifle poker sites’ payment processors. The bosses
June 29, 2011
The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) suspends Full Tilt Poker’s licence “in the public interest because of the seriousness and urgency of the matter”.
kept quiet as player accounts were credited with ‘ghost’ funds but the problem came when winning players tried to withdraw this non-existent money. But the final nail in the coffin was Black Friday on April 15, 2011, a date that still brings US players out in cold sweats, especially those whose main source of income came from playing cards online. This was when the FBI seized Full Tilt’s domain (along with PokerStars and UltimateBet/Absolute Poker) and indicted them in a hard-line clampdown on online poker in the US. This was a very serious problem for Full Tilt because a significant proportion of its customers were Americans. Black Friday decimated player numbers (Figure 1). The site promised to release players’ money but as time passed this pledge increasingly looked like another bluff. Angry customers – some trying to retrieve up to six-figure balances – were left frustrated at Full Tilt’s silence, apart from the drip-feeding of banal statements on a poker forum. The site was licensed on the island of Alderney and the Alderney Gambling Control Commission’s (AGCC) handling of the situation was being called into question. The prolonged information vacuum enraged those with seemingly lost funds. In the wake of criticism that it had failed to properly monitor Full Tilt or intervene more promptly, the AGCC launched an independent review conducted by Peter Dean, the former Chairman of the British Gambling Commission. In it, Dean stated that AGCC “fulfilled its statutory obligations in relation to FTP and that its actions were appropriate, timely and fair”. André Wilsenach, Executive Director of the AGCC, said the report made valuable recommendations on how they can make improvements in the light of what has happened. He did, however, concede that none of this will compensate those players who have lost money as a result of Full Tilt’s actions
July 4, 2011
Full Tilt Poker’s ‘.fr’ licence is suspended by French regulator, ARJEL.
and that he has “great sympathy for them”. He also added: “As the report confirms, a regulatory regime cannot be proof against deliberate concealment or deception.”
A buyer’s market In a surprise twist, PokerStars is thought to be in negotiations with the DoJ to acquire Full Tilt’s assets and reimburse players. This development came out of the blue after months of protracted takeover talks and legal wrangling by France’s Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT) – the eponymous investment company run by businessman Bernard Tapie – to buy the site. But a deal with GBT and the DoJ, thought to be in the region of $80 million, collapsed recently and news quickly emerged that PokerStars was interested in a deal, although PokerStars has refused to confirm this. If the sale goes through then PokerStars will significantly tighten its stranglehold on the online poker market, which isn’t always in players’ interests. However, one thing is certain: this sorry mess cannot ever be allowed to happen again to Full Tilt or any other poker site. The damage to the industry could be too great next time. The industry’s reputation was definitely tarnished. Likewise, Lederer and Ferguson have been accused of being crooks and some ex-customers say the business was a fraud from the outset. If true, were the pros playing with their own money or innocent players’ cash? Were the colossal pots genuine? I guess we will probably never uncover the full truth. Of course, for the affected players their primary concern is whether they will ever see their money again. There’s a lot resting on the outcome.
Julian Rogers is a freelance journalist with 10 years’ experience specialising in business, sportsbetting, poker and news reporting.
September 29-30, 2011
The AGCC revokes Full Tilt’s licence following an investigation and subsequent hearing in London. Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT) is confirmed as the pending buyer of the company and its assets.
April 24, 2012
The GBT deal collapses over the structuring of player repayment. PokerStars emerges as a surprise buyer of the company in a deal to settle its own affairs with the DoJ.
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POKER AFFILIATE FORUM: FORECASTS FOR 2012 After digesting the demise of Full Tilt Poker amid the fallout from 2011’s game changing ‘Black Friday’ and all of its wide reaching implications, poker affiliates may feel that the composition of their marketplace has markedly changed as we move through 2012. Jeremy Enke, Founder of Poker Listings, assesses the mood of the affiliates currently plying their trade in the poker affiliate market. On April 15, 2011, the online poker industry was forever changed when the US Department of Justice seized four of the largest US-facing online poker sites. Known
certain about the future of online poker in the US market is its uncertainty. On the front lines and reporting many of these stories every day are hundreds of poker affiliates controlling thousands of websites. In fact, there is no greater group in the online poker industry with their fingers on the daily pulse of this everchanging marketplace than that of poker affiliates and poker affiliate managers. With this in mind, we went directly to this group at PokerAffiliateListings.com to get their predictions for the second half of 2012 and beyond.
Since Black Friday, the industry has seen an overabundance of speculation and predictions in blogs, forums, and other publications on what the future of
“With the intra-state model of regulated online poker, it will be imperative that a third-party, and not a bureaucratic agency, manage the player experience.” as ‘Black Friday’ in the industry, this day will forever go down in infamy as one of the most significant events ever to transpire in the world of online poker.
online poker may hold. As each week goes by, so do the various news stories and articles about ‘potential regulation’ in the US. At this point, the only thing
Affiliate predictions
Anonymous “After Google
Cookarelli11 – PAL regulation it will be in the form of individual states opening up and pooling their Similar to how many states already collaborate with their lotteries, such as with Powerball, this may be the only way to ensure enough liquidity and players to effectively operate a regulated online poker site.”
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ent of gambl
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the end of 20 12, road I can se e the US and Canada bein g regulated w ith little or no plans to keep smaller affilia tes around. Work hard di versifying an d growing yo ur business in th e second ha lf of 2012.” but down the
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Anonymous the “The large Las Vegas casinos are already in s advanced planning stages of being major player regardless of how legislation shakes out. I could the envision a partnership of some sort between casinos, the states, and an existing online poker operator to provide the software platform. With into the large amounts of lobbyist money pouring this cause, however, thinking that there will be t regulated online gambling without the involvemen of Las Vegas casinos would be silly.”
Future role As you can see, the predictions and speculation coming from the affiliate side of the poker business is also filled with uncertainty. The other major concern for poker affiliates in the US is not only what future legislation might look like, but also what their role in a newly regulated industry would be. If individual states do indeed begin regulating online poker in the fashion predicted by one of the affiliates in this article, it’s hard to envision these states utilising affiliate marketing. Regardless of any of the predictions or speculation out there, we should all keep in mind that it is an election year in the United States and online poker is low on the priority list for many politicians. With so many hoops to jump through and political nonsense in the United States, most poker affiliates would be extremely surprised if there were any type of regulation passed before the New Year. As mentioned earlier in this article, poker affiliates are on the front line of the industry and are often a liaison between the players and operators. As poker affiliates, we are very receptive to what types of promotions, bonuses, and software best converts and retains players. However, when we look into the dark and murky world of online poker legislation in the US, these conversations seem to be missing.
Jeremy – PA (PokerAffi L liateListin gs.com) “My predic tio
n is that we’ ll be makin g new pred ictions ations abo ut what will happen with poker in 20 online 13 right aro und the New Year. I don’ any major t foresee regulation taking place given the fa are in the m ct that we idst of an el ection year in the US... “For all pra ctical purp oses, both state and fe governmen deral ts are clue less when it comes to running a p ef ficiently roper onlin e poker op eration. Eve see some n if we do form of leg al online p oker within States this the United year, my fe ar is that th e player ex will be lack perience ing to say the least.” and specul
Instead, it’s all about legalisation, how the taxing authorities will work, what kickback the politicians will get, and how the states will benefit best. At the end of the day, for any poker operation to be successful, you have to put the players first and take into consideration the overall player experience.
“For all practical purposes, both state and federal governments are clueless when it comes to efficiently running a proper online poker operation. Even if we do see some form of legal online poker within the United States this year, my fear is that the player experience will be lacking to say the least.” This is where it will be critical even in a regulated environment that professional organisations with industry experience be involved. With the intra-state model of regulated online poker, it will be imperative that a third-party, and not a bureaucratic agency, manages the player experience. Another prediction coming from the poker affiliates, and one that is actually realistic, is
that there will finally be a resolution to the Full Tilt Poker debacle this year. Circulating around the rumour mill is that PokerStars has struck a deal with the United States Department of Justice to purchase the assets of its once biggest rival. Also expected out of this deal is that PokerStars would payout the more than $300 million currently owed to both players and affiliates since Black Friday. Only time will tell if this comes to fruition. However, all indications at this time seem quite positive. Nevertheless, for the rest of the year and even beyond, the hot topics in the online poker industry will remain those that deal with US legislation. The uncertainty will remain, and there is no guarantee that things will be better or worse for poker affiliates should we see US legislation pass. And while it’s impossible to predict exactly what will transpire in the online poker market over the next six to 12 months, we are seeing an increase in strategic partnerships and joint ventures within the industry. Both online poker operators as well as the US land-based casinos are strategically positioning themselves should regulation, either state or federal, pass within the United States. With so much uncertainty in the current US market, the best strategy for anyone in the industry is to be diversified and ready for a variety of outcomes.
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INSIGHT
The Mobile Gambling Market The mobile gambling market is in a constant state of flux. Betting on mobile devices is growing at a rapid pace in line with a massive upswing in live betting, leading to widespread expectations that this platform will form in excess of 50 percent of all interactive revenues within 12 to 18 months. Mobile casinos are gaining traction alongside sportsbetting and the underlying technology from operating systems, devices and mobile networks evolve seemingly on a daily basis. mobile is now a platform that affiliates must now wholly embrace. However, with the constantly changing landscape, it is imperative to keep abreast of all that is going on in order to achieve success. Juniper Research has been the de facto standard for projections in the mobile gambling space for quite some time, and the long-held view was that mobile gambling would be worth $48 billion in wagers by 2015. This particular report was written prior to the emergence of the tablet market and, therefore, referred to mobile handsets only. The revised projections, in a report issued in June, show a massive hike in revenues and some interesting data regarding products. ●●In 2011 more than $19 billion was wagered on mobile devices, of which Japan and the UK accounted for more than 70 percent. ●●Total wager on mobile devices expected to hit $100 billion per annum by 2017, generating gross win of more than $5.2 billion. This is a figure that incorporates both mobile handsets and tablets (in particular the iPad). ●●Sportsbetting currently accounts for nearly 70 percent of wagers, although with the growing mobile casino market, Juniper expects that within the next few years, gaming products will overtake and dominate sportsbetting on the platform. ●●The future growth of casino and gaming products is related to several developments that are currently in the early stages of fruition. ●●The big gambling companies who are
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currently focussing almost exclusively on mobile sportsbetting will deploy and market casino and gaming products as part of their mobile mix. ●●Long Term Evolution and its big brother 4G will enable better and smoother game play as bandwidth for mobile devices will dramatically improve. Sportsbetting doesn’t require the consistent bandwidth of gaming which is one of the reasons why it is the early contender on the platform. Though on the horizon, 4G is not an immediate-term game changer as 3G has yet to fully roll out and those technologies aren’t yet close to being exhausted for the companies that parted with lots of cash for the licences and need to recoup their investment prior to repeating the process with 4G. ●●A new mobile-only market is fast emerging and will continue to grow. Customers in this segment tend to be lower depositors but higher margin players and they do not consider themselves ‘gamblers’. Instead, they look at the softer games and slots purely as entertainment. This market is currently served well by operators such as All Slots Casino which has a range of products for this demographic, but it will continue its fast growth as more operators begin to actively target these players. Two years ago, pre-World Cup 2010, mobile contributed less than one percent of most operators’ revenues if, indeed, they had a product offering on the platform at all. Now it is a completely different picture. In Paddy Power’s recent results, it reported
that mobile sportsbetting stakes are up over 200 percent forming 25 percent of all stakes, and that the platform accounted for 29 percent of all active players by February. Betfair, another key player, has seen 11 million bets and £5.8 million revenue generated through the mobile division in its last financial year, and William Hill exceeded its mid-2013 target of £5 million weekly turnover on mobile having already hit a weekly average of £7.3 million in the recent trading period and it has now revised its target for mobile to reach 40 percent of all sportsbook turnover.
Technology It is known that regular bettors are twice as likely to own a Smartphone and that consumers who bet and play via both mobile and desktop place up to 50 percent more bets. Smartphones have been the key to the explosive growth of mobile gambling, and the UK now has over 50 percent Smartphone penetration. While the iPhone is currently dominant amongst gamblers, this will not continue to be the case indefinitely, despite the ‘cult’ of Apple: ●●Nokia is the world’s leading manufacturer, driven by feature phones. The company missed out on the early Smartphone market, however, it has recently announced a range of entry-level low cost Smartphones – presumably to target its existing customer base by way of the upgrade cycle. ●●Samsung has more global penetration, and as an isolated device, Samsung’s Galaxy S2 outsells the iPhone. With the Galaxy S3 on the market in the past month, this handset supremacy is likely to continue. ●●Android accounts for 30 percent of all Smartphone mobile web, and is growing faster than iOS with projections that as many web visits will come from Android-based phones as iOS by the end of the year.
INSIGHT
Tablets are the fastest growing technological device in history, driven by the iPad, although over 60 Android powered tablets were launched in 2011 from the key manufacturers. Apple sold 11.8 million iPads in its fiscal second quarter and a UK Tablet Survey of 2011 found that two in three tablet owners are aged 25 to 54, with 60 percent of this group being male. 81 percent use their tablets for online search and it is known that currently conversion rates on tablets are similar to desktop, yet they are typically 10 to 15 percent cheaper. AdMob research shows that tablet traffic is on the way to overtaking that of desktop. A survey it conducted found that: ●●77 percent of respondents said their laptop usage decreased after buying a tablet. ●●28 percent said the tablet is now their primary computer. ●●82 percent said they primarily use their tablet at home.
Marketing The sale of Smartphones escalated throughout 2011, and this has had a profound effect on mobile web usage. Affiliates now understand that an increasing percentage of their natural traffic is coming from a mobile device and, therefore, in order to capitalise on this business they need to make the relevant adjustments in order to cater to this market. Primarily, this means redirecting traffic according to the platform that the player originated from and working with operators who offer both mobile and online solutions. The affiliate tools offered by Brightshare, one of the most advanced affiliate networks in the mobile space, are an example of what is necessary to be successful on the platform. ●●Specific mobile optimised banners in terms of size, look and feel and legibility for a small screen. ●●A variety of mobile promotions targeted at cross-selling platforms and attracting the new mobile-only demographic. ●●I-frame sites for player game download using push technology. ●●Affiliate customisable mini-sites for Smartphones. ●●QR Codes uniquely coded to each affiliate.
SEO and PPC To facilitate mobile search, Google has now incorporated a Smartphone-user-agent to Googlebot-Mobile, which aims to provide
a ‘better search experience for Smartphone users’. Since the mobile gaming market has taken off, there is evidence that natural search results vary widely between mobiles and desktops. The Smartphone-user-agent will cause search results on mobiles to be further distinguished from desktops. Web pages that are not optimised for mobiles are likely to lose rankings in search results pages. Mobile searches have quadrupled in the last year and one in seven searches are now carried out via mobile. A few months ago, Google announced that mobile-only campaigns drive 11.5 percent more clickthroughs than campaigns simply imported from PC AdWords. Search on mobile is vastly different to search online. Due to screen size and factors such as touch screen typing and small keys, there are relatively few longtail searches on mobile, so the affiliate has a limited amount of words in which to anticipate and understand what the customer is looking for. In addition, although available on both Internet and mobile, people use the predictive text in the search box much more on mobile than they do online.
Social – mobile On average, people install 25 apps on their Smartphone, but only use 12, of which most will be social network apps. Though separate phenomena, social media use and mobile growth are constantly intertwined. This is especially the case for gambling and in-running betting. The marketing agency, GMR, recently reported data from KT Tape which found that people are ten times more likely to check Twitter or Facebook for breaking news than sports radio, and 81 percent prefer the Internet for their sports news. They also found that when watching a sports event on TV, 83 percent of viewers will simultaneously check sports social media sites, and 63 percent will do the same when actually at the stadium. 425 million users, representing over half of Facebook’s user base, accesses the network via mobile on a monthly basis, and mobile is outgrowing desktop use at a ratio of two to one. In the UK, Facebook sees 60 percent of its activity on phones and tablets, representing one in every two minutes of mobile Internet use. This is despite the fact that Facebook does not have a strong mobile product, something which was a significant part of its under-impressive IPO. The purchase of Instagram and recent changes to the mobile platform from a
marketing perspective demonstrates its push forward on this platform. Earlier this year, Facebook revealed a variety of mobile-centric products, including the introduction and 2012 roll-out of the Timeline feature on mobile as well as enabling brands to advertise in mobile news feeds through Sponsored Stories. Prior to this, corporate/affiliate pages on Facebook mobile have had almost no functionality; custom apps haven’t worked without complications, tabs haven’t translated, etc. In addition, until Q1 2012 there had been no way to advertise to Facebook users on mobile devices. Now, Sponsored Stories premium ad units will appear in mobile news feeds. Considering the many users who access Facebook from a mobile device, marketers now have a significant opportunity to embed sponsored advertisements within mobile feeds. Even more recently, Facebook announced that it was allowing advertisers to buy its mobile ads (Sponsored Stories) without having to buy desktop ads at the same time. Previously, these ads could only be bought for distribution together. Because ads appear in people’s news feeds, it’s not yet clear how well they will work on the mobile platform as the relevant news versus spam question may prove especially acute on small Smartphone screens where people are increasingly accessing Facebook. In summary, the options for Facebook advertising (including mobile) are now: ●●All placements: this option includes right-hand side plus News Feed desktop and News Feed mobile. ●●All desktop placements: this option includes right-hand side plus News Feed desktop. ●●News Feed (desktop and mobile): this option includes News Feed desktop plus News Feed mobile. ●●News Feed desktop: this option includes News Feed desktop only. ●●News Feed mobile: this option includes News Feed mobile only.
Aideen Shortt is an experienced consultant, author and researcher in the gambling industry with 12 years of work across all sectors and verticals. aideen.shortt@gmail.com.
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The New Business Paradigm Being competitive in today’s global economy now hinges on the ability to interact with consumers online. Social networks have democratised information and empowered consumers. As a result, user networks are changing how customers refer products and services, and ultimately make decisions. The relationship between customers and business is changing and will continue to evolve as social media permeates our culture and society. InSites Consulting conducted an indepth study into social media in over 30 countries and has reported that awareness of Facebook is close to 100 percent, that 58 percent of Facebook users log-in at least daily, and the average session lasts 37 minutes. However, despite the wide assumption of many businesses, social media is more than just Facebook. In Europe, 50 percent of users are a member of only one social network (Facebook), but on average, people join 1.9 social networks. In the US it’s 2.1, Brazil 3.1 and India 3.9.
Facebook Facebook is undoubtedly the giant in the social media world. It currently has over 900 million users, including 30 million in the UK and is expected to pass the one billion mark in the coming months. The average user has 130 friends and spends approximately 700 minutes per month on the site, with an average session time of 37 minutes. In fact, more than 50 percent log-in daily. Facebook has overtaken Google as the most visited site on the Internet, and despite mobile not being its strong point the statistics on that platform are no less impressive, with one in every two minutes on the UK mobile Internet spent viewing and interacting on Facebook.
Twitter Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows its users to broadcast short, 140-character messages to groups of ‘followers’, yet people commonly think
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of Twitter as a variant of Facebook. This pairing erroneously implies that the two services are used for the same purpose, even though the platforms are very different. Facebook is a few-to-few communication network designed for sharing information and life events with friends. Twitter, on the other hand, is a oneto-many information broadcast network. Twitter registered its 500 millionth user in February 2012, of which over 140 million are active, generating in excess of 340 million tweets and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day.
Google+ The big question around Google+ is whether or not it can mount a serious challenge to Facebook’s dominance. Google originally addressed social media as early as January 2004 with the launch of Orkut, which was actually one of the world’s first social media platforms. However, despite being launched within a month of Facebook’s limited Harvard launch, it never gained the same levels of traction as MySpace (which was once the dominant network) and the fast emerging Facebook. Google+ reached 20 million users in 24 days, 1,011 days fewer than Facebook, and in a company update in January 2012, CEO Larry Page said Google+ had more than 100 million active users (over 60 percent daily and 80 percent monthly). There is much scepticism around the definition of ‘active users’ as it refers to a range of products, and the statistic could mean that users simply check their email or go to a Google map, as once logged into the wider system, a user is auto-logged into Google+.
The reason Google+ has so much power is because of Google search, and since the Google Panda update, the social signal is a strong cue in search. A few months ago, Google incorporated Google+ into its algorithm which impacted SERPs. Around the same time, it also included its +1 ‘endorsement feature’ and since then, +1 has been widely adopted with the button now being served over five billion times per day globally. In mid-January, Google announced its most radical transformation to date, with a new ‘Search Plus Your World’ format. It finds both content that’s been shared with you privately along with matches from the public web, all mixed into a single set of listings allowing people to search against both the broader web and their own Google+ social graph.
Beyond the big three While Facebook, Twitter and Google+ each have their own reasons behind their importance they are not the only networks for affiliates to consider in a holistic social strategy. YouTube (owned by Google) is arguably the most under-rated social media site. Digital marketing agency Latitude Group has identified that YouTube visits make up 23 percent of all social media traffic, and the site is long known to be the world’s second largest search engine (behind Google). Pinterest is the latest darling of the social media world. It has grown from a niche network to a massive site in a matter of months, being the fastest standalone site in history to reach more than ten million monthly unique visitors. Tumblr is an emerging player in social media, having nearly tripled its audience in the past 12 months and the network hit 20 billion posts at the end of March 2012. The new report, Social Media Strategy and Implementation, researched and authored by Aideen Shortt, is available for sale from iGaming Business. reports@igamingbusiness.com.
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INSIGHT
Online Gambling, iPads and Tablets Virgin Games’ Pierrick Leveque asserts that if there was ever a device that was fit-for-purpose for the gaming industry, it is the tablet, and now is the time to get in shape to welcome it. As a premise to our chat about tablets, I’d like you to participate in a brief experiment that should hopefully get your attention. Follow these five easy steps: 1. Open Google Analytics and select your primary site 2. Open menu: mobile > devices 3. Update date range: compare last month with same month in 2011 4. Check iPad stats report 5. Faint Still standing? This either means you’re already doing something about what you saw, or you’re planning your retirement. I wish it wasn’t just one or the other, but current trends indicate that tablets are the brightest young stars of our digital entertainment age, and marketers will ignore them at their peril.
Landscape and trends Shortly after the launch of the first iPad, research firms started laying out forecasts on the growth of the tablet market, and they got it wrong. Very wrong. So wrong, in fact, that the much lauded original estimates are described as ‘comical’ by today’s experts, some missing actual figures by as much as 100 percent. Interestingly, analyst re-forecasts on tablet growth still happen on a very regular basis. In its latest draft, insight group IDC currently estimates that global tablet shipments will reach 106.1 million units in 2012, up from a previous forecast of 87.7 million (Figure 1). It has already been a formidable success story for such a high-end device, but trends tell us this is only the beginning. Analysts predict that market expansion will be fuelled by two factors: huge growth in device penetration and increased production of cheaper devices from a wider range of manufacturers. These factors are already blurring the profile of your typical
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tablet device user, from affluent tech-savvy early adopter to anyone between the age of four and 100 who can use their fingers. For 40.3 million active PC Internet users in the UK, there are 26.3 million active mobile Internet app users, yet only three million tablet owners. Also, you can always trust money to smell money: in 2010, venture capitalbacked businesses forked out $123 million in mobile marketing and advertising. In 2011, they invested close to $600 million.
Devices Despite our frustrations with ring fencing, privacy matters, extortionate App Store commissions and high device prices, you have to give it to Apple. The company has single-handedly created the digital music market, the Smartphone market, and now the tablet market with the iPad. I remember doubt and shrugs, postures and irony from many in the UK tech media when the first iPad – that ridiculously oversized iPhone – came out. Fast-forward
to today, and usage data tells us that a tablet is not a Smartphone, and nor is it a PC. It’s a new media consumption device we didn’t know we needed. Apple told us we needed it. It’s all about vision, and despite Google toying with self-driving cars and interactive glasses, or Facebook having close to a billion penny-pinching users, no other digital age behemoths have so far managed to monetise vision as well as Apple. In Q4 2011, the iPad still held 54.7 percent of the UK tablet market, down from 61.5 percent in the previous quarter. Why? Android. The increasing number of device manufacturers shipping low-priced, Android-based tablets means that Google’s OS is expected to overtake Apple’s worldwide market share by 2015. Noticeably, Amazon’s Kindle Fire is widely expected to lead the fight against the iPad. Sold for $199 (£125) in the US, the minimalistic seven-inch product has raised consumers’ awareness of the category worldwide. At the time of writing, licensing deals have held up the Kindle Fire’s arrival in the UK and the rest of the world, but if the impact it’s had on the US market is replicated – up from a
Figure 1
Worldwide media tablet shipments split by OS historical and forecast* 2010 – 2016 (units in millions) 19.4
2010 (actual)
68.7
2011 (actual) Android
106.1
198.2
2012 (forecast)* iOS
Others
2016 (forecast)*
INSIGHT
29.4 percent share of the Android tablet market in September 2011 to 54 percent in February 2012 – Apple execs are in for a nail-bite-fest next Christmas. The forthcoming Windows 8 mobile OS has also gathered decent feedback so far. It’s too early to tell whether it’s set to become a worthy contender, but one thing is certain: corporate and licensing deals will be as important as product quality if Microsoft wants ‘8’ to take off. Whatever happens, and looking at growth predictions (Figure 1), it will take a daring player with deep pockets to step into an arena where the Apple and Google titans are playing tug of war.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? While a Smartphone is primarily a phone, a tablet is free from such commitment, which makes it everything you want it to be. It is a bird in Angry Birds, it is a plane in Paper Plane HD, it’s a phone, it’s a PC, but it’s none of them really. To understand the disruptive nature of the tablet and the virtual space it occupies, let’s let usage data do the talking. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) recently completed a survey on digital media devices, and its research will illustrate our topic (for full details please visit the IAB website).
data show different patterns: early morning peaks, countless bursts of activity during the day, and evening peaks too. Tablet usage is more sustained and happens in downtime, when people have more time to quench their curiosity.
‘retail’, ‘entertainment’, ‘relaxed creativity’, ‘exploration’ and ‘preferred formatting’. In the ever-changing world of digital media consumption, mobile is a snack, tablet is a meal, and using your pc/laptop increasingly feels like doing the washing up.
What?
What is one to do?
The nature of tablet user activities flows very naturally from this primarily homebound, downtime usage. For users in the survey, tablet usage has improved their digital life on three fronts: 1. Entertainment – 49 percent of respondents prefer their entertainment (music, video, games) on tablet rather than on a laptop/PC (29 percent) or a mobile (22 percent). Tablet owners also watch videos for 28 percent longer than desktop users. 2. Exploration – 42 percent of respondents prefer using a tablet for exploration rather than a PC/laptop (36 percent) or a mobile (21 percent). Tablet owners prefer to search on a tablet than on any other device. Still on search, and gauged against mobile, the tablet share of paid search clicks is currently at five percent and is predicted to grow by 0.5 percent each month until the end of the year. To put this in perspective, tablet
It’s not all doom and gloom, and every device still has its place in our digital ecosystem, but I believe it’s time for more online gambling affiliates to start putting two and two together: ●●Usage data demonstrates that tablet cannibalises exploration, entertainment and retail traffic from PC and mobile. ●●Tablet market growth has defied all expectations so far, and shows no sign of slowing down. As online gambling operators or affiliates, we are in the business of exploration (search), entertainment (games) and retail (deposits, revenue). If a device was ever fit for our sector, this device is a tablet, and it’s time to get in shape to welcome it. 46 percent of tablet owners are more likely to use a site if it is optimised for tablets, and this alone should be challenging affiliate marketing strategies right now.
Epilogue
“ In the ever-changing world of digital media consumption, mobile is a snack, tablet is a meal, and using your pc/ laptop increasingly feels like doing the washing up.” Why? When asked what they prefer about using tablets, most people reply that they like the fact it’s (physically) easy to pick up, that the interface is easy to use, that it provides them with an experience in the format they like, and that is has the entertainment they want.
penetration is currently four years behind Smartphones, yet the share of paid clicks is only one year behind. 3. Buying stuff – an even cleaner split here: 72 percent of tablet owners purchase from the device weekly. On average, they also spend more than four hours shopping via tablet every week.
Ultimately, the ball is now in the affiliate corner. Virgin Games might be converting players coming from mobile-allergic websites, but for each visitor making it through, how many dropped off right after landing on non-optimised affiliate home pages? The answer closes our circle: go back to Google Analytics and check out your homepage’s mobile and iPad bounce rate. Now faint again.
Where? 74 percent of tablet usage happens at home. Tablets have caught up with PC/ laptops for the ‘Most used device in the living room’ award. They are also the most used digital devices in the kitchen as they make very good chopping boards. Or recipe books maybe. In any case, it’s mobile, but it doesn’t seem to travel very far.
When? 50 percent of tablet usage happens after 7pm, with after work and weekend peaks. 51 percent of tablet usage happens while watching TV (35 percent for mobile, 33 percent for PCs/laptops). Mobile usage
A new order What usage data and trends are telling us is that the tablet holds a space of its own. This space is growing, but it is doing so at the expense of other media consumption devices, increasingly cannibalising the entertainment, exploration and retail activities from PC/laptops and mobile. In today’s tag cloud world, PC/laptop reads: ‘work’, ‘personal admin’, ‘weekdays’, ‘secure’. Mobile is about ‘quick updates’, ‘snacking’, ‘morning’, ‘evening’, ‘communication’, ‘news’, ‘always ready’, ‘on the go’. Tablet is ‘downtime’, ‘evening’, ‘weekend’,
Pierrick Leveque is Head of Acquisition at Virgin Games, managing the home grown affiliate program as part of the overall customer acquisition strategy. “Affiliate Program of the Year” EGR Awards 2010 and 2009 “Best Casino/Gaming Affiliate Program” A4U Awards 2008 “Best Bingo Affiliate Manager” CAP/IGB Awards 2009. W: www.virgingames.com/affiliates E: affiliates@virgingames.com B: www.pierrickprk.wordpress.com T: (+44) 208 237 1563
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INSIGHT
Integrate Your Marketing More channels for more visibility, by Nicky Senyard, CEO, Income Access. The contemporary marketer, on both the operator and affiliate side, has at their fingertips an unprecedented quantity of marketing channels from which to choose. Online, these channels include (but are not limited to) a website, social media platforms, email and mobile. Offline marketing channels tend to be what many would associate with traditional advertising: television, radio, print, and direct mail. While it may seem intuitive that more marketing channels mean easier access to an audience, in practice, the results have been paradoxically the opposite. More marketing channels can mean a less effective reach. That’s where an integrated marketing approach comes in. Through integrated marketing, you utilise a consistencybased approach across multiple channels. In the end, this sort of multi-pronged campaigning can be used to generate a marketing reach that exceeds the sum of its parts and helps increase ROI and brand value. Given today’s advertising landscape, integrated marketing is a particularly strong tool, especially for brand recognition and reputation, which can lead to successful outcomes in the long run. As today’s audiences are used to receiving information through a variety of channels, adopting a strategy of integration is a strong way to ensure that your message is heard. Integrated marketing is often referred to as a strategy that is deployed as a means of implementing a pre-defined marketing plan. The channels of your integrated marketing mix should work together to help you get the result you want. For instance, your social media channels could fluidly work with television or radio advertising to help reach a diverse audience and achieve a higher customer acquisition goal. The key is that all involved parts are executed in a consistent and timely manner.
Benefits An integrated approach to your marketing strategy can have a variety of benefits for both your brand and business. When it comes to stock investment, brokers
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always emphasise the importance of diversification. Integrated marketing provides you this with the diversification of your marketing campaigns and market reach. That is, if you focus your entire marketing strategy on your website, changes in Google’s algorithms can have strong effects on your page ranking and visibility and ultimately impact on your desired goal. Thus, by deploying an integrated strategy such as email or mobile, you can help counter any negative effects of changes in one channel or approach. Integrated marketing can also be an advantageous tool for building a brand’s reputation. It is one thing for potential customers to receive email promotions for your brand. The impact is entirely different if audiences see information about your brand in their inbox, in their search results, and on the social media that they use. Also, since there is a different audience for newspaper adverts and Facebook posts, a multi-channel approach means greater exposure to a variety of demographics. By integrating your marketing, it is possible to leave no stone unturned when it comes to potential customers. Overall, a brand that is promoted through a multitude of channels is in a better position to be recognised and remembered. By initially adopting an integrated method, you help your business prepare for expanding into channels. As there is already a look and strategy in place, entering a new channel requires less planning. Another benefit is that since you do not focus all of your efforts on a single channel, you decrease the possibility of over-saturating a channel past an optimal ROI.
So just how do you integrate marketing channels? The key words to remember are variety, timing and consistency, and since you will be utilising several channels of communication, it will become vital that you are transmitting the same message across all of them. An example would be that if you are trying to get more customers to participate in a tournament, make sure that your website prominently displays that promotion and that your tweets relay the promotion to your Twitter followers and conveniently link to it. In the end, when people see or hear of your brand, they
will have a stronger association with your promotion and if successful, come back to look for more similar events. Thus, when integrating your marketing channels, make sure you have a long-term plan already in place. It can be difficult enough to rapidly alter your strategy for a single channel; do not make it any harder by having to do so for multiple channels. A particularly good way to help integration is through the use of a comprehensive analytical tool that allows you to measure the performance of each channel for the same campaign. With the visibility on the outcome of your various channels, you can tweak your focus to the channels that have the strongest results. For instance, if you see that a certain print ad is converting the best, you can then put the same ad on your website and, in turn, link to that site in your social media. If your personable interactions with your audience through social media are what convert best for you, you can then adjust your print ads to focus on stellar customer service. With analytics, you can also test out the efficacy of a new channel you are considering incorporating before you fully integrate it with the rest of your marketing efforts. With this testing, you will only end up allocating time, money, and effort to a channel that you know pays off. Integrated marketing is by no means a new concept; however, the expansion of media channels through which audiences can be reached has now made it particularly relevant for marketers to leverage. In addition, a well organised presence on numerous channels can increase brand recognition and value, while strong analytics can readily help you identify the efficiency of each channel. Ultimately, integrated marketing will give you the advantage of flexibility, innovation, wider market reach and intelligence on your campaign performances.
Nicky Senyard is CEO of Income Access, overseeing their independent iGaming affiliate network, market-leading affiliate software and expert affiliate management services.
New for 2012, BAC incorporates
11th-14th october 2012 inside the bac expo Join us at the oldest and biggest event dedicated to the Spanish speaking iGaming market, iGB Espana 2012. This year, iGB Espana will return as part of the Barcelona Affiliate Conference, maximising your exposure to the Spanish market. With all the latest developments and marketing strategies in this Spanish conference and Spanish speaking affiliates and exhibitors, this event will compliment the learning & networking flavours of BAC and bring you an international event with a local focus. Take your place in one of Europe’s biggest markets and reach 400+ million Hispanic Speakers.
www.iGBEspana.com
event statisitics • 2011 saw 403 delegates attend • 91% of delegates were native Spanish speakers • 47% of delegates were affiliates • 89% of delegates rated the event ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’ • 5% worked exclusively in the Latin American Market, 73% attract traffic from LatAm & Spain • 100% of conference sessions were (and will be) in Spanish with expert speakers in their fields helping you create language specific strategies
INSIGHT
Special Events: Turning One-off Customers into Repeat Business With this issue’s focus trained on a significant summer for sportsbetting affiliates and operators, iGaming marketing consultant Matthew Castillo investigates how businesses can retain the new players they acquire around major events. This summer, we’ll have a number of colourful events filling our sporting calendar starting with the UEFA European Football Championships and continuing with the London Olympics. These one-off events (as they occur only once every four years) gather so much publicity and hype around them that they manage to attract even those who are not avid sport fans but maybe want to show their support for their national team. Marketers try to piggyback on these events as it gives them the chance to tap into a large audience with a view to expanding their customer base. Gaming is no different. Such events make it possible for sportsbook operators to tap into a seasonal type of customer; one who is only attracted to large, widely publicised events. This represents a potential gold mine for these businesses as it gives them the chance (which does not come along regularly) to try to secure a portion of this infrequent business and convert it into loyal or more regular customers. So how can companies tap into this potential gold mine? What can be done in order to entice infrequent customers to become more regular visitors even after the event finishes and the hype phases out? The usual response to such a situation is to improve the marketing machine by trying to make the offering more personalised and tailored for infrequent, seasonal customers. While this approach will produce some results, it does lack a clear integrated strategy and customer understanding that could turn these oneoff events into successful and profitable customer recruitment campaigns. The best way to try and harness this opportunity is by analysing and mining data of customers that were attracted through similar events such as the World Cup (2010) and the last
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Customer enters the system Customer is compared to previous customer models and a predicted profile is developed
Profile 1
Profile 2
A customer that is likely to be one-off and cease to play after the event
A customer who is likely to keep playing on the company’s platform
Action
Action
Provide bonuses and other incentives to attract customer back
Target customer with promotions that will increase his/her value
Result
Result
A percentage of targeted customers would have converted into repeat business
Customer moves ahead in player lifecycle
Olympic Games and were lost soon after the event. By analysing these patterns and characteristics, companies can start working out the typical profile of casual customers and devise a marketing strategy around them. Such an analysis makes use of predictive models whereby the profile of each customer would correspond to the likelihood of his/her action. Most companies already have predictive models in place that tell them the expected lifetime value of a customer by analysing initial revenue streams. This has to be replicated in order to determine the profile of these infrequent customers that are attracted to singular or one-off events. Without knowing in advance which new customers are likely to be hit-and-run customers, one could run the risk of devising a retention campaign that sacrifices too much potential revenue from the customers who would have revisited your website even in the absence of any offer. In simpler words, if you offer all new customers a 100 percent bonus on their next deposit, those that would have come back regardless of the bonus will typically end up depositing less money of their own. Additionally, targeting new customers with a generic retention promotion runs the risk of alienating the portion of new customers who would have returned to your website but, perhaps, were looking at other forms of promotion such as loyalty points or cross sell offers.
Hence, a predictive analysis of past events and related customers would allow your system to identify the new customers who are likely to return on their own and those who typically will not return again after the end of the event. By integrating this modelling technique (as detailed in the diagram) into your marketing campaign, promotions could be better used in order to retain occasional new customers without alienating others.
Why invest in such a system? One-off events generate a lot of buzz around them and create a stream of potential customers that is difficult to come across through normal business. In the absence of targeted retention strategies, new customers will simply come into the system and leave as the buzz and enthusiasm of these one-off events fades away. This is not to say that such strategies will enable you to retain 100 percent of new seasonal customers as, by their nature, many will stop playing regardless of incentive, but it will enable you to retain a small portion of business which would have otherwise been lost. Even by retaining ten percent of these new customers, oneoff events would have been turned into a successful acquisition campaign. The good thing about this modelling technique is that the system is always being fed with new data and, hence, models adapt to the changing customer behaviour, enabling you to be continuously more targeted and precise in your marketing campaigns.
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The Industry’s Key Performers As we head into the third quarter of 2012, iGaming Business Finance Editor, Melissa Blau, takes a look back at the key events of the previous 12 months and identifies a selection of companies that have the potential to be key players in the short to mid-term future. A year in review Reflecting on the past 12 months, there have been positive trends in both regulation and operation that continue to preoccupy both the headlines and our thoughts. Geographically, Europe continues to plough forward, though not without its setbacks. Over the past year, we have seen the legalisation of slots in Italy, which has enjoyed more success than operators had initially expected. We have also seen the opening of the Danish market which, surprisingly, went according to plan. However, the same can’t be said of Spain, which was expected to open on a similar timescale to Denmark, but the good news is that the Spanish market was only delayed by six months and by mid-summer should be well on its way to completing the initial phase of the process, having finally started issuing licenses in June. Germany was a surprise contender this year with Schleswig-Holstein beginning to issue licenses. Sadly, Greece was the one casualty that was stymied by its own economic issues. On the other side of the pond in Canada, lotteries continue to move forward starting with Lotto Quebec and then the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) which has tendered for the expansion and improvement of its gaming offering. In addition, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) is making a concerted effort to follow suit and there is hope that the provincial lottery will continue along that path.
In the US, while at the surface it feels like Groundhog Day with little actual progress, the past two months (April/May) have witnessed a massive change in sentiment. At least for now, serious discussions about a federal solution have taken a back seat to a more reasonable state-by-state solution. In December, the Department of Justice’s clarification acted as the necessary catalyst igniting state lotteries to begin taking the reins to expand not only into online lottery sales but also into poker and
“ Illinois’ success both in online lottery ticket sales and iGaming expansion is critical to the development of the sector throughout the US.” possibly casino. The state of Nevada also completed its regulations and began taking applications for intra-state operators and suppliers. All of this has led to a surge in European interest with many companies stepping up their efforts to better position themselves for regulation. On the darker side of regulation, the past 12 months will also be known for the shakeout of Black Friday which culminated in Full Tilt Poker’s public demise, compromising the reputation of the wellrespected Alderney Gaming Commission along the way. Will PokerStars buy the assets of its largest competitor? This remained a
mystery at the time of writing but if it is the case, it could once again change the poker landscape for European operators. Away from the regulatory front, the past 12 months will best be known for the explosion of social gaming. Previously, most operators scoffed at social gambling as a means to acquire customers, dismissing it as a significant independent business sector. The Caesars acquisition of Playtika ($150 million effective price with earn-out) and the IGT acquisition of Double Down casino ($500 million with earn-out) sparked the interests of investors and operators alike. Mainly due to the recent explosion of casino style games on Facebook, the frenzy of social gaming has catapulted the subject to the forefront of operators’ agendas. And why shouldn’t it? Regardless of Europe or the US, social gaming remains the only legal touch point to the consumer for the vast majority of jurisdictions.
The year ahead and the likely key performers Looking ahead over the next 12 months, which companies do we see as the best positioned and the best able to capitalise on current trends? With increased regulations and the escalating costs associated with abiding by them, will the big keep getting bigger? Are there opportunities for countryspecific companies such as Winamax? Do the smaller operators have a chance to effectively compete without becoming a regulatory cesspool for bigger operators to offload their unwanted business as they seek to cleanse themselves? Certainly, if I had the answers, I wouldn’t be writing this article. At this point, we can only try to point to the likely candidates who are in a position to make significant strides forward over the rest of this year and into 2013.
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bwin.party While the company is still digesting the synergies from the merger of the two largest companies in the sector (bwin and PartyGaming), bwin.party continues to fire on all cylinders: US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, now social gaming, not to mention the fact that it is a leader in every vertical (sports, casino, bingo, poker). Most recently, it became the first company to announce its intention to pay the €33 million in back-tax payment to the Spanish government. In the past 12 months, the company was the first to announce a large-scale joint venture with two leading
the state, pending “suitable” intra-state legislation. If bwin.party can keep executing on all fronts and maintain its leading position into regulated markets then it could be one of the most prominent iGaming brands of the coming year.
888 The surge in 888’s share price is indicative of the company’s prospects. Only a year ago, the company was on the brink of crisis with a decline in poker as well as having questions raised as to its ability to pay the earn-out out on its Wink bingo acquisition. However, within a year of its management change, the
“The recent breakdown in discussions by Groupe Bernard Tapie to acquire Full Tilt has given PokerStars the opportunity to buy the assets of its former nemesis, which would further its position in both regulated and unregulated markets.” US operators, MGM and Boyd and has recently announced its imminent launch into social. At the beginning of May, the company continued the development of its US presence by announcing a partnership with California’s United Auburn Indian Community to offer online poker in
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company released Poker 6 which saw its Poker Scout liquidity ranking shoot from between 12th and 15th to fourth. Most recently, 888 reported a 94 percent increase in EBITDA and a 26 percent growth in revenue. Rarely has any company experienced such a change in fortune
outside the shockwaves of UIGEA and Black Friday. In the US, 888 has been one of the leading contenders for the supply of poker into the US market, passing ‘suitability’ with the Nevada Gaming Commission as a supplier for Caesars’ World Series of Poker. In addition, the company was one of the first applicants for full licensing in Nevada as a software vendor. Still hungry for more, 888 was recently rumoured to be in late stage discussions with Trump.
Playtech Playtech’s aggressive acquisition and joint venture strategy has further propelled the company as the leading online gaming supplier for regulated markets. Not even the negative public image stemming from its recent battle with joint venture partner William Hill has prevented operators from buying the Playtech solution. The company continues to offer a superior back-end platform and turnkey product as well as a willingness to acquire whenever the company believes there is a weakness in its product strategy. While some believe the company will have difficulty getting licensed in the US, these rumours remain speculative. Playtech’s goal of achieving a premium listing on the London stock exchange
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over the summer remains a priority and is rumoured to be the motivation behind the delay in acquiring the social gaming assets currently owned by Playtech’s largest shareholder, though those assets could nicely round out Playtech’s product offering for those potential clients who only operate in regulated markets.
Amaya There have been some bold predictions coming from this little-known Canadian company. Amaya has stated to City and Wall Street analysts that it is expecting to
stock, and Chartwell. The company’s bold growth predictions and the aggressive nature of its CEO have certainly helped fuel its share price. Amaya has won numerous government contracts around the world and its CEO is predicting big returns from its mobile SMS business in Moldova, Kenya, Uganda and Armenia. The Amaya IPO was named the bestperforming tech IPO in Canada in 2010. If the company can meet its CEO’s own expectations then he will have successfully turned two non-performing companies into something of value.
“Playtech’s aggressive acquisition and joint venture strategy has further propelled the company as the leading online gaming supplier for regulated markets.” undergo rapid growth which is astonishing considering the company only turned profitable last year when it focused on higher margin business from the purchase of Chartwell. The company will now be a combination of a couple of failed software providers merged together: Chartwell and Cryptologic. Amaya burst on to the scene with its IPO in 2010, the proceeds of which were used to fund acquisitions such as the Cryptologic
us land-based suppliers The US land-based suppliers as a group have finally woken up and are now running at full speed. IGT, Bally, WMS and Shuffle Master, each have their own unique strategy. IGT has taken an early lead in social with the acquisition of Double Down, but can the company parlay that into a B2B strategy? Shuffle Master hired game developer guru Louis Castle, and then acquired one of the leading European
poker suppliers, Ongame. WMS confused the market with the aggressive launch of its B2C site, Jackpotparty, with a suite of excellent proprietary games, yet, limited any success by marketing exclusively into the crowded UK market. In a recent about face, WMS acquired casino and skill game supplier, Jadestone giving the company a much needed B2B strategy. Bally Technologies has taken a different approach altogether, offering a content agnostic approach with the purchase of the Chiligaming back-end platform. Which US supplier will land-based operators want as their preferred partner? Could it be a combination of the four?
Zynga Zynga is the ‘PokerStars’ of the social poker market boasting over 30 million players a month. No one has seriously tried to challenge the behemoth’s position as the leading operator of poker on Facebook. Investors took notice of the company during Facebook’s IPO which stated that Zynga represents 12 percent of Facebook’s total revenue. Pundits estimate that poker represents 21 percent of Zynga’s revenue. Going forward, Zynga’s role in real money gambling remains unclear, but it’s likely that with 30 million poker players, which
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accounts for 2.5 percent of Facebook’s revenue, Zynga will likely be a major player, at the very least as an affiliate in the US, and/or as an operator in regulated markets. The company’s recent shift to become a B2B provider, leveraging its marketing machine and access to players, represents only one of a number of recent moves to maintain cash flow. If social blurs into real money gambling, as industry insiders hope, Zynga will certainly be one the key influencers.
Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) Caesar’s Interactive Entertainment remains the most well positioned casino operator in the US in the eventuality of either federal or state regulation. Caesars is the only US land-based operator to launch in the UK, albeit on a small scale, in an effort to develop first-hand marketing experience. This is despite its previous failure with its Luckyme.com subscription bingo site. This time around, Caesars has put its money where its mouth is, and boldly acquired the number one Facebook casino app, Playtika, for an initial effective price of $90 million (now estimated to be $150 million with the earn-out). Caesars is well positioned should Facebook enter real money gambling. The company’s understanding of operating in the tricky Facebook environment, coupled with its management team’s gambling experience could place CIE in prime position if Facebook moves into real money gambling post-IPO.
Jackpotjoy (Gamesys) Jackpotjoy has done wonders trying to keep itself out of the spotlight. Despite being one of the largest online bingo brands, the company has chosen to remain private, turning away coveted private equity money that could have lined the founders’ pockets. Its success in the UK bingo and scratch card market has remained unrivalled, but it hasn’t all been smooth sailing, with the expansion into Spain being slower than expected. Despite this, the company has leveraged its lead in the UK bingo and
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soft games market going ‘all-in’ on virtual currency on Facebook. The company has dedicated significant resources to create its success on Facebook from scratch. Similar to Caesars, Jackpotjoy remains incredibly well positioned to take advantage of real money gambling should Facebook change its mind in regulated markets, both with its world class gaming operations and leadership position on Facebook.
PokerStars Black Friday was certainly a severe kick to the teeth. Having taking out its two largest competitors, everyone expected events of April 15, 2011 to have set PokerStars back. Not only has PokerStars remained in its dominant position, but the removal of its largest competitors has only strengthened its position. Despite indictments issued by the US government, and the escalating war with its former payment provider that was rumoured to have led to Black Friday, PokerStars is still successfully fighting in key regulated markets across Europe. Best practices, operationally, have led the company to maintain its licence in Europe and retain number one spot in selected markets. Full Tilt Poker, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. With the founders rumoured to have taken out an unwarranted amount of cash, leaving co-mingled player deposits unprotected, Full Tilt lost its licenses and became the scorn of the industry, most notably by US authorities, calling the company a ‘Ponzi scheme’. The recent breakdown in discussions by Groupe Bernard Tapie to acquire Full Tilt has given PokerStars the opportunity to buy the assets of its former nemesis, which would further its position in both regulated and unregulated markets. If the four-year back-tax in Spain doesn’t squelch this mastermind plan then the next 12 months will be an interesting period for PokerStars.
Illinois Lottery Illinois, through its lottery, has been on the forefront of Internet gaming in the United States. After years of pushing federal
government and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) for clarification on its ability to sell lottery tickets online, the Illinois Lottery finally got its answer on December 23, 2011, when the DoJ issued a statement that the Wire Act only pertains to sportsbetting and not to the lottery. This paved the way for the Illinois Lottery to begin selling tickets over the Internet for its Mega Millions game. The timing couldn’t have been better; tickets went on sale for the first time the same week that Mega Millions climbed to its all time recordbreaking jackpot of over $600 million. More recently, Illinois Senate President, John Cullerton, introduced amended legislation in May to protect Illinois from the ‘hostile federal legislation’. The legislation proposed to set-up a division of Internet gaming within the Department of the Lottery, which would be authorised to offer online gaming to players who are physically present within the state as well as to enter into multi-state agreements. Illinois’ success both in online lottery ticket sales and iGaming expansion is critical to the development of the sector throughout the US. If successful, it could easily pave the way for other lotteries as the model case study from which they base their plans.
Melissa Blau has been in the online gaming sector for 8 years as both an operator and advisor. In her current capacity, Melissa is an advisor focused on bridging US and European interests. Through her consulting company, iGaming Capital she has been advising mainly land based companies in developing their online gamingstrategy as well as advising cross border merger & acquisitions. Prior to the iGaming industry, Melissa co-managed a $450m media technology venture fund. Melissa has a B.A. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard University. Melissablau@iGamingCapital.com
New for 2012, BAC incorporates
BARCElona
aFffiIliate conference 11th-14th October 2012 The Fira de Barcelona This event will bring you: 1600 Expected delegates Over 100 AffiFIliate Programs 70% AfFiliate attendees Conference sessions that will increase your revenue Amazing networking parties, in incredible venues, in a stunning city
And all this FREE for afFIfiliates
More details including sponsorship packages, conference schedule, official hotels, all the parties and much more will be available soon on
www.BarcelonaAffiliateConference.com
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A Year in Words As we reach the midway point in 2012, we enter a period of both reflection and prospecting as we seek to analyse whether the lessons of 2011 have been addressed in the calendar year to date. Following on from Melissa Blau’s forecast of companies to watch over the next 12 months, we take a look at some of the key personalities interviewed by iGaming Business and iGB Affiliate over the last year and the insights that they each offered on the industry, US regulation and business.
US REGULATION Congressman John Campbell “I come from the libertarian wing of the Republican Party and I believe that adults should be able to engage in practices that they enjoy if they don’t hurt other people. Gambling is one of those practices. I made it clear in the committee that I don’t personally gamble. Not because I think it’s evil but because it doesn’t hold a lot of fascination for me. But a lot of people do and I think that we should not be banning them from doing that online. “In America, what we say now is, ‘you can gamble in all these different places but you can’t do so online’. Well that’s not a good policy for online. You can buy alcohol or cigarettes online. We have a number of regulated practices that are allowed online. This is about the only one that we allow you to do in a bricks and mortar facility that we don’t allow you to do online and that just doesn’t make sense.”
Senator Jeff Danielson, Iowa “There’s no doubt that the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) opinion cleared the way for states to be bold experimenters in online gaming… we believe it opens up the possibility of forming inter-state compacts under the US Constitution. “I want people in Iowa and America to know that this is Ameri-CAN, not Ameri-CAN’T. They need to understand
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that this is an emerging market and to do nothing, to put our head in the sand, is not what we’re used to doing. We need to have a thoughtful deliberate policy here and understand that we can accomplish this just like Europe and Asia have already shown us.”
Senator Raymond Lesniak, New Jersey “New Jersey’s leadership has prompted more attention to the issue of iGaming; whether that prompts federal legislation, which I do not believe will ever occur, or whether it prompts other states to get involved, on their own or through compacts. “It’s not the ideal situation – I don’t even believe it’s the ideal situation. I believe the ideal situation is one regulator rather than multiple states, but we’re not going to get that because the mood in Washington is to contract federal government, not expand it. Internet gaming being regulated out of Washington would be seen as a huge expansion of federal government. And that’s on top of the morality objections about the
expansion of gaming. So I think there’s been a recognition that the only way this is going to happen is through the states.”
Michael Jones, Superintendant of the Illinois Lottery “The expansion of the lottery is a legislative question and I think that the DoJ letter which, in essence, clarifies that the Wire Act only prohibits sportsbetting, created a great deal of momentum for the gaming community at large, far beyond lotteries. I certainly think most lotteries quite logically will try to broaden their player base by creating or emulating the e-commerce channel used by millions of people who are philosophically in favour of the lottery, but who we are currently irrelevant to. “I don’t think we set out to be pioneers, we just set out to competently execute the intent of the legislation passed two years ago. This is certainly a work in progress and I don’t think we’re there yet; but we will be there soon.”
Mark Lipparelli, Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board “We’ve visited many of the jurisdictions that already regulate online gaming and we’ve tried to glean as much education as we can knowing full well that we may do things differently. We have a great relationship with our colleagues in other markets, but we also respect that we may approach it differently from them primarily because that’s our history; we set a high bar for licensing and we’re not going to change that just because someone’s an online entity.”
“ I want people in Iowa and America to know that this is Ameri-CAN, not Ameri-CAN’T. They need to understand that this is an emerging market and to do nothing, to put our head in the sand, is not what we’re used to doing. We need to have a thoughtful deliberate policy here and understand that we can accomplish this just like Europe and Asia have already shown us.”
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the crisis, something is seriously lacking.
THE FULL TILT CRISIS Peter Dean, author of the report into the Full Tilt saga commissioned by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission. “Alderney’s regulatory system for gambling is comparable to those prevailing in other well regarded jurisdictions, and AGCC is respected round the world as a regulator demanding high standards of probity from its licensees. Deplorable as the episode covered in this review has been, it is nevertheless an example of regulation working as it should. As soon as plausible evidence of irregularities came to light the regulator acted promptly and proportionately. An investigation was instituted, findings made, a hearing held, judgment delivered and sanctions imposed. Due process was followed.”
Although the scrutiny of the Dean Report found that the AGCC behaved
Aideen Shortt, iGaming Consultant, in an articleon the Dean Report “Several times in the report, Dean outlined that Alderney is ‘comparable’ to other jurisdictions and actually states that the procedures followed by the AGCC in this entire process is an example of ‘regulation working as it should’. Yet the very fact that the debacle happened at all is surely, in some part, due to less than appropriate licensing. If more than $300 million of player funds cannot be paid back, then despite whatever process was followed to manage
appropriately, it could be argued that the refusal of Full Tilt to disclose its owners’ details directly, its willingness to flout the regulations in its move from Kahnawake and its failings and slow response with regard to the AGCC inspections were collective red flags.”
Preet Bharara, US Attorney in Manhattan “Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme. Full Tilt insiders lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited.”
“ Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme. Full Tilt insiders lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited.”
BUSINESS AND MARKETING Ed Birkin, Analyst at Barclays Capital “Ask any investor or analyst involved in online gaming stocks what the key driver of share price performance is and they’ll inevitably say ‘regulation’. 2011 was a year notable for many reasons, and it is unsurprising that the three key events to affect the listed gaming operators could all come under the ‘regulatory’ heading. “The first, and arguably most significant in terms of share price reaction, was the announcement that Germany intended to impose highly restrictive online gaming regulations, designed to close the market to foreign online operators. Secondly, shortly afterwards, came the US indictments against PokerStars, Full Tilt et al. This led to a
sharp rally in a number of poker stocks as investors forecast a significant inflow of players to European listed operators, and a potentially imminent opening of the US; however, neither of these occurred. Finally, as the year was coming to a peaceful close, the Department of Justice released its opinion on the Wire Act, and the poker stocks once again rallied sharply at the expectation of a US opening.”
Josh Greenberg, co-Founder, Grooveshark “The thing that holds most people back from starting a company is the lack of will to take that initial leap. One of the things that has really helped me out is that I used to look at starting a company as such a daunting task – the paperwork, the legal stuff, hiring people, making a
website – there’s so much stuff to do. But if you boil it down, there’s always a first step. Then, after that, there is one more step, then another step and all of a sudden if you take the sum of all these little steps, you have a company. Most people think that starting a company is such a massive, grandiose process that they never do it. The actuality is that if you take it one step at a time, you make it happen.”
Neil Patel, Serial Entrepreneur “You need to create a good product or service that solves a problem. And not just something everyone else is doing, but something unique. If you can’t solve problems you won’t be able to create a big business. It doesn’t matter if we are in a digital revolution or a bad economy, solving problems is the best way to create a thriving business.”
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
65
webmaster world
What is Ring Fencing? Michaela McNamara, Editor at CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com, offers the lowdown on the concept of ring fencing and how it can positively impact your affiliate business before examining the repurcussions of the Google Penguin update on the facing page. Many affiliates have wondered, “What is ring fencing?” and more importantly, “how does it affect my business?” A ring fence allows an operator to control the extent to which its players can affect an affiliate’s winnings. To break things down, ring fencing can be explained as isolating ‘whales’, or big time winning players, to mitigate the negative effect they have on your losing players. Basically, if an affiliate has a winner in one casino, it does not affect the income you have within that casino or other casinos in this program. If your affiliate program implements the concept of ring fencing, then your negative results from one casino do not impact your positive results from the others. Most cases of ring fencing are not public, so affiliates don’t always know about it. That’s why many affiliate programs can boast that they do not carry over a negative balance when, in reality, they do – it can just be hidden at times. Ring fencing that is in the open and part of the Terms and Conditions from the outset are more tolerable to affiliates. If affiliates know right away if ‘Player A’ wins a large sum, such as
66
iGB Affiliate JUNE/July 2012
$20,000, they can agree to have that player quarantined until they play back this win. Once they have played that win back, they are then tagged to the affiliate once again. Some rooms choose to ring fence their players together. Often, the players coming from these rooms are the biggest fish, or the ‘losers’. These rooms do this to protect their ‘fish’ from the network ‘whales’.
“ If your affiliate program implements the concept of ring fencing, then your negative results from one casino do not impact your positive results from the others.” Impact on affiliates For the programs that do not advertise that they carry forward the negatives, it is important to clarify the Terms and Conditions. For all the affiliate knows, you may be losing out in the long run if they have aggressive ‘fencing’, ‘quarantine’ or ‘adjustment’ policies.
The best programs are those who simply absorb the negative and don’t resort to any of the aforementioned policies. However, they take a hit when the winning player drops money in the next payment cycle or month. The best approach is to pick only the programs that openly mention that they support ring fencing. If they don’t mention any such thing, ask your affiliate manager (or go through the Terms and Conditions more thoroughly). Ring fencing is a great practice to protect your players too. This is not uncommon for sportsbooks that are also on other poker networks, for obvious reasons. With that said, it may present a good opportunity to convert your poker players to ring-fenced rooms. It’s a great conversion opportunity for affiliates. Note: many affiliates often mistake ring fencing with ‘bundling’, but the two are in fact, quite different. A program is said to ‘bundle’ when it throws all the casinos in one pot, and when an affiliate has a winner in one of them, his earnings with all of the casinos get wiped out. When a program bundles, it is financially wisest to only carry one casino from that group so to minimise losses.
webmaster world
Google Penguin Impact Examined Now that the iGaming world is reeling from the Google Penguin update, we’ve been able to get a better grasp of its impact and how it has affected the iGaming community. A few weeks have now passed since Google unleashed its Penguin update on April 24 and plenty of casino affiliates are feeling the impact. The question remains, “Are there some positive effects from the sweeping refresh?” In mid-May, Matt Cutts, Head of Google’s Webspam Team, laid out the good, bad and ugly aspects of the Penguin, the Panda and negative SEO.
Was Penguin a success? Shortly after Penguin’s launch, SEO forums lit up with posts from webmasters who felt they’d been unfairly penalised by the refresh. The best example was probably Viagra.com, the official site of the wellknown drug. Thanks to Penguin, this site was no longer indexed, while legions of spammy, counterfeit Viagra sites kept high page rankings. (That particular problem has since been addressed.) However, according to Cutts, many of these problems, including the Viagra problem, pre-dated the Penguin update. Cutts did concede the refresh did cause a few of what he called, “false positives”. “We’ve seen a few cases where we might want to investigate more, but this change hasn’t had the same impact as Panda or Florida,” he explained. Still, fighting a false positive caused by Penguin isn’t as simple as fighting one caused by Panda. While Cutts acknowledges that, “no algorithm is perfect”, Google is not entertaining reconsideration requests from sites that may have been unfairly penalised. Cutts recommends these sites do whatever they can, and wait for the next refresh to roll out.
Danny Sullivan, Editor of Search Engine Land
1
Negative SEO While Google has been placing emphasis on link networks and low-quality inbound links, many site owners have worried about the impact of negative SEO. Cutts discounted the idea that a webmaster could point low quality links at a competitor to bring down their page rank. While negative SEO may join keyword density in the SEO hall of legends, the impact of unnatural link networks is still very real.
“ In some cases, bouncing back from Penguin may involve starting over from scratch.” Link-up with trouble After Penguin, many web publishers got the idea that links were behind their page ranking drops, but Cutts seems to dismiss those concerns as mere coincidence. He pointed out that bad link warnings went out well ahead of Penguin. Link warnings, according to Cutts, are almost always followed by a big drop.
Penguin’s impact on affiliates Cutts is quick to point out that Google considers Penguin to be a big success. What’s more, he says that for every site that dropped, another one rose. In his mind, that’s a good thing. In the CAP forums, gaming affiliates didn’t necessarily share Cutts’ enthusiasm. On a thread entitled, “So, How Much Traffic Did You Lose?” in the CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com forums,
CAP members shared the impact of Penguin on their sites: ●● A member said that his sites that had ranked between one and five had dropped all the way down to 799. ●● Another member reported that his traffic dropped from 170,000 impressions a day, down to just 22,000. ●● On the other end of the spectrum, one member woke up on ‘Penguin Day’ to find his bingo site getting 50 percent to 70 percent more traffic.
Bounce back Many site masters impacted by Penguin have been frantically removing links in hopes of undoing the damage, but that may not be enough. Cutts and (Danny) Sullivan1 both say that, in some cases, bouncing back from Penguin may involve starting over from scratch.
Michaela McNamara is Editor at CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com (CAP), the world’s largest online gaming affiliate marketing community. With more than 11,000 members, CAP is the Internet’s primary location for online gaming brands and affiliate marketers to come together and do business. CAP is owned by Affiliate Media, Inc., an independent online publishing company focused solely on affiliate marketing. Our experts gather, create, and publish information about affiliate marketing and share it with the larger worldwide community to help affiliates better promote leading internet brands world-wide (and profit by doing so).
iGB Affiliate JUNE/July 2012
67
DATA CENTRE
WEBMASTER WORLD
INTERNATIONAL MARKET SNAPSHOT The market data reports from Experian Hitwise provide us with a structured breakdown of the target audiences within some of the major international markets. Here, we look at the most visited gambling sites in the US, UK and France as well as comScore’s breakdown of the most used search engines in Europe for the month of April.
TOP TEN GAMBLING SITES IN THE US, APRIL 2012
TOP TEN GAMBLING SITES IN THE UK, APRIL 2012
Rank ....................................................Name Domain 1 Lottery Post ..................................... www.lotterypost.com 4.68% 2 FreeSlots ......................................... www.freeslots.com 4.00% 3 Florida Lottery .................................. www.flalottery.com 3.97% 4 NY Lottery ........................................ nylottery.ny.gov 3.63% 5 PCHSlots.......................................... slots.pch.com 3.31% 6 Pennsylvania Lottery ......................... www.palottery.state.pa.us 3.26% 7 Texas Lottery Commission................. www.txlottery.org 3.14% 8 WorldWinner .................................... www.worldwinner.com 2.87% 2.51% 9 Massachusetts State Lottery Commission ..... www.masslottery.com 10 California Lottery .............................. www.calottery.com 2.45%
Rank .............................................Name 1 The National Lottery ..................www.national-lottery.co.uk 2 Betfair ......................................www.betfair.com 3 bet365 .....................................www.bet365.com 4 Sky Bet .....................................www.skybet.com 5 William Hill Sports Betting ..........sports.williamhill.com 6 Racingpost.com ........................www.racingpost.com 7 Ladbrokes Sportsbook ...............sports.ladbrokes.com 8 Paddy Power .............................www.paddypower.com 9 Jackpotjoy ................................www.jackpotjoy.com 10 At The Races.............................www.attheraces.com
US DEMOGRAPHICS BY AGE
UK DEMOGRAPHICS BY AGE
40%
33.52
FEMALE 48.27%
MALE 51.73%
32%
32%
24% 16% 8% 0%
16.48 17.01
16%
10.33
18-24
MALE 50.75%
26.66
24%
22.66
17.4
17.32
18-24
25-34
19.77 18.84
8% 25-34
35-44
45-54
0%
55+
EUROPEAN SEARCH ENGINE MARKET SHARE
Google sites
(45,470MM/79.5%)
Yandex sites
(3,840MM/6.7%)
eBay
(1,942MM/3.4%)
Mail.ru Group
(952MM/1.7%)
Microsoft Sites
(652MM/1.1%)
Source: comScore
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
35-44
45-54
55+
TOP TEN GAMBLING SITES IN FRANCE, APRIL 2012
Total Internet (57,181MM/100%)
68
FEMALE 49.25%
40%
Domain 25.42% 7.02% 6.60% 3.87% 3.45% 2.92% 2.89% 2.57% 2.50% 1.90%
Rank .............................................Name 1 FDJ ..........................................www.fdj.fr 2 PMU.fr ......................................www.pmu.fr 3 PMU Progress ...........................www.parier.pmu.fr 4 Les Secrets du Jeu ....................www.secretsdujeu.com 5 turf.fr ........................................www.turf-fr.com 6 BetClic France ...........................fr.betclic.com 7 Ludokado..................................www.ludokado.com 8 Genybet ....................................www.genybet.fr 9 Casino La Riviera.......................www.casinolariviera.com 10 bwin France ..............................www.bwin.fr
Domain 19.55% 18.74% 10.10% 7.02% 6.30% 6.19% 3.86% 2.88% 1.91% 1.69%
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The DoJ ‘Christmas Present’ The Fall and Rise of US iGaming Congressman John Campbell on Federal Progress Lobbying and US Legislation New Jersey’s Quest for Legal Sportsbetting
fr : Plus: Plus Analysis ital r ap PricewaterhouseCoopers Secto rclays C aments Global Gaming Report a B rn ent GTECH u d Interviewå Walter G2 an lemCEO, r To Bugno, pics Poke ing Supp on Olym Live tt US Lotteries and Private nd Sector e y B the e Lo la th -p t a KPMGInon Mobile eting Gambling Mark
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DATA CENTRE
UK iGaming Search Trends Search marketing agency, Greenlight, has released its latest report into search traffic trends within the gaming sector for the month of April. Here, we can see the latest from the UK market in relation to search queries for the traditional iGaming verticals: casino, poker, bingo and sportsbetting. The most recent monthly report from search marketing agency, Greenlight, shows a marginal increase in overall search volumes in comparison to February’s data. April’s figures show an increase in overall search volumes to 859,603 having fallen to 736,470 in February, which represented the second lowest figure since June 2011. Perhaps not surprisingly, searches for sportsbetting-related content overtook bingo to claim 37 percent voice of share with 314,512 searches, establishing it as the most searched keyword, or at least, the term with the most cumulative searches with regards to variations (sportsbetting/bets/betting/etc). The numbers for bingo related keywords fell from 288,883 in February to 260,145 in April, with poker slipping back into third place having dropped from 193,411 in the last reporting period to 148,417. Casino keywords remain the least searched although they did see an increase this time around, jumping from 122,719 to 136,529. The increase in searches is almost wholly driven by a spike in sportsbetting keywords, which we can attribute to a variety of seasonal sporting occasions that occur in April and May, such as the Grand National, the end of the Premier League season and Champions League final and this year, the likely influence of the UEFA Euro 2012 Football Championships in Ukraine and Poland. Yet, although this uptake does represent positive momentum, it is something of an anomaly in comparison to the downward trend since June 2011. The uniform decrease in search volumes can be attributed to any number of factors, one of the likeliest being the changing search patterns of the UK betting demographic. As consumers become more aware of how they navigate between the sites they use to bet or play at, their reliance on search engines decreases for shorttail terms such as those detailed here, but may increase for more specific, longer-tail keywords for which is it almost impossible to monitor and chart successfully. Many of the searches recorded for these core keywords such as ‘bingo’, ‘casino’ and ‘poker’ are more likely to be the reserve of those new to betting online, or those seeking information rather than ‘action’, hence the constant presence of Wikipedia in the Greenlight results. The results for sportsbetting are also slightly muddied by the presence of short-tail terms such as ‘bet’ and ‘betting’ which although are grouped into the sports results, don’t necessarily represent accurate sports betting traffic.
Summary of data ●● Searches for gaming-related keywords in April 2012 totalled
859,603 up roughly 123,100 on the previous reporting period (736,470). ●● Sportsbetting-related terms (314,512) accounted for the significant majority share of searches made. Bingo-related terms (260,145) although notably decreased, still accounted for the second highest search group. ●● Overall, in April, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and Wikipedia.org were the three most visible websites in natural search achieving 35%, 28% and 19% share of voice, respectively. ●● Cheeky Bingo maintained its lead as the most visible website for
70
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
Num#
Domain
Monthly
Monthly
Percentage
Reached
Missed
Reached
Volume
Volume
1
ladbrokes.com
299,153
560,450
35%
2
paddypower.com
239,662
619,941
28%
3
wikipedia.org
162,344
697,259
19%
4
oddschecker.com
156,464
703,139
18%
5
cheekybingo.com
155,883
703,720
18%
6
costabingo.com
126,265
733,338
15%
7
grand-national-guide.co.uk
119,960
739,643
14%
8
betfair.com
119,056
740,547
14%
9
foxybingo.com
109,482
750,121
13%
10
888.com
108,256
751,347
13%
11
galabingo.co.uk
95,797
763,806
11%
12
aintree-grand-national.net
91,072
768,531
11%
13
williamhill.com
88,449
771,154
10%
14
betfred.com
82,017
777,586
10%
15
tombola.co.uk
80,809
778,794
9%
16
bet365.com
79,621
779,982
9%
17
jackpotjoy.com
79,285
780,318
9%
18
pokerlistings.com
75,303
784,300
9%
19
partybingo.com
74,610
784,993
9%
20
casino770.com
74,358
785,245
9%
21
skybet.com
63,531
796,072
7%
22
coral.co.uk
63,469
796,134
7%
23
racingpost.com
61,955
797,648
7%
24
intercasino.co.uk
57,390
802,213
7%
25
comparebingosites.co.uk
56,775
802,828
7%
26
betting-directory.com
56,678
802,925
7%
27
pkr.com
56,664
802,939
7%
28
888sport.com
55,504
804,098
6%
29
pokerstars.com
55,224
804,379
6%
30
whichbingo.co.uk
53,016
806,587
6%
31
bingoport.co.uk
49,351
810,252
6%
32
skypoker.com
46,916
812,687
5%
33
betrescue.com
45,350
814,253
5%
34
freebingo.co.uk
45,239
814,364
5%
35
bet770.com
44,493
815,110
5%
36
onlinebingofinder.co.uk
43,345
816,258
5%
37
miniclip.com
42,782
816,821
5%
38
olbg.com
41,146
818,457
5%
39
partypoker.com
40,595
819,008
5%
40
madaboutbingo.com
39,062
820,542
5%
41
888ladies.com
37,859
821,744
4%
42
latestcasinobonuses.com
37,089
822,514
4%
43
32redbingo.com
37,078
822,525
4%
44
spinpalace.co.uk
37,062
822,540
4%
45
redbusbingo.com
36,018
823,585
4%
46
pacificpoker.com
35,139
824,464
4%
47
pokerstars.co.uk
34,660
824,943
4%
48
wtgbingo.com
34,600
825,004
4%
49
games.com
34,557
825,046
4%
50
32red.com
34,001
825,602
4%
bingo-related search terms, with Costa Bingo and Foxy Bingo making up the top three. ●● Casino770 was the most visible website for all casino-related keywords, surpassing Ladbrokes and Intercasino.co.uk who were second and third respectively. ●● For poker-related queries, Wikipedia remained the most visible website, ahead of Poker Listings and PKR. ●● Paddy Power is now the most visible website for sportsbetting related terms ahead of Ladbrokes and Oddschecker with two Grand National-specific sites also in the top six.
DATA CENTRE
The most visible websites for bingo-related keywords in natural search (April 2012) Num#
Domain
webmaster world
The most visible websites for online casino-related keywords in natural search (April 2012)
Monthly
Monthly
Percentage
Reached
Missed
Reached
Volume
Volume
Num#
Domain
Monthly
Monthly
Percentage
Reached
Missed
Reached
Volume
Volume
1
cheekybingo.com
155,883
104,262
60%
1
casino770.com
74,358
62,171
54%
2
costabingo.com
126,265
133,880
49%
2
ladbrokes.com
57,641
78,888
42%
3
foxybingo.com
109,482
150,663
42%
3
intercasino.co.uk
57,325
79,204
42%
4
galabingo.co.uk
95,797
164,348
37%
4
888.com
50,414
86,115
37%
5
tombola.co.uk
80,809
179,336
31%
5
wikipedia.org
43,191
93,338
32%
6
jackpotjoy.com
79,285
180,860
30%
6
latestcasinobonuses.com
37,089
99,440
27%
7
partybingo.com
74,610
185,535
29%
7
spinpalace.co.uk
37,050
99,480
27%
8
ladbrokes.com
62,479
197,666
24%
8
32red.com
33,979
102,550
25%
9
comparebingosites.co.uk
56,775
203,370
22%
9
mansioncasino.com
33,751
102,778
25%
10
whichbingo.co.uk
53,016
207,129
20%
10
imdb.com
27,490
109,039
20%
11
bingoport.co.uk
49,327
210,818
19%
11
goldentigercasino.com
23,457
113,072
17%
12
freebingo.co.uk
45,239
214,906
17%
12
casinoaction.com
23,222
113,307
17%
13
onlinebingofinder.co.uk
43,345
216,800
17%
13
netbet.org
22,576
113,953
17%
14
madaboutbingo.com
39,062
221,084
15%
14
luckyemperorcasino.com
22,380
114,149
16%
15
888ladies.com
37,859
222,286
15%
15
allfreechips.com
18,343
118,186
13%
16
32redbingo.com
37,078
223,067
14%
16
onlinecasinobonus.co.uk
17,370
119,158
13%
17
888.com
36,720
223,425
14%
17
gambling.com
15,385
121,144
11%
18
redbusbingo.com
36,018
224,127
14%
18
ukcasino-club.co.uk
15,137
121,392
11%
19
wtgbingo.com
34,600
225,546
13%
19
galacasino.com
13,071
123,458
10%
20
bingo770.com
29,515
230,630
11%
20
paddypower.com
12,723
123,806
9%
The most visible websites for online poker-related keywords in natural search (April 2012)
The most visible websites for online sports betting-related keywords in natural search (April 2012)
Num#
Num#
Domain
Monthly
Monthly
Percentage
Reached
Missed
Reached
Volume
Volume
Domain
Monthly
Monthly
Percentage
Reached
Missed
Reached
Volume
Volume
1
wikipedia.org
83,309
65,108
56%
1
paddypower.com
221,362
93,150
70%
2
pokerlistings.com
75,303
73,114
51%
2
ladbrokes.com
163,134
151,378
52%
3
pkr.com
56,647
91,770
38%
3
oddschecker.com
156,389
158,123
50%
37%
4
grand-national-
119,960
194,552
38%
4
pokerstars.com
55,224
93,193
5
skypoker.com
46,916
101,501
32%
6
miniclip.com
42,782
105,635
29%
7
partypoker.com
40,565
107,852
27%
8
pacificpoker.com
35,139
113,278
24%
9
pokerstars.co.uk
34,660
113,757
23%
10
wsop.com
31,701
116,716
21%
11
thepokerpractice.com
26,112
122,305
18%
12
fulltiltpoker.com
25,777
122,640
17%
13
games.com
25,173
123,244
17%
14
thefreepokerroom.com
17,314
131,103
12%
15
texasholdem-poker.com
16,517
131,900
16
888.com
15,983
17
ladbrokes.com
18
guide.co.uk 5
betfair.com
110,065
204,447
35%
6
aintree-grand-national.net
91,072
223,440
29%
7
williamhill.com
83,606
230,906
27%
8
betfred.com
81,999
232,513
26%
9
bet365.com
78,217
236,295
25%
10
skybet.com
63,531
250,981
20%
11
coral.co.uk
63,469
251,043
20%
12
racingpost.com
61,955
252,557
20%
13
betting-directory.com
56,678
257,834
18%
14
888sport.com
55,504
259,008
18%
11%
15
betrescue.com
45,286
269,226
14%
132,434
11%
16
bet770.com
44,493
270,019
14%
15,899
132,518
11%
17
olbg.com
41,036
273,476
13%
247freepoker.com
14,139
134,278
10%
18
bluesq.com
32,639
281,873
10%
19
pagat.com
13,511
134,906
9%
19
bet.com
27,100
287,412
9%
20
freepoker.org
12,921
135,496
9%
20
wikipedia.org
26,268
288,244
8%
Source: Greenlight
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
71
marketplace 7314 bet365 affiliates (148x52+3mm). 24/11/2011 15:38 Page 1
Welcome to the Market Place listings section of iGB Affiliate magazine. All listings are taken from the 2012 version of our iGB Affiliate Directory; a 150 page guide to the affiliate programs and service providers who are currently active within the iGaming sector. To request a free copy of this publication or to have your company listed please contact Richard W on E: Richard@iGamingBusiness.com or T: +44 (0) 207 954 3437 advertising & PR
Market Ace
Game On
www.market-ace.com
www.gameon-marketing.com
Star Games
Global Gaming Events
www.stargames.com
www.globalgamingevents.com
Virgin
Media Skunk Works
www.virgingaming.com
www.mediaskunkworks.com
Casino Affiliate Programs
Omni-lInx
888
www.gamb-linx.com
AFFILIATE NETWORK Bet365 www.bet365.com Betsson www.betsson.com CAP www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com CPA Industry www.cpaindustry.com Game On www.gameon-marketing.com
ALTERNATIVE GAMING Affstars
www.888.com 32Red www.32red.com Aff Europe www.affeurope.com
bet365affiliates.com www.gambleaware.co.uk
Commission Lounge www.commissionlounge.com Europartners www.europartners.com Everest Poker www.everestpoker.com/en Fortune Affiliates www.fortuneaffiliates.eu Gala Coral www.galacoral.co.uk Gambling Affiliation www.gambling-affiliation.com GURU www.gururevenue.com iGame www.igame.com Intertops
Affiliate Club
www.intertops.eu
www.affiliateclub.com
Live Partners
Affiliate Lions
www.livepartners.com
www.wgmg.co.cr
Logispin
Affiliates United
www.logispin.com
www.affutd.com
Mr Green
Asian Logic
www.mrgreen.com
www.asianlogic.com
MyBet
Bet-at-home
www.mybet.com/en/
www.bet-at-home.com
Paddypower
www.affstars.com
Bet365
Bingo Affiliate Programs
www.bet365.com
Affiliates United
Betfair
www.affutd.com
Officially sponsored by
www.betfair.com
www.paddypower.com Referback www.referback.com Roxy
Bet365
Betsson
www.bet365.com
www.betsson.com
Betsson
Brightshare
www.betsson.com
www.brightshare.com
CAP
CAP
www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com
www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com
www.stanjames.com
Gala Coral
Casino City/GPWA
Star Games
www.galacoral.co.uk
www.casinocity.com/cy/
www.stargames.com
Live Partners
Commission 365
Victor Chandler
www.livepartners.com
www.commission365.com
www.victorchandler.com
www.roxypalace.com Slotland www.slotland.com Stan James
7314 bet365 affiliates (148x52+3mm). 24/11/2011 15:38 Page 1
Officially sponsored by
72
bet365affiliates.com iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
www.gambleaware.co.uk
Virgin
Guru
Betfair
www.virgingaming.com
www.gururevenue.com
www.betfair.com
Vuetec/Dublin
iGame
Betsson
www.dublinbet.com
www.igamefamily.com
www.betsson.com
Financial Solutions
InterPartners
Brightshare
Aff Europe
www.interpartners.com
www.affeurope.com
Intertops
Bet365
www.intertops.eu
www.bet365.com
Live Partners
CAP
www.livepartners.com
www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com
MyBet
Easy Forex
www.mybet.com/en
www.easy-forex.com
Paddypower
LCG
www.paddypower.com
International All Sports
www.londoncapitalgroup.com
PKR
www.iasbetaffiliates.com
Plus500
www.pkr.com
Intertops
www.plus500.co.uk
Poker Tracker
www.intertops.eu
24option
www.pokertracker.com
Ladbrokes
www.24option.com
Stan James
www.ladbrokes.com
Aff Europe
www.stanjames.com
Live Partners
www.affeurope.com
Star Games
www.livepartners.com
Payment Solutions
www.stargames.com
Intercash www.intercashuk.com
sKIll gaming affiliate Programs
Wire Card
Affiliates United
www.wirecard.com
www.affutd.com
Algocharge
Bet365
MyBet
www.algocharge.com
www.bet365.com
www.mybet.com/en
EMS
Betsson
Oddsfutures
www.emspaymentsolutions.com
www.betsson.com
www.oddsfutures.com
Netteller
Gala Coral
Paddypower
www.neteller.com
www.galacoral.co.uk
www.paddypower.com
poker affiliate programs
Live Partners
Redbet
Affiliates United
www.livepartners.com
www.redbet.com
www.affutd.com
Paddypower
Asian Logic
www.paddypower.com
www.asianlogic.com
Star Games
Bet365
www.stargames.com
www.bet365.com
sports betting
Betfair
Affiliates United
www.betfair.com
www.affutd.com
Betsson
Asian Logic
www.betsson.com
www.asianlogic.com
www.stanjames.com
Commission Lounge
Bet365
Vbet
www.commissionlounge.com
www.bet365.com
www.vbet.com
Everest Poker
BetDaq
Victor Chandler
www.everestpoker.com/en
www.betdaq.com
www.victorchandler.com
www.brightshare.com CAP www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com Gala Coral www.galacoral.co.uk iGame www.igamefamily.com
Logispin www.logispin.com Lux bet www.luxbet.com
RGS Malta Ltd www.starlottosport.com SportingBet www.sportingbet.com Sportsbet.com.au www.sportsbet.com.au Stan James
7314 bet365 affiliates (148x52+3mm). 24/11/2011 15:38 Page 1
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iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
73
WEBMASTER WORLD
NOBODY ASKED ME, BUT... HAS ANYONE REALLY ever bothered to define or totally understand the function and purpose of ‘affiliate relationships’? In the simplest of fashions, it adds up to free advertising for the company availing themselves of same and the end result is a commission, payment, ‘kick-back’, some defined percentage of the monies earned by the organisation to whom said affiliate will send users with money to spend and, in turn, receive a pre-determined stipend for doing so. Lots of technology to keep track here and, likely, more trust than computerised tracking. Affiliate alliances are so high on the priority list for gaming that there are conferences organised specifically for them; speakers, stands, bookmakers vying for their loyalty. A site, for example, that analyses and critiques or applauds various offshore operations can do, has done, extraordinarily well. Their audience is the audience being sought. Small mom and pop shops/sites consider this found money and free trips to conferences paid for by said bookmakers seeking to entice them into loyalties of some sort. The entire thing is an anomaly in the world of wagering and has achieved significant status. Affiliate relationships are not new to the world. Many companies use them and issue credits of some sort to the party providing the advertising space and, with sufficient credits earned, they can then procure any one of a number of
74
iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2012
the products of the vendor. Space for product, links that convert to sales and freebies to you in return. In the world of gaming, however, cash speaks volumes. And, with all the sports that permeate our lives, possess them, have us tuning out all else on a given weekend, we now have the eclipse upon us, that which can blot all else if embraced properly: the Summer Olympics. Is this the ‘one-off’, as it is being addressed, of every four years? Can the populace at large be convinced that they might know enough to venture a few bob on the eventual outcome of any of the events… and there are more than enough to go around. Other than the US, where else can you find more bookmakers than you will in the UK? How about nowhere. Known over the ages as the best of amateur sports, that has long since changed. Rest assured that the odds are already being posted on every event and site, or will be in the days ahead. What the heck, wagering always adds a new twist to the event, the sport, a touch of enhanced enthusiasm. Besides, you can walk in and place a wager, go to a site, download the app allowing same on your mobile or tablet or just doing it in a friendly fashion with your cousins in Sydney or Chicago. I would not count on, nor venture into the world of in-play wagering if that should be offered. Rather, who will win is good
enough to attract multitudes and extend the rooting interest… the real bottom line of placing a wager, suffering for anywhere from minutes to hours, or, conversely, rejoicing when that winning goal is scored in the 89th minute. The Olympics are upon us, and the gathering in London in just a few weeks will see thousands of athletes, an untold number of events and competitions, tens of millions watching and great numbers attending. But, can a good number of those in attendance and an even greater number traversing all those affiliate sites be enticed to click hither and thither, to place a wager? I am not sure, but they can certainly be told to “just do it!” by those affiliates who are salivating at the thought of some serious cheques coming to them. Welcome to the worlds of the Internet and affiliate marketing where anything at all is possible and the proof of the pudding being in the results that, apparently, justify it all. Who can argue with that? Certainly not I.
MICKEY CHARLES is President and CEO of The Sports Network, an international real-time sports wire service with customers throughout North America and Europe. www.sportsnetwork.com
8055 bet365 Affiliates AW:1 18/06/2012 12:10 Page 1
NEW SEASON NEW PL AYERS NEW OPPORTUNITIES bet365affiliates.com IN ANOTHER LEAGUE
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