Andrew Dymock:
Head of eGaming, Bet Victor
What was the biggest event for Bet Victor in 2013?
The launch of our own Gibraltar-based Live Casino studio, ‘Victor’s, was certainly the biggest achievement, especially considering the speed at which everything came together. The new live casino has added to our existing offering of Live Casino products from Evolution, Ho Gaming and Microgaming, giving our players the choice of 4 separate Live Casinos to choose from and importantly the ability for players to move from one studio to another during a session, while remaining with Bet Victor. Our own product is designed to offer a Mayfair casino experience with limits, operational procedures and game rules which would be expected from the Mayfair bricks and mortar casinos. We have received excellent feedback from existing and new players and results to match.
The growth of our Mobile Casino product and business has also been an incredible success throughout 2013. We knew it was going to be a hugely important year for the mobile casino business and the constant charge to develop and deliver a stronger better product will certainly continue to be a number one priority throughout 2014.
We are also almost ready to launch our Bet Victor Bingo product. We are a very late entrant to the Bingo market however we believe we have a strong, unique, device agnostic product and that will allow us to differentiate ourselves from the likes of the Playtech and Dragonfish brands.
We also made two very good, loyal customers multi-millionaires this year, paying out £10m between the two players from progressive Jackpot wins on Net Ent’s Mega Fortune and Net Ent’s Hall of Gods.
What do you think was the most exciting occurrence for the overall sector in 2013?
I believe the most exciting occurrence in the sector in 2013 has been the growth in mobile phone and tablet business and product offering. It was certainly expected; operators have been fighting to provide the best mobile products and the growth has been exceptional. The Bet Victor Channel team and the Mobile Dev teams have done a great job delivering what is a very competitive product and there is plenty work scheduled for the foreseeable future keeping everyone very busy on that front. The games suppliers have also been busy releasing some superb HTML5 content giving the operators the ability to piece together terrific mobile casino offerings for their players.
What is going to be big for Bet Victor in 2014?
Again the Mobile Casino will be a big part of 2014; increasing our presence in the App Store with a few stand-alone apps, increasing the range of content within the mobile casino web and IOS products and increasing the products available across a larger range of devices.
With the Live Casino product we have to offer, this is expected to deliver significant growth again throughout 2014. We believe we have the best Live Casino offering available run by people who have decades of experience within the bricks and mortar casinos around the world. There are lots of exciting plans as to how we can fully utilise our own studios in communicating directly with our players when they are playing and this will be a key area in driving the growth of the Live Casino business.
Bingo is also exciting for Bet Victor. We are certainly not just putting the Bingo product tab up and hoping something happens, there will be considerable investment going into this product to really give it the best chance possible. We are opening up our brand to a wider audience still and hopefully that audience can appreciate a slightly different, more feature rich bingo experience along with the masses of Instant Win games we already have on offer.
The football World Cup in the summer will be a massive event for every operator that will have an affect across all products, not just Sports pre-event and in-play. I am sure there will be some amazing offers put out for the punters and there will a big increase in traffic to all products which we need to maximise opportunities from.
Peter Karroll:
CEO, Olympian Group
What were the most significant events for Olympian in 2013?
Number One most significant event in 2013 was that Olympian integrated and launched the new super platform “BETSYSTEMS”. With BETSYSTEMS, the cost of operations has been significantly reduced from our previous platforms. The ability to do more, add more, create more, make changes is unlimited with BETSYSTEMS simply because it is new modular technology that was created by people outside the gaming industry. We finally have the ability to integrate world class mobile products seamlessly with our gaming platform.
In the past years, some of gaming suppliers that we have had experience with turned out to have murky organizations; hidden problems that arrive after integration and entire organizations that are created to be confusing and non-transparent. We were always very cautious in building relationships but still we have been stung by providers who just arbitrarily make decisions that are detrimental to Operators and some who simply run away with the money. At Olympian Group we expect 100% transparency and support from our software partners and our international team can easily spot when something starts to shift sideways. We treat our software suppliers as part of our internal team and work to lead them in a direction where we think the business has to grow.
The Number Two most significant event is actually a series of events and this falls in the Marketing area of Olympian. MOJO Affiliates, our affiliate marketing system, launched a series of highly visible and incredibly fun and funny promotions that have been dominating the Affiliate conferences in 2013. We started by staking our claim to the London, Amsterdam and Barcelona bathroom real estate with our MOJO celebrity team creating a series of funny and provocative posters, urinal pucks and contests to create an awareness campaign that absolutely no-one could miss. The MOJO Celebrity Team in London hosted a VIP table at Fire & Ice and a spectacular exclusive private party that people are still buzzing about. We managed to convince the London Police that everyone in attendance were consenting adults. In Amsterdam we showcased an incredible MOJO branded super-stretch hummer that we dubbed “The Rock Machine”. The response from attendees has been that the Amsterdam MOJO FEAST surpassed anything previously experienced. In Barcelona it was the MOJO OCTOBERFEAST a personal guided tour of the dark and dangerous underbelly of the city hosted by gorgeous MOJO models who lived by the adage “what goes in Barcelona stays in Barcelona”. MOJO is the fun part of our business and BETSYSTEMS is the foundation.
What about 2013 perhaps disappointed you the most?
The thing that disappoints me the most about 2013 is the way that the USA is opening up for business. Essentially it is big money casinos gaining ground in online. America has a chance to explode into the forefront of the world of online gaming, bringing resources, jobs, and entrepreneurship to Americans. Small businesses are the backbone of the economy and the USA is passing the independent online business owner over and this is not only disappointing it is a huge mistake.
What is going to be big for you in 2014?
We are very focused on New Markets for 2014. We have gone through two years of product transformation to insure that we have superior products at Olympian. We have recently launched a new Sportsbook, increased our Casino capacity and added new software partners, brought on a new Poker Network and are currently excited about the new addition of Bingo. All of these great products and extended marketing and payment systems are interwoven into the advance technology of the BETSYSTEMS platform. Our mobile products in Sports, Casino, Bingo and Poker will be fantastic for us in 2014. This past year we expanded more extensively into South America and have invested along with our brand partners in the USA Tribal online gaming sector with GEObet Network.
What are you excited about for the sector heading into 2014?
We are extremely excited about Mobile as the future of gaming. We are excited about the GEObet Tribal Online Gaming Network. We are excited about the expansion into new markets. We are excited about our focus at Olympian and our ability to compete. Competition for us is not going into oversaturated markets and trying to scratch out an existence. Instead competition for Olympian is to break new ground, innovate, have superior products, superior customer service and a zen like simplicity in our products and operations. This is what is exciting and achievable for Olympian Group and Brands in 2014.
Ales Gornjec:
General Manager, ComTrade Gaming
What was the biggest launch for you in 2013?
At ICE 2013 ComTrade Gaming was launched as an independent company within the ComTrade Group with a new brand name, image and strategy. The move came as a result of the company’s desire to expand its leading expertise on a global level, and extend its reach into new markets. As an independent company, ComTrade Gaming is now fully committed to the development of gaming products and tailored solutions, with further emphasis on its own IP development and product portfolio.
Later in the year we launched live online operation with Genting which is based on our latest iCore, The Enterprise Gaming Platform. Within this project we also launched a dedicated Live Casino studio in Crockfords, Genting’s most prestigious club in London, running on our gCore, Live Casino.
