• IGAMING INNOVATION: STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD PART 1
• IGAMING INNOVATION: STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD PART 2
• US OPPORTUNITY PART 1
• US OPPORTUNITY PART 2
• US OPPORTUNITY PART 3
• GAMING EDGE HEAD TO EIG IN BARCELONA
• POKER EDGE SCORECARD V4.0 NOW LIVE
• GAMING EDGE EXPANDS INTO NORTH AMERICA
• GAMING EDGE SHORTLISTED FOR EGR AWARD
• MEET THE GAMING EDGE TEAM AT ICE LONDON 2012

IGAMING INNOVATION: STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD PART 1

The following article was written by Anton Bell and Ben Fried and published in EGR North America in October 2012. The article covers iGaming innovation. Here in part 1 we cover the following sections: Introduction and Product.

INTRODUCTION

With live online poker drawing ever closer, operators hoping to attract a large player base should look at lessons from Europe in order to differentiate themselves in what is set to be a tight market.

With last month’s news that the IGT poker platform will be decommissioned in Europe, an unclear future for Ongame once bwin liquidity migrates to the Party platform, as well as uncertainty surrounding Playtech and Microgaming’s suitability for US approval, there’s a rapidly declining number of available poker networks likely to become licensed in a regulated US market. Exclude those who continued to accept US customers post UIGEA – PokerStars, Merge, Revolution/Cake and Bodog – and the potential choice reduces further. For US operators still looking for a product or network solution the current shortlist of B2B front-runners is limited to GTECH G2, bwin.party, Winamax, 888 and PKR.

Experience in Italy and France has shown that succeeding in a newly regulated market requires solid product accompanied by strong marketing strategy and execution. For any US operator going up against the deep pockets of Caesars, Wynn, MGM, or Sands, building a strategy of differentiation may be what’s required. Continuous and successful innovation has not been our industry’s strength, but it is worth looking at some examples from the last 15 years.

PRODUCT

Innovation at the product level has been relatively limited and many operators have been content to monetise traditionally land-based gambling activities through online and now mobile channels.

Gigi Levy, Venture investor said, “Years of relatively easy, profitable ‘.com’ activity allowed the industry to have limited focus on innovation…..and even now is mostly focused on execution and regulatory expansion. I have no doubt that the next big winners in online gambling will be those who will be able to bring significant product innovation to the yearning customers.”

Launching in 2000, Betfair successfully ‘revolutionised’ the world of sports betting with an innovative exchange betting product offering in-play betting driven by dynamic, real-time pricing. Public floatation in 2010 valued the operator at £1bn, but it’s rare to find comparative examples of disruptive innovation. PKR is probably the only clearly differentiated online gambling experience that has grown as a standalone business. Live dealer casino, specifically roulette and blackjack, has delivered significant revenue to many operators but struggled to scale to meet demand. The explosion of bingo online could be deemed industry innovation in itself, with many new game variants delivered, but differentiated propositions such as Live Caller Bingo and Bingocams are yet to really prove themselves in the market.

An innovative combination of bingo and slots, Slingo is a global brand that has developed successful games across multiple channels over the past 17 years. Zynga Slingo launched on Facebook in February this year and the brand reached out to another 50 million MAU’s globally. They are due to launch a real-money online gambling product later this year.

Rich Roberts, CEO, told us, “Slingo’s success on more than a dozen platforms is about the true innovation around the brand’s game mechanic. The success of Slingo has been based upon building the right game for that specific platform to continually grow the global audience while differentiating the Slingo brand as the next evolution of slots and bingo games.”

In the UK market, Gamesys has always innovated at the recreational end of the gambling spectrum. Securing exclusive rights to Endemol’s TV game-show ‘Deal or No Deal’ and early bingo deals with large UK media organisations, they built the solid foundations to grow the Jackpotjoy brand and develop their social games portfolio. Gamesys were the first to launch real-money gambling on Facebook in August 2012.

It is indeed social games that have seen most rapid innovation in recent times. First poker (there are many options despite Zynga’s dominance), then bingo (Bingo Island, Bingo Blitz, Bingo Bash) and now social slots (Lucky, Mirrorball, Hollywood and Jackpotjoy) leading to full casino offerings on Facebook from Caesars and DoubleDown. Innovative math models, compelling game progression, integration of video game-type bonus experiences matched with core social features, like friending and gifting, have evolved operators’ tools to engage, monetise and retain players.

Raf Keustermans, CEO at social games studio, Plumbee, stated, ‘Many online operators basically became publishers of third party content. They don’t build stuff, they don’t have anyone tasked to dream up new, cool products or features…..that’s allowed small, highly-skilled and passionate teams to ‘eat their lunch’ by moving fast and having a fresh, metrics driven, iterative approach to product development and marketing.’

Full Tilt’s Rush Poker was probably the most significant innovation in Poker back in 2010 and has since led to similar fast-fold variants from many competitors. Multi-tabling functionality and table re-sizing were also significant developments and enabled modern day grinders to increase their hands played and potential profitability. Like it or loathe it, tracking software helps good and bad players to improve their game and other examples of product innovations like 888’s webcams have added incremental improvements to the game experience but struggled to really shift the paradigm.

Click here to read part 2 of our article on innovation within the iGaming industry, with specific reference to marketing and strategy.

IGAMING INNOVATION: STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD PART 2

This is part 2 of our iGaming innovation article published on EGR North America in October 2012. Here we cover innovation in marketing and strategy. Click here to read part 1 on product innovation.

MARKETING

Online marketing has seen significant innovations over the past decade as the Internet has evolved. The early years saw a small number of clever operators leverage learnings from the adult industry and take advantage of their competitors’ limited knowledge of the internet and SEO, whilst the affiliates secured their dominant positions as controllers of online gambling traffic. Companies like 888 and Party Poker have led the market through their expertise in these online acquisition channels.

As marketing budgets grew so did global gambling brands, investing big in TV and successfully capturing significant share of the pre-UIGEA US market.

In online sports betting, Paddy Power has consistently differentiated itself through clever, irreverent brand positioning, pushing boundaries with innovative promotions and risky marketing activity. Its strategy has been consistent for more than a decade and while competitors have adopted elements of it, none have executed as successfully. Betfair is another brand able to clearly differentiate itself on product functionality and the ‘20% better’ value created by ‘cutting out the middle man’. In recent years, however, Bet365 has managed to own the in-play football betting market, through dominance of TV spots and a little help from UK TV and film star, Ray Winstone. Its solid product credibility has no doubt backed up this positioning. Local brand endorsement has been common when entering new territories with a lesser-known brand, not something to concern PokerStars given its recent relationship with global tennis superstar, Rafa Nadal.

Land-based casinos have often publicised their ability to reward and retain valuable customers through ‘comps’ and VIP schemes and the industry has seen some innovation here. In the US, WMS developed Players Life, linking land-based casino and online activity to ‘build player loyalty and boost repeat visits’. As a multi-channel operator in Europe, Ladbrokes developed OddsOn! , to reward betting and gaming activity across retail and online. The scheme’s positive impact in retail is yet to help its struggling digital business but the vision to deliver ‘24/7 multi-channel rewards’ is a big one. Data innovation was never a priority for many operators but today’s cloud-based solutions and the focus on ‘big data’ should help fix the issues preventing this succeeding.

Any discussion of rewards and loyalty in poker would be incomplete without some reference to rakeback. Initially intended to reward loyal players loyal, rakeback evolved as a means to drive operator liquidity and eventually determine the pricing and ecology of a room or network. The industry’s historic focus on high value players, where value is defined by rake, has damaged the recreational end of the market and hence created demand for rake rebalancing schemes such as Ongame’s Essence or Microgaming’s Rake Reconciliation. These have tried to tackle the issues caused by rakeback schemes but never really managed to protect recreational players. With attention turned towards the huge volume of losing players, a ‘poker self-improvement’ industry has grown with companies like Hold’em Manager and Poker Strategy educating and nurturing players.

STRATEGY

The strategic decision to focus on core business and not pursue the multi-product/channel vision has been one behind the success of many innovative operators. Bet365 decided to drop their retail betting outlets and focus their efforts online when other UK bookmakers were struggling to develop multi-channel operations. Rather than build in-house, Wiliam Hill’s strategic partnership with Playtech leveraged much needed online marketing capability and, despite a bumpy ride have moved ahead of their rivals in the UK online market.

In poker, both Full Tilt and PokerStars built strength as poker-only operators and recognising this, 888’s re-structure in 2009 to be more ‘product-focused’ was the start of re-gaining poker market share.

As US regulatory change progresses, it is clear that many of the large players have evaluated their options and made decisions that will determine their go to market product offering. Who the remaining entities will partner with to gain the required regulatory approval remains uncertain. A few options being developed in stealth may bring some surprises to the market and it would be a failing of the industry if the next-gen poker solution, leveraging the learnings of the past 15 years, were not being developed, even if they had to rip up the current poker model and start over.

US OPPORTUNITY PART 1

This article was written by Anton Bell and Ben Fried and published in iGaming Business in September 2012. The article is split into 3 parts and here in part 1 we cover the following sections: Introduction, Define strategic objectives and Understand the opportunity.

INTRODUCTION

iGaming Business asked Gaming Edge Associates, the leading firm of independent iGaming consultants, to share our approach to succeeding in the US market, a huge opportunity soon to be a reality following imminent regulatory change.

The gambling industry has rolled with the punches of regulatory clarity in regions across the globe as grey markets become very black and white and the shift from dot.com to dot.country continues. With online poker expected to be available legally to US citizens very soon, many US land-based operators and suppliers have made their moves. If you’ve yet to prioritise these decisions, read on.

Simplified, our approach covers these six main areas -

• Define strategic objectives
• Understand the opportunity
• Review existing capability and identify gaps
• Review strategic options
• Finalise product strategy
• Go to market

1) DEFINE YOUR STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

For many gambling operators looking to become licensed in the US, the move online will likely be an extension to current customers’ land-based casino experience.
The immediate priority may be to develop a solution for online poker but where this fits within future strategic objectives, involving product, channel and geography must be considered now:

• Product portfolio – as online gambling regulates across the US, new opportunities may open up to extend your offering beyond poker into sports, casino and bingo, providing incremental revenue streams and an extended reach into broader demographic segments.

• Brand and product differentiation – successfully gaining market share in a newly regulated market may be achieved through aggressive marketing and media spend but outside of bonusing and promotions, how will you retain your customers? What customer segment(s) are you focused on and how will you differentiate the brand experience from the competition, through product, service or value?

• Marketing investment – what level of marketing budget are you prepared to invest? How will the marketing mix differ from your existing activity and are you skilled in these new marketing channels?

• Channel integration – with the rapid growth of mobile and social gaming the industry is changing fast and the boundaries are blurring. It is critical to gain expertise of these channels quickly. Managing customer relationships across multiple channels will pose a significant challenge in the near future but one that will be made easier by making the right decisions now (e.g. brand and data architecture, multi-channel rewards).

• Preparation for regulation – there are things that you should be doing now to prepare your organisation and your customers for the move online. Can you acquire or gain the online experience you need before changes in regulation are finalised, either from outside the US or outside of real-money gambling? What can learn about existing customers now? You can definitely learn from other operators’ experiences in newly regulated markets.

2) UNDERSTAND THE US OPPORTUNITY

Before answering some of the questions above it is important to get a solid understanding of the macro landscape and the detailed economics of the online business model. Looking at pre-Black Friday data, the gross revenue generated from the US online poker market was estimated to have exceeded $1.2Bn in 2010. H2 Gambling Capital forecasts that post regulation it could be worth $3.8Bn in the first year*. However, if Poker is not legalised at the Federal level and only within individual states, how will this affect the realisable opportunity? For example, the population of California is 37 million, approximately 60% of the UK or Italy so multiple operators may thrive here but this may not be the case in smaller states such as Delaware. The number of licensees approved in each state will also impact the likelihood of success.

Assuming significant market share can be achieved in a newly regulated market, the P&L structure of your new online business may dictate that marketing costs (assume somewhere between 25-50% of annual revenue), partner revenue share (could be 10-15% for licensing a product or 50:50 split in a joint venture) will eat away a significant portion of this. Achieving EBITDA margins of 20-30%, common in online gambling operators in Europe, will be challenging in the early years. Add to this the significant federal and state taxes that are widely expected and profits margins are expected to be very tight indeed.

Looking at the Italian market, following regulation of poker tournaments in 2009 and then cash in 2011, PokerStars achieved a 20% market share after years of aggressive marketing. Will your business support and sustain this level of investment, when the alternative is not to compete and potentially lose your customers’ online wallet to the competition?

*Assumes all US states legalise, cross state border pooling is permitted and reasonable level of taxation

Click here for part 2 where we cover sections on Understanding internal capabilities and Reviewing strategic options.
Click here for part 3 where we cover sections on Product strategy and Going to market.

US OPPORTUNITY PART 2

Click here for part 1 where we introduce the article and talk about Understanding the opportunity.

This article was written by Anton Bell and Ben Fried and published in iGaming Business in September 2012. The article is split into 3 parts and here in part 2 we cover the following sections: Understand your internal capability and review your strategic options.

3) UNDERSTAND INTERNAL CAPABILITY

Making decisions about what and how to build your online business has to be determined by an honest and sometimes impartial look at your existing business and core capabilities. You may have an online presence but ask yourself, does your organisation really understand online and the channels that make an online business successful? Some priority areas to consider:

• Website capability and SEO – is the website structured to optimise natural search traffic for prioritised keyword groups? Does the website convert visitor traffic to registration and depositing? Can you deliver targeted content to increase player activity on the site? Can you measure and benchmark these key metrics?

• User experience – understanding how customers and prospects interact with your website and improving these user journeys is vital to improving both acquisition and retention KPIs. Some of this can be done through simple player research but advanced techniques have developed to improve customer interactions through web and mobile channels.

• Online acquisition across key channels – outside of the traditional broadcast channels (e.g. TV), paid search and affiliates are the main acquisition drivers in the European market. Digital PR and social media are ways of getting your brand messages out to your audience. It is important to build these skills in-house if they do not already exist.

• Customer management – the cost of acquiring online customers will be reduced if you have a sizeable customer database and are able to migrate online through intelligent (incentivised) communications. Rewarding customer activity appropriately and retaining loyal, valuable customers will be vital to achieving expected lifetime values, and ideally driven by deep customer insight.

Many of these generic online marketing skills will be available in the domestic labour market and can be transportable across verticals. However, do not underestimate the value of poker-specific knowledge required from people who have lived and breathed the pressures of building a successful online poker business. Learnings about poker promotions and room management, network ecology, tournament management and liquidity optimisation will be vital to succeeding in a fast growing competitive market.

A successful online business will need to build teams with the right mix of product, marketing and operational capabilities. If you are considering licensing a poker product or building one from scratch, do you have a clear understanding of the skills required to go to market? If not, can you mobilise a skilled in-house team quickly or can your potential partner or supplier provide you these services? Identifying the gaps in your current organisation will enable these to be prioritised when evaluating the options open to you.

4) REVIEW STRATEGIC OPTIONS – buy, build, partner or license

When considering the high-level options, many operators see the following opportunities – buy, build, partner or license. When evaluating these, there are three main areas to review:

• Growth – the primary requirement should be the ability to achieve short and long-term revenue growth. Looking at the existing scale and geographic reach of a potential partner or acquisition would be an indicator of future success, as would evidence of their marketing capability. Obviously, the available commercials and exclusivity of any deal on the table would impact what share of success you would be entitled to.

• Product – the quality of the product and back office services provided to you through any of the deal options highlighted is paramount. When truly evaluating what’s on the table, think beyond poker, beyond the front-end web experience and beyond today. What about a year’s time, or three? Look for evidence of continual improvement and innovation. How big an influence will you have on future product priorities? What pain will you experience if you have to migrate away from your existing partner?

• Strategic fit – consider your existing organisation and the vision of the company that you want to build, this will be a driver behind any decisions regarding partners or suppliers. Some online operators have solid global compliance credentials whereas some have exploited grey areas in regulation to their benefit. Know the industry’s innovators, the product and marketing pioneers who have defined the market, led change or clearly differentiated where others have simply followed.

Although the process of regulatory change in the US has been a slow one, this has exposed the leaders, quick to define their strategic intent and make bold decisions, and those holding back, either waiting for clarity or focusing their resources on their core business until the time is right. Some examples to date –

Buy – Fertitta made the decision to buy CyberArts in 2011, taking ownership of their core foundation platform and product portfolio, including poker and bingo. Not willing to wait for real-money regulation, Ultimate Poker is now live on Facebook. Similarly Bally bought ChiliGaming’s B2B platform and are currently integrated with Winamax to launch goldennuggetpoker.com, also on Facebook. Ongame remains the ‘purchase in waiting’, whose future remains uncertain at time of writing and, despite a lengthy queue of suitors, remains a decision that no one has been willing to make. There are other options available for acquisition, although their lack of B2C success means they are harder to find.

Build – although it appears that many have swerved this strategic approach, given the scale of the US opportunity it is extremely likely that more than one solution is being developed in stealth.

Partner or license – this has been a popular option to date, providing a low-risk solution with low up-front investment for US operators keen to partner with European expertise. 888 signed with Caesar’s back in 2009 and have recently added WMS. Trump are rumoured also. Bwin.party teamed up with both MGM and Boyd and Sportingbet have aligned with Foxwoods.

Free-play/social – Playtech and COPA (California Online Poker Association) have already partnered to launch Calshark.com, a free-to-play site. Coming from the social end of the market, Zynga are rumoured to be at the front of the queue to purchase Ongame

Click here for part 3 where we cover sections on Product strategy and Going to market.

US OPPORTUNITY PART 3

Click here for part 1 where we introduce the article and talk about Understanding the opportunity.
Click here for part 2 where we cover sections on Understanding internal capabilities and Reviewing strategic options.

This article was written by Anton Bell and Ben Fried and published in iGaming Business in September 2012. The article is split into 3 parts and here in part 2 we cover the following sections: Product strategy and Go to market

5) PRODUCT STRATEGY

When reviewing the global poker market, it is not surprising that the most successful poker rooms have superior products. PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker (before Black Friday) consistently top Gaming Edge Associates’ Poker Edge Scorecard, an expert and detailed analysis benchmarking the industry’s poker software (see Fig 1 below). This product leadership corresponds directly with their dominance of the market. Bwin.party, Microgaming and 888 follow closely behind and it becomes more evident that having a product which meets the expectations of the customer and, indeed, that they enjoy playing, is of critical importance. Partnering with a poker network, or acquiring one with insufficient product quality is likely to pose a significant risk to the success of your online business.

Certain companies have made significant improvements to their online poker product in recent years and Fig 2 below highlights those witnessed since November 2010. Gtech G2 has shown significant improvements as have 888/Dragonish and PKR. Dominic Mansour, Gtech G2’s VP of Product says “Over the past couple of years, we’ve significantly increased the investment into poker to offer a compelling product and to create a better customer experience for our operator’s players”.

Whilst overall product quality is important, knowing the type of players which the product attracts is also vital. Malcolm Graham, CEO of PKR, says,” PKR has brought a poker product to market which has gained significant traction against struggling incumbents by having differentiation and innovation at its core”.

US operators have the advantage of learning from the issues surrounding the network model in other regions. For example, it has taken many European operators and networks a long time to realize the importance of low value recreational players, and shift their focus from the whales. Success in adapting a poker product to suit these customers’ needs has been limited, although PKR, 888 and Microgaming have made progress here.

It is fair to say that social poker rooms such as Zynga Poker are meeting the requirements of a new player audience although real-money operators are beginning to adopt a growing number of social features.

In today’s market, launching a new online poker room is no longer solely about real-money poker. You need to consider the various business models and channels. Social poker, subscription and free to play, accessible through web, mobile and tablet are necessary considerations when providing a fully rounded offering to your player base. Not many suppliers, if any, can provide all of these and, if they do, the customer experience is unlikely to be joined up. However with acquisitions like IGT and DoubleDown, Playtech partnering with Viaden, and other deals in the pipeline, the ability for certain suppliers to offer a full suite of products accessible across channels is closer to reality.

Behind the core poker product, you should also consider the back office and services that are available. For example:
• Online and telephone customer services and support to manage customer queries
• Marketing, promotions and customer management (CRM) to drive player activity
• Fraud, payments and anti-money laundering to protect player funds
• Bot prevention to identify and exclude non-human customers
• Business intelligence and reporting to track metrics and KPIs
• Licensee and network management and support

Suppliers like Microgaming and Playtech have a long business-to-business history, made significant investment in back office tools, services and processes and hence have extensive experience of managing partners and licensees, whereas companies like Winamax and PKR have limited exposure to the B2B market. Experience in managing and prioritizing the needs of a large number of licensees is something to assess in a potential supplier or partner unless you are willing to work with someone with limited B2B poker experience.

If online marketing expertise is one of the gaps that you identified when reviewing your existing capabilities, this is one area where some suppliers have excelled. 888, for example, has solid and proven online acquisition marketing skills and Playtech, despite the perceived relationship problems with William Hill Online, have helped their online business leap ahead of Ladbrokes and Coral in the UK. However, be cautious about how much control you give to your supplier as outsourcing too much of the online poker operation may not be a recipe for future success.

Talking to existing licensees and partners may provide some of this insight. Leveraging existing supplier relationships may de-risk your available options. Whatever, following a structured and impartial selection and due diligence process is highly recommended.

6) GO TO MARKET

It is clear from other regulated markets globally that being quick to market is essential, and following this with robust marketing and operational execution is critical. PokerStars have shown themselves to be adept at gaining significant market share in every territory that they are licensed in, as well as ones they are not! A combination of great product and significant marketing spend, backed by excellent customer service and technology makes them a daunting adversary if they get licensed in the US. Other examples of success are Winamax in France and Microgame in Italy, both companies with specific go to market strategies that work in their domestic market.

There are also many examples of failure in new markets, generally attributed to a lack of marketing and media spend, as well as a misapprehension that simply putting something live is enough to gain market share. Your go-to-market strategy in a regulated US market requires a substantial investment in time, energy and money to compete with the huge land-based operators such as Caesars, MGM, Wynn and Sands, as well as companies such as Zynga, EA, Google and even Facebook. The opportunity to win though innovation and differentiation is still realisable and leveraging existing strengths and customer relationships will be core to your success.

GAMING EDGE HEAD TO EIG IN BARCELONA

Anton Bell and Ben Fried will both be heading to EiG 2012, so get in touch if you would like to organise a meeting while they are there.

The Gaming Edge team will be in Barcelona from the 16th October and will be present for the duration of EiG, which ends on the 18th October 2012. If you would like to arrange a meeting with them while they are there please get in touch as it promises to be a busy couple of days.

Anton will be chairing a highly topical round-table discussion as part of the Rising Stars of Gaming Theatre: Social, Mobile and Start-Ups stream: Recreational player conversion strategies: from free-play and social to paid models and beyond. Is the social player convertible to real-money gambling?

It will address and help you understand the following issues:
- What is the right strategy for your business?
- What are the similarities and differences between social, free-play and real-money players?
- What are the needs of the customer and the drivers of satisfaction
- What is the potential for converting players from the social or free-to-play model to real-money gambling and what are the barriers?
- What are the marketing and game design tools for successful player conversion?
- What tools and techniques can the social gaming developers learn from gambling (and vice-versa) to further monetise the player?
- Who is doing this successfully i.e. managing social and real-money products/audiences?
- How do you determine the right strategy for your business?

Speakers:
Andrew Hughes, CEO, AbZorba Games
Davis Gutierrez, PhD Data Scientist, Kontagent
Chris Drake, Head of Interactive, Praesepe PLC
Simon Smiley, COO and Co-Founder, Bejig

If you would like to attend the discussion feel free to head down and get involved, it will be taking place on 17th October at 12pm local time. If you would like to hear what Gaming Edge can do for you, or simply want to hear more about the discussion then get in contact here.

POKER EDGE SCORECARD V4.0 NOW LIVE

Gaming Edge Associates are pleased to announce the release of Poker Edge Scorecard v4.0.

Please follow this link or contact Ben Fried for more information and subscription options.

GAMING EDGE EXPANDS INTO NORTH AMERICA

Gaming Edge Associates, the leading independent egaming consultancy, today announced two senior executives will be joining their ranks. Kathryn Loewen and Rob Gallo will complement the team at Gaming Edge, helping them expand into the US market whilst ensuring the continued deliverance of a top quality service.

Kathryn joins Gaming Edge having worked with some of the biggest names within the gaming industry, including Merge Gaming and Cereus. She has experience in successfully developing eCommerce systems in challenging markets and has solid understanding in the processes of risk management, ID verification systems and payments operations.

Rob comes in as a distinguished CEO with fifteen years’ experience in operating and marketing online gambling companies. He launched Omni Casino in 1997 and implemented a successful KPI scheme at SunPoker.com which led to a 400% increase in gross sales. Rob maintains a sharp focus on improving brand visibility and mindshare through the development, orchestration and execution of extremely effective marketing campaigns.

Ben Fried, partner and co-founder of Gaming Edge concluded “As these additions to the Gaming Edge team prove, GEA are a company who continue to grow and mature, broadening their knowledge base and building upon existing expertise. With the addition of these two new associates, Gaming Edge can look forward to making further inroads to the North American market, offering a greater brand of service to our clients“.

GAMING EDGE SHORTLISTED FOR EGR AWARD

With this year’s EGR B2B awards fast approaching, Gaming Edge Associates is delighted to announce that we have been selected for the ‘Services Rising Star of the Year’ award shortlist.

It goes some way to highlight what has been a highly successful year for us, as Gaming Edge Associates has grown and matured into an igaming consultancy that is increasingly diverse whilst remaining highly capable of dealing with specialist consulting projects across the online gambling and igaming industry. We have developed into a team that constitutes over 10 associates with expertise spanning marketing, strategy and business development across product, channel and geography.

Anton Bell, partner and co-founder at Gaming Edge said: “We are delighted to have received some recognition for our hard work over the past three years and hope that being shortlisted highlights our skills, expertise and achievements to the gambling industry.”

The third annual awards ceremony will be held at Wembley stadium on the 10th May 2012 and is one of the egaming industry’s events of the year. It provides a fantastic opportunity to network and catch up with some of the greatest talent across egaming and Gaming Edge are proud to be a part of this prestigious event.

MEET THE GAMING EDGE TEAM AT ICE LONDON 2012

Catch up with Anton, Ben, Charles and the rest of the Gaming Edge team at ICE Totally Gaming 2012.

Gaming Edge Associates will be attending the ICE Totally Gaming conference at Earl’s Court, London from 24-26th January 2012. If you are keen to talk to one of the team, please get in touch here. The diary is filling up fast.

Anton Bell will be chairing the following discussion panel in the Integrating offline and online gaming stream, starting at 11.55 on Wednesday 25th January.

Online from land-based perspective: different business model or different channel?

- Experiences of developing online gaming businesses
- Why is online both a different business model and a different channel?
- Online versus land based customers: demographic differences and the resulting conclusions for operators
- Analysing customer conversion metrics: why are these so limited?
- What are the internal business implications of choosing one approach? Building a separate division vs. creating teams operating across various channels
- Getting the internal buy-in of your management and teams for a significant organisational change
- How to exploit the offline/online convergence

Speakers:
Eric Olders, CEO, JVH Gaming
Erwin Haitzmann, Chairman & Co-CEO, Century Casinos Inc
Jessica Ordovas, CEO, Mediatech Solutions