Industry News
From brain to bettors: How Parimatch turns ideas into innovations
Launching a new product in any industry can be tough but with the online betting sector growing exponentially in recent years, it takes more than ever to stand out. As one of the leading gaming companies in the CIS region, Parimatch has built its reputation over the last 15 years for delivering exciting and reliable products to market. As the betting brand continues to improve its product, the company’s Chief Product Officer, Sergey Berezhnoy, explains the timeline of a successful product journey.
When instigating a new product launch, what’s more important the USPs or the value proposition?
To break it down to this ‘artificial’ choice of one of two options doesn’t really allow for the complete space of possible solutions. In this context, I consider Value proposition to be more important. The emphasis on USP is a great opportunity for marketing, which is important at the start, but in the end, users come to you for the appeal that comes from value proposition. Emotions, impressions and excitement will always be more important than any specific feature in the product.
With such an international presence, how much thought goes into R&D across varying markets?
Entering a new market is always R&D. First of all, this is an understanding of how your product will be perceived by local players. If technology manufacturers adapt to the markets, then we, a product company operating in the entertainment market, have to adapt ten times more. The culture of betting and the culture of excitement are different even in the neighbouring countries, but what about the differences between the regions? This is an abyss! The mechanics seem to be the same, but the context in which the product is used is very different.
Therefore, we focus on understanding the context of product use. After that, refinements of the product or marketing messaging become a matter of technology.
Your company is renowned for its open internal communication between management and employees, how do you keep this open during the product to market journey?
Yes, despite the rapid growth – which my recent appearance in Parimatch is a consequence of – we remain very close in relations and in the information exchange. A very clear message about openness, transparency and the information exchange comes from our CEO. After all, this is the key to focusing on the goals and results, as well as avoiding rumours and distortion of facts.
At Parimatch, do you pilot before widely marketing the product and how does this impact the end product?
Of course, a lot of tests take place in the company: starting from corridor polls, ending with massive quantitative and qualitative researches. At the same time, we believe that we have room to develop in this direction: experiments, testing bold ideas and hypothesis will be one of the main focuses for the product team in 2020. We do not set ourselves the goal of fanatically checking every element, we are building a complete idea validation system.
When does the question of pricing models come into play?
In fact, this is not the biggest problem for us. The sports betting service itself is an intellectual battle between players and bookmakers. Therefore, everyone decides how they work with their own account and how much to bet: someone plays ‘according to the bankroll’, sharing bets on shares and evaluating material expectations, someone supports his/her team, someone adds emotions to watching matches. And we consciously do not want to raise rates or manipulate upwards. Each player chooses his own comfortable level. That is why our minimum rate is very low.
Can you explain the brand’s marketing approach and how your ambassadors, sponsorship, etc. factor into product marketing content?
Marketing is one of the strongest teams in Parimatch. Some projects are daring and risky, some are clear and simple, but there are never boring decisions. Partnering with leagues and federations helps us not only to increase brand awareness, but also to develop specific sports. Ambassadors, like Conor McGregor and Mike Tyson, have raised the brand awareness and taught our fans about the UFC. A wonderful symbiosis for sports and Parimatch.
Our brand ambassadors and sponsorships convey the spirit of our company – the spirit of a fighter and a winner. In addition, we do a lot of online promotion mechanics around our sponsorship activities. This allows us to inform customers about our cooperation in a playful way.
In terms of each of your product launches, how do these fit in with your wider company goals over the next 1 to 5 to 10 years?
We live in an opportunistic world where ambitions and goals are formed not by a 10-year plan, but by markets and opportunities. We form a long-term vision of what the entertainment industry will look like and what place betting on sports and other gambling entertainment will occupy in it. But this is the ‘vector’ of movement, and not the end point of the route.
As for the short-term goals, we have very clear plans until mid-2020. Euro 2020 poses a big challenge for us, as teams from our regions will participate, which means we have to make the game even more saturated with emotions. We’re excited to kick off these Parimatch plans in the coming months and we always shoot to score!
Industry News
Maximising Your Cross-Market Appeal
With Bitblox introducing an entirely new breed of crypto-based price prediction games to the iGaming industry, we talked to CEO, Brandt Page, to discover how combining elements of both chance and skill with lightning-fast betting rounds has helped improve their cross-market appeal.
When Bitblox was first established, our core concept was relatively simple; we didn’t just want to provide players with a new twist on an existing format like slots or casino games, but instead sought to create an entirely new vertical that combined elements of chance and elements of skill.
One of the main drivers behind this decision was the fact that we wanted our releases to appeal to as broad an audience as possible – and I think from the figures we’ve seen so far, we’ve already had some notable success on that front in terms of the players that are engaging with our games.
Funnily enough, I was recently talking to the Head of Marketing from one of the operators that we work with and they told me they were struggling to place our games optimally. Initially, they’d put them in with crash and instant win content, but they soon discovered a lot of their in-game traffic was coming from sports bettors. A move to the sports betting tab followed, but the exact same-thing happened with casino players, leading to the games eventually winding up on the front page.
As this was going on, our games were continuing to post solid numbers with the customers who bet on both sports and casino – and all of this engagement was coming without there being any additional promotion from us or the operator. So why was it that our games were performing so well across these different player segments? I believe there are a number of contributing factors.
First and foremost, having this hybrid model of games of chance and games of skill that I’ve already mentioned has placed us in a fairly unique position within the iGaming industry. On the one hand, the simple premise of our Bitcoin-based titles – coupled with their attractive designs and intuitive UI – makes them highly accessible to casino players who are just looking to have fun.
On the other, the fact that Bitblox games aren’t based on RNG and are instead pinned to the real-time movements of the Bitcoin market certainly resonates with a sports betting audience. As they have the ability to follow the charts and use this information to inform their decisions, they definitely feel they have more control over the outcome than if they were playing a traditional slot.
Another key aspect of our cross-market appeal is the fast-paced nature of all Bitblox releases. With casino players being accustomed to the quick wins and instant gratification of slots and crash games and sports bettors also showing a growing preference for in-play wagering, we’ve ensured each game round is resolved quickly and that there are multiple opportunities for betting.
When we first launched Up or Down?, which features one-minute betting rounds, we soon learned that even this timeframe is too long for some players. This resulted in us developing Up or Down? Turbo – a game which kept the same mechanics as its predecessor but reduced the betting window to 20 seconds – and this has gone on to become one of our most successful titles.
Keeping all this in mind, one of the things I’m most excited about is the upcoming release of our latest game, 3 in a Row, as I think this is a title that really ties everything I’ve talked about so far together. Designed to look like a slot machine, 3 in a Row challenges players to correctly predict how the Bitcoin price will move over three separate 20-second windows for even bigger payouts.
Intended to appeal to casual users and serious sports bettors alike, players can elect to either spin the reels for fun and select a random price sequence or use the bet builder feature to put together their own custom prediction. With the latter essentially functioning like an accumulator bet, players can select up to three possible combinations – i.e. Up/Up/Up, Up/Up/Down etc – and only one result needs to land for them to win, ensuring they stay engaged until the final seconds.
I believe that 3 in a Row can help build on the strong foundations we’ve laid down with casino and sports bettors and provide operators with another popular option that offers significant cross-market appeal. Based on what we’ve seen from previous Bitblox releases, the audience for titles that combine elements of chance and elements of skill is definitely out there – and I’m looking forward to our unique brand of crypto-based games being enjoyed by even more players in future.
Industry News
Gaming Corps to launch with lotteries in the USA via EQL games deal
In-demand content provider extends reach into largest iGaming market in the world with its full suite of games made available via iLottery aggregation platform
Gaming Corps, a publicly-listed game studio based in Sweden renowned for creating industry-leading games, has made its debut in the US market through a breakthrough agreement with leading lottery provider, EQL Games.
The distribution agreement will see Gaming Corps’ full suite of games made available to EQL Games’ powerful iLottery Aggregation Platform, developed to provide lottery operators across America with direct access to a portfolio of proprietary and third-party games.
Following the integration, EQL Games’ lottery operator partners will be offered proven Slots, Table Games, Multiplier Games, Mine Games and Plinko Games, as well as titles under Gaming Corps’ innovative and trademarked Smash4Cash™ series.
The deal and integration come at a time of growing demand among online lottery operators in the US for non-traditional content, a format that Gaming Corps has excelled in, especially with its Smash4Cash™ games, which have been a hit with players in global markets.
EQL’s aggregation platform has been developed to allow online lottery operators to quickly and easily access content from multiple game studios simultaneously through one integration and one commercial agreement.
Its iLottery Aggregation platform simplifies the process of adding new games to an online lottery brand across regulated states. In addition to the third-party content provided via its aggregator platform, EQL Games has a portfolio of in-house titles.
This includes games produced under licence with Team USA which were rolled out by several state lotteries for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris this year, with new titles being planned ahead of the Winter Games in Milan (2026) and the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles (2028).
Juha Kauppinen, CEO of Gaming Corps, said: “The USA has always been somewhat of the holy grail for game developers like us, which has been further emphasised as markets in several states have become regulated. The potential in the American market is enormous, and the impact for us is a bit difficult to assess, but we have great hopes for the collaboration with EQL Games, which has an impressive platform towards U.S. lotteries.
“We believe it will have a significantly positive impact on our revenues. I would like to personally take the opportunity to thank EQL Games and Brad Cummings for the collaboration, and we are now working hard to complete the integration so that all our games will be offered to EQL’s customers via their platform.”
Brad Cummings, CEO of EQL Games, added: “Including Gaming Corps as a supplier to the EQL Games iLottery Aggregator is an exciting step forward in our mission to offer unique, high-quality content to state lotteries. Gaming Corps’ expertise in iGaming, along with their unique game portfolio, fits perfectly with our vision of enhancing the lottery experience through dynamic and engaging content.”
Industry News
Public Voting Starts for Ortak x B.F.T.H. Arena Awards 3.0
The highly anticipated Ortak x B.F.T.H. Arena Awards 3.0 has officially entered the public voting phase as submissions are closed.
More than 70 game providers have turned in over 160 submissions, including Tom Horn Gaming, Pragmatic Play and RubyPlay. Public voting involves enthusiasts casting their votes to pick the winner of the Game of Public Choice category.
The Public voting phase ends on December 1st 23:59 GMT+4.
Concurrent to public voting, the first phase of private voting also starts during which all participants who have submitted entries get the chance to vote for one favourite in each category. An international auditing company oversees this phase to eliminate duplicate votes and self-votes. This phase ends on November 19, 23:59 GMT+4.
The second phase of private voting will also take place with a jury of industry experts making their decisions based on the shortlist picked by participants during the first phase.
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