BetGames Classic roulette launch w/ Andreas Koeberl, CEO

You’ve just launched your own spin on the casino classic roulette – what prompted this move and why now?

AK: Our mission is to help our partners convert their recreational punters into casino players, organically, resulting in lower CPAs and higher retention rates. In practice, this means instead of throwing massive bonuses at your players, you use a curated set of games, features and targeted bonuses at a way lower cost. We already deliver the initial part of this journey and have now added arguably the most classic game of all time to ensure we don’t lose those players to the competition.

Some may consider such a launch as brave given how saturated the market is with versions of the game – how have you built the trademark BetGames DNA into your version?

AK: The products we launch are all key parts of the puzzle to convert bettors to casino, rather than being efforts to attack the big established brands in the market. Roulette is a commodity and what’s the point of entering a price war we can’t win due to lower scale? The crucial focus is the player conversion journey and a seamless experience – not having to switch lobbies and staying with the supplier you trust. We didn’t reinvent the wheel, so to speak! I don’t think the fancy studios with robot arms and seven different cameras add any value in our core markets. We focused on a slick player experience with a professional presenter quality. We have kept it simple and targeted.

Do you have certain markets in mind for this latest launch? Are we seeing RNG table games surge in popularity in LatAm, for example?

AK: We’re focusing on our existing markets and LatAm initially. This is one reason why we launched the game without a continuous stream during the placing of bets, reducing data consumption. What we have learned from some of our existing games, and certainly from our most popular examples, is that our players (who are generally more sports savvy) enjoy silence and focus during betting. Thus, we have top-notch quality presentation during the spin but a quiet, slick betting experience during the dwell time. This helps to save players’ data, particularly in markets where developing infrastructures are a challenge. LatAm isn’t very developed yet with live content, and one of the main reasons for that is partly poor infrastructure. Quick, data-light products like RNG games remain popular because of that.

You’ve seen a lot of success in LatAm and Africa – are the requirements of developing markets hugely different to those of the more established when you are developing products?

AK: Africa is special because it is an extremely superstitious market – trust and ease of use are everything. LatAm is more demanding on the localisation front. People want Brazilian Portuguese or Latin Spanish, even though they often play games muted – this makes it tricky. From a live perspective, both markets are still in their infancy. RNG develops quicker, but still has huge potential. We will see what the new regulations in areas such as Brazil, Peru and Chile will bring in terms of market development.

Is the widening of your product portfolio indicative of a long-term shift of focus for BetGames? Will we see more of your more traditional lottery and card-based games?

AK: We follow a niche strategy and want to add incremental value for our partners. We have seen a lot of new competitors entering the live dealer space aiming to take on the likes of Evolution, Playtech and Pragmatic Play. Most of them failed or at least experienced a hard landing in terms of commercial success. The big players, especially Pragmatic and Evolution have massive scale, giving them significant competitive advantages, which lots of smaller or new studios often underestimate. A 24/7 live operation comes with enormous challenges and OPEX and the rev shares on commodities like roulette are getting smaller and smaller. So, we will stick to our mission and USP. If a partner wants a roulette environment, we are capable of delivering, but it needs to make sense. Hence, we aren’t neglecting our core to become a supplier of roulette and blackjack specifically.

We’ve grown our portfolio over the years to accommodate constantly shifting player trends and technology and will continue to do so, remaining agile, relevant and making informed decisions on a product offering that suits global markets.