Online Gambling Habits Under The Microscope

Posted by Gambling News | Gambling Industry News | Monday 31 March 2014 12:32 pm

We don’t find it very surprising that online gambling habits are regularly placed under the microscope for industry scrutiny. Marketing methods have become more scientific over the years, in particular in the online space, where this industry is now a mainstream model for making money.

Mobile game sales, spending rates, hours spent online and so on, are all grist for the mill for surveyors when attempting to understand how to market to their chosen audience. New research in a report from the Online Gaming Market, 2014, sees that players in Europe spend more time playing, than gamblers on any other continent. The research includes social network platforms such as Facebook, as well as use of mobile devices like smart phones and tablets. Apparently nearly 20% of the entire population enjoys taking a gamble online.

It seems that experts in this industry find these numbers disproportionately surprising, however the facts remain in particular in the UK – consumers eagerly participate in playing online games. Gambling platforms have become a part of everyday life, and half of all UK tablet users make this channel their first choice. There is a definite predisposition for online gambling through mobile technology, which promises much growth for mobile gaming into the future.

Mobile in-game purchases as reported by specialists -Swrve– says that 0.15% of mobile gamblers generates 50% of monthly profits. This is the first Mobile Games Monetization Report Swrve has published, and it is hugely interesting to note that so much money is generated from a such a small number of spenders. But the point is that there are a whole bunch of active players that truly enjoy online, or rather, mobile gambling games.

The study was conducted across "tens of millions of players", the aim being to find precisely "where the money is made". It took a whole month to compile and what was also found to be rather interesting – was that very little data exists to show how consumers relate to“free-mium” games. There are many free online gambling models to take advantage of, and while many players do, there is still this small section of players in the market, generating a great deal of money.

Facts revealed indicate thatwomen tend to wager more, and the over 50 age group makes up a large proportion of the social online casino player index. The myth is also being dispelled that people over 50 arenot computer savvy. The second biggest player category is the 60 – 69 year-old age group.

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Online Gambling Affiliates Require A Change Management Strategy

Posted by Gambling News | Gambling Industry News | Friday 13 December 2013 8:37 am

The online gambling marketplace, while certainly not bottomed out, has become pretty saturated from the point of view of the affiliate industry. With the emergence of gambling online as a massive money spinner, quite a number of other sectors benefited off the bottom line. Advertising and affiliate marketing were two of these sectors.

The online gambling industry, especially in the UK and Europe has become mature, and this changes the way things in marketing need to get done. While years ago it took very little money for someone to get set up as an affiliate online, this has changed, and it is not so easy for these small one-man ops to make a decent living off affiliate earnings. This is a performance based industry, and due to complexities in the marketplace, rewards are fast becoming diluted. Cornering this market today we find specialized third party vendors, super affiliates and affiliate management agencies. These days it is far more beneficial to select a specialized niche and concentrate on this, rather than on a generic area. In other words, concentrate on "slots" for example, rather than "gambling online" per se.

However there are certainly ample opportunities popping up where we are seeing exponential growth. For example the mobile gambling industry, and perhaps turning our envious eyes upon an emerging market in the USA.

In the few short weeks that online poker has been test-played in the state of New Jersey – up to 33 000 new players, or more have registered and these are only intrastate players. Who knows what the possibilities could be as more and more states open their doors to poker at first, then perhaps other online gambling games too. But change management for affiliates is certainly a strong recommendation too. Affiliate business owner need to learn how to tap into a new market place.

Just out of interest – including the usual Thanks Giving holiday traditions they had to deal with, punters found the time to create 5,000 new online accounts. Testing commenced in New Jersey on the 21st November, and while it was difficult for assessing how many wagers were actually placed, some gamers had registered with more than one online brand. This indicates the largest expansion of gambling in the state since 1978, when the first Atlantic City casino opened its doors to the public. They are the third stat in the USA to offer legal and regulated gambling online.

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William Hill Online and NetRefer announce new partnership

Posted by Gambling News | Gambling Industry News | Monday 2 December 2013 3:53 pm

William Hill and NetRefer are pleased to announce their partnership to enhance William Hill Online’s Affiliates United program through NetRefer’s Performance Marketing suite.

Rated by EGR Magazine as one of the most powerful gaming operators on the planet, William Hill Online is a significant partner and an exciting addition to NetRefer’s growing client base. This partnership continues to assert NetRefer as market leaders in affiliate management and performance marketing.

William Hill Online’s new affiliate programme will offer state of the art functionality including fully managed online hosting, advanced media tracking, dedicated customer support and account management, flexible reward plans, attractive affiliate commissions, on time payments, and extensive reporting along with other industry leading marketing tools. This will empower the business with all the necessary functions to support CMOs, marketing and affiliate managers and affiliates effectively and efficiently.

William Hill Online has always enjoyed a very strong brand image, and through the implementation of their new affiliate platform, this will encourage further growth for their online business, a key objective for all NetRefer’s online gaming partners.

Anat Errell, Head of Marketing Operations for William Hill Online, said: "This is a very important chapter in our business, and we are very excited to be working with the industry leaders in affiliate marketing to ensure all our esteemed affiliates and marketers are provided with the leading edge solution in the business. We are proud to have selected NetRefer as trusted partner for our marketing solutions".

Julian Buhagiar, CEO of NetRefer Malta, said: "It has been a pleasure to work closely with the marketing and technical teams at William Hill Online to ensure they are provided with all the latest marketing tools to fulfil their requirements. Our goal is to ensure all the affiliate team as well as their affiliates are provided with a fully configurable rewards engine, clear and flexible reporting, in-depth analytics as well as user friendly dashboards available in over 99 languages to ensure market reach and localisation for William Hill’s entire online brand."

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Legalised Mobile Gambling Will Become Standard In The EU

Posted by Gambling News | Gambling Industry News | Thursday 27 June 2013 2:42 pm

The fundamental concept of any online business, is that business can take place on a global scale, and this concept applies to online gambling. This type of business without borders is also a model that is intrinsic to the freedom of trade principles adopted by law-makers of the European Union (EU). However, when it comes down to online gambling and EU free trade principles, many EU countries still practice monopolistic approaches. This is frowned upon by the EU.

Now Dr Christos Dimitriadis – Intralot’s Head of Information Security has spoken at a Berlin conference, and said that “it is inevitable that new types of mobile games that could incorporate gambling features will become legal across the European Union”. Intralot builds lottery systems, terminals, and so on, and has a presence in fifty-five countries globally.

He was a guest speaker at the ISACA Insights World Congress 2013, when he made clear that their firm would be both keen, and able to investigate new business breaks, if the entire EU were to make mobile gambling legal. The gambling sector is currently merging mobile services and the cloud, which is proving to be incredibly popular with punters, and is showing exponential growth with many UK-based operators.

The problem with this form of gambling for EU member countries, is that they are not all on the same page, when it comes down to legalising games of chance that are internet based. As we said in the first paragraph – even though the European Commission has drafted an across-the-board framework for the online gambling industry – member states are being very reluctant to come to the party. It is unfortunate that regulatory changes have to be made country-by-country, but it is what it is.

The belief is that eventually there will be a way in which each member state controls e-gambling. They must play a regulatory role because of the “responsibility” factor. Gambling is believed to be best when it is controlled by law, or otherwise unscrupulous operators are able to take advantage of the public. The problem is that the EU has a great business model to follow in the UK, but don’t seem to be able to apply the lessons learned by the UK into their own situation.

Great Britain is home to the most mature sector of the global online gambling industry, and their legal framework seems to work, although like times, technology changes, and laws should be tweaked to compensate for this change. Mobile gambling in the UK, has hit the ground running in the past couple of years, and consistently appears to be enjoying an exponential growth swing.

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I-gaming certification and standards body eCOGRA expanding

Posted by Gambling News | Gambling Industry News,Gambling News | Friday 31 May 2013 7:40 pm

It’s been two years since the independent i-gaming standards, testing and certification company eCOGRA was the subject of a management buy-out from the original 2003 founders and the organisation has undoubtedly flourished.

In a management update this week, Executive Director Tex Rees revealed that ten additional professional staff, predominantly in the fields of chartered accountancy, certified information systems auditing and software test engineering have recently been selectively recruited by the company, extending its capacity to service a growing client base of tier one operators and software suppliers who have chosen to contract eCOGRA for i-gaming testing, monitoring and preparatory certification work in numerous regulated markets.

Among newly signed clients has been the respected and itself rapidly expanding Swedish online gambling software development group Net Entertainment.

eCOGRA has also won new eGAP standards and monitoring contracts with other leading industry companies, the most recent being the online gambling operator Paf (Ålands Penningautomatförening).

Rees says that her company has made significant financial investment in new audit software and programmes, internal control systems and testing laboratory infrastructure to support effective management of the growing business.

"Our substantial investment in technology and human resources will favourably enhance our ability to meet clients’ needs and the licensing jurisdictions’ stringent criteria for accredited testing facilities," Rees said this week.

"Based on unsolicited feedback, we are confident that our clients are more than satisfied with our testing and certification services, particularly in regulated markets such as Spain, Denmark and Italy.

However, the foreseeable introduction of diverse regulations and requirements by national licensing jurisdictions will continue to provide unique challenges for both licensees and testing houses, an industry dynamic for which eCOGRA is suitably positioned to excel." she said.

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