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UP FRONT THE BIG DEBATE
THE BIG DEBATE
This month, we ask: Does social offer a bigger opportunity than real-money gaming
for land-based operators in North America?
YES
Gabriel Cianchetto
President of North America market development, Greentube
The next cash cow for North
American casinos isn’t realmoney online play, it’s social gaming and it’s happening now. Despite what many
may think – social gaming
platforms are sometimes
considered a side project, unworthy of a casino’s
full attention – a recent report from Eilers Research
found the global social casino games market will reach
$2.6bn with 31% year-overyear growth.
That’s right, social casinos
can do far more than build
brand awareness. A wellconstructed social casino
platform operating on a freemium pricing strategy can
raise considerable revenues.
Social casinos do not require
an additional license, and it’s
possible to target players
anywhere in the world.
According to SuperData
Research, 82% of social casino gamers visited a landbased casino within the past
year, while 60% have visited
a land-based casino within
the past six months.
The takeaway is simple:
people like to play casino-style games even when
they’re not at an actual casino. Some players log on
in order to hone their skills
at poker, blackjack and other table games, while others simply enjoy playing and
accumulating special offers,
virtual goods and old-fashioned bragging rights.
A robust social casino
platform allows you to test
new games and study player
preferences before deploying them to your house floor.
How many revenue centers
can also act as your casino’s
testing and proving ground?
Each week, millions of
players prepare for their
next visit to a bricks-andmortar casino by visiting a
social casino online. Most
purchase credits in order to
elevate their play, generating revenue for a casino.
With the right planning
and infrastructure, a social
casino can complement your
real-money platform by allowing players to familiarize
themselves with new games
and refine their skills.
NO
Marco Valerio
Egaming consultant
Likening the opportunities for customer engagement and revenue generation provided independently
by freeplay gaming and real-money egaming is a serious error in judgment that I
strongly advise the industry
against making.
If it looks like freeplay
is a “bigger” opportunity
than real-money egaming in
North America, it has a lot
to do with freeplay being
unhindered by all the legal,
regulatory and financial constraints that are otherwise
inhibiting the growth and
profitability of egaming.
Freeplay and real-money
egaming, as they’re typically
produced and marketed by
land-based casinos in North
America, are fundamentally
designed to achieve different
things. Casinos use freeplay
to build customer lists and
brand awareness, whereas
egaming relies on monetizing directly from users.
Egaming, however, can
also do what freeplay is
meant to do. A smartly designed egaming product that
is also liquid can win over the
hearts of customers at the
same time it is making money from them, whereas a casino’s freeplay platform has a
much harder time asking users to pay for credits.
Unfortunately, it’s become
fashionable to charge US
egaming with having been a
“failure.” Meanwhile, freeplay
carries on with its own meritorious rise. The problem is
that people are confusing
the two as being connected,
so it’s becoming increasingly
popular to contend that freeplay will somehow make up
for egaming’s shortcomings.
This is nonsense.
What’s holding back US
egaming is the North American legal and regulatory climate, which remains financially prohibitive to the circumstances egaming needs
to do well.
But just like the US stakeholders shouldn’t set unreasonably high standards for
egaming’s early returns, neither should we expect the
circumstances to acclimate
to egaming too quickly.
10 egrnorthamerica.com
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06/05/2015 12:25