ONLINE-OFFLINE GAMING
promise is the possibility of creating a consistent player experience – so that, for instance, the customer at a land-based casino and at the same operator’s online version can use the same account and maybe even compete for the same progressive jackpots.
A notable example of this emerging potential
comes from Playtech. It not only produces online gaming software, which it markets to land-based operators moving onto the Web as well as to existing online casinos. Through its Tallinn-headquartered subsidiary Videobet it also makes server-based games for bricks-and-mortar casinos, making its first significant foray into the land-based sector in 2007 through a contract that Videobet won with the Mexican casino operator Entretenimiento De Mexico (Emex).
And Playtech ties together real and virtual casinos
by offering a cross-platform management system which lets operators provide players with a single account accessible online, on mobile devices, and in land-based casinos. Players have the same username and password, and access to the same stored funds, whether they are on the gaming floor, at home or on the train.
The company also offers a range of other services
many of which will appeal to land-based casinos going online for the first time, for example Web hosting (both for the game server and for the database of players), consultancy on payment methods, and management of live dealers for online gaming – Playtech will not only handle the streaming video, but even set up the studio.
The company typifies what is likely to be a growing
trend among vendors of serving both sides of the market, and the suppliers that do this are well positioned to assist land-based operators in the migration to online. For casinos and other consumer- facing gaming firms, adopting an established online platform and presenting it with their own branding is likely to be much cheaper and much simpler than developing their own.
The option of staying in to gamble has become more economically attractive
For example, this year Playtech’s Virtue Fusion Alderney subsidiary gained the contract to supply online Bingo software to Boylesports, the Irish bookmaker that operates both on the high street and on the Web, while Playtech itself has also licensed online casino and Poker technology to the Spanish land-based firm Casino Gran Madrid.
For casinos, adopting an established online platform is cheaper and simpler than developing their own
respectively, while Microgaming itself – famous for the online software that drives more than 120 casinos and 50 Poker rooms, and responsible for bringing offline brands like Ladbrokes and Aspinalls onto the Web – also gains an entree into the land-based market through providing the software engine that powers BetStone video slots.
And there is interest in the sector from many other suppliers too. When the Gaming Standards Association (GSA) in the U.S. recently formed a committee to decide whether there is a need for a standard Internet gaming protocol similar to the GSA protocol used in technology for land-based casinos, its members included representatives from a wide array of gaming firms – AGS, Aristocrat Technologies, De Vocht Expert Services, Gaming Laboratories International, Loto-Quebec, Oregon Lottery, Scientific Games Corporation, Spielo/GTech, Techlink Entertainment International, Technical Systems Testing, Video Gaming Technologies, and WMS Gaming. The committee will not develop a protocol itself, but examine benefits and feasibility.
The interest shown in online by such big names
from the land-based world may be a sign that the melding of the two sectors has only just begun. Microgaming produced the first online casino software in 1994; and 16 years from now, we may look back and wonder why we ever thought that online and land-based were anything more than two sides of the same business.
Unsurprisingly, diversification is taking place both
ways – it’s not just online suppliers turning to the offline market. For example, International Gaming Technology (IGT), one of the giants of the land-based world, supplies online and mobile gaming through its WagerWorks subsidiary. WagerWorks provides IGT and Barcrest games that can generate revenue for the online operator either on a pay-to-play or pay-to- download model, including high-profile branded games such as Cluedo and Wheel of Fortune. The firm also sells to the mobile market through its Million-2-1 business.
Other vendors serve the multiple markets through
mutually beneficial tie-ups. BetStone, for example, is best-known for its server-based gaming products for land-based casinos. But it can also offer technologies supporting online and mobile operations, through tie-ups with Microgaming and Spiral Solutions’ Spin3
30 MAY 2010
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