“I will get four to five years for doing that bookies.”
Robber Stephen Patterson finds the prediction he made during his arrest come true as Judge Lord Bracadale gave him four years in prison for steal- ing £340 from the Ladbrokes in Renfrew
Localisation is not a quick fix
As the stampede to online regulation continues both in Europe and globally, it is timely to consider whether operators, particularly the ‘dotcom’ ones, are generally well-positioned to keep up and to make informed decisions about the viability of entering newly regulated markets. Independent consultant to the betting and gaming industry Mick d’Ancona discusses the issues.
R
ightly, primary consid- erations about enter- ing newly regulated markets relate to local taxa- tion levels, operating margins and the potential for acquiring market share. However, equally important should be questions about an operator’s capability to achieve technical compli- ance and, potentially more critically, the flexibility of its core operating model and its adaptability for the local market. Can an opera- tor quickly and cost-effec- tively deliver a compliant and genuinely localised experience? After all, you only get one chance to make a first impression… From a technology per- spective, the central pillars of compliance are player pro- tection, the physical foot- print and security. Historically there have been few material differences in
player protection require- ments across regimes. In addition, the implications of a physical footprint are becoming less of a concern as ‘Vault’-style solutions (first introduced as a concept by French regulation in 2010, with variants recently adopted by Spain and Denmark) become increas- ingly ubiquitous and super- sede the need for a complete local infrastructure. Secu- rity and the integrity of cus- tomer data remain, of course, of paramount impor- tance to operators and regu- lators alike, but with a reduction in the necessity for local infrastructure, what is typically best practice become less onerous after initial adoption. With this apparent and growing convergence of requirements, certainly in credible and larger jurisdic- tions, one might by now
have expected to have seen several strategic, multi-ter- ritory partnerships between operators and established technology providers both of Vault solutions and also the betting and gaming plat- forms themselves. Some- what disappointingly, there seems to be little evidence of such partnerships, pub- licly at least, which suggests that we are some way off from technical compliance and forwards compatibility with new regulatory requirements being mar- ketable and newsworthy features. However, beyond this are far broader concerns relat- ing to an operator’s ability to actually drive its busi- ness in a new market. His- torically, significant attention has been lavished on the transactional systems, with less empha- sis placed on overarching
business processes and associated back-office tools. Areas such as cus- tomer service, campaigns, bonusing, affiliate manage- ment and financial processes have often received short shrift when it comes to new territories. This is particularly true for dotcom operators, who were perhaps lulled into believing that localisation could be cheaply achieved through simple translation and localised imagery. Factors such as the porta- bility of a brand, restrictions on permitted content, varia- tions in local payment methods and nuances in natural language and PPC search, quite aside from simple variances in con- sumer preferences and more overt and competitive advertising, can all lead to fundamental changes in how an operator can and
should engage with a cus- tomer. Simply understand- ing the breadth of the changes to its core model that might be required can be hard enough for an oper- ator rightly focussed on its existing business, but then actually executing this is likely to be an order of mag- nitude more difficult. But without such awareness, and the introduction of this level of flexibility across its entire technology and oper- ational estate, it is hard to see how any foreign organi- sation will ultimately be able to compete with existing and indigenous operators. There can be little doubt that the increasing number
of regulating territories is a good thing for the online betting and gaming indus- try. Whilst there will con- tinue to be some pain along the way (not least in short- term profits), requirements will continue to converge, enforcement will improve, and the brand benefits of being seen to be responsi- ble and regulated will grow. In the meantime, it is those companies that are pre- pared to think longer-term, to look inward as well as outward, and to invest in extending their core oper- ating model when they can, rather than when they are forced to, that will ulti- mately prosper.
www.jenningsbet.com
BettingBusinessInteractive • JANUARY 2012 63
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