Line up for Society event
Next month’s meeting of the Society for the Study of Gambling will see Philip Kolvin QC discuss the issue of betting premises and clustering on the high street followed by Dr Alan Littler who will be discussing Dutch gambling laws. Also appearing on 6 November at the London Mathematical Society will be Jimmy Desai, discussing data privacy, and John Greenway who will talk about the government’s plans for gambling.
My Big Aspirations: Raf Keustermans
With ICE Totally Gaming 2013 getting closer and closer, Raf Keustermans co-founder and CEO of social games developer Plumbee, talks about his Big Aspirations for the world’s biggest gaming exhibition.
“
There are a lot of hot topics at the moment, not least of which is the convergence between social and real money gaming. Companies are trying to figure out what their aims are in social gaming, whether they are marketing opportunities or revenue based. Plumbee is a social gaming business, so at ICE 2013 we plan to discuss all of these topics, meet people, discuss oppor- tunities, see where they are and where we can fit in to their business models. It’s a bit of a cliché but ICE is definitely the place to be, primarily because all the decision makers are in the same place for the entire week. It’s really hard to get everyone in the industry together, but ICE guaran- tees that everybody who is anybody will be there in London. Not only that, but everyone is also in the mindset for meetings, so there are a lot of formal and informal opportunities for business, and a lot of oppor- tunities to pick people’s
dealing with the people that can make decisions, and the larger the show the better calibre of people you will have there. So to me ICE is all about the biggest exhibition, which attracts the key people, and there- fore gives me the opportu- nity to chat with the top executives.
brains, just grab a coffee and talk to them about dif- ferent things in a way that you can only do face to face. Our business is in the high-growth area of the sector, and our biggest issue is around scale: finding enough talent fast enough, building more products, analysing more data, getting better and faster as a business. ICE is a place we can go and figure these issues out.
Despite all of these very important benefits we mainly use ICE as a method of generating ideas and getting inspiration from
My Diary: David Archer
Owner of
www.freebets.com David Archer on building a distinctive brand in a crowded online affiliates market.
T
he biggest thing on the horizon for
www.free-
bets.com at the moment is the Barcelona Affiliate Conference. With over 1,600 people expected to attend, it’s a great oppor- tunity to discuss plans for 2013 with the key people at the big bookmakers and casino operators. There’s plenty to discuss too, as we’ve recently included a new football section with tips from Matt Le Tissier and have a much-improved odds comparison section. Further enhancements to the site are in the pipeline, including a horse racing area with tips and results, and we anticipate having a mobile offering in place by the end of this year. We’ve been around since
2009 and mobile use has increased from around 3 per cent back then to just under a quarter of all traffic last month. It’s clear it is only going one way with mobile, and I fully expect it to be the dominant segment in the next two to three years. The affiliate sector is very competitive and is also changing rapidly. All affili- ates are striving to build their own distinctive brand to stand out from competi- tors and we’re confident we’re a good way down that road. The need to provide a compelling visitor experi- ence has never been greater and our team are increasingly seeking to add customer value, with improved reviews of sites and bookmaker products
and services. As the range of these
products and services con- tinues to grow with differ- entiated mobile and tablet products, as well as live streaming services, the requirement for analysis and advice on where to find the best products and value becomes even more impor- tant.
Much of my time in the next couple of months will be spent looking at our mar- keting strategy for 2013. I’ll be working out how best to communicate with our cus- tomers and increase brand awareness. Social media is a key element of this strat- egy. We’ll be developing our presence on Facebook and Twitter over the next 12 months and assessing the
opportunities on other social media sites. We have dipped into horse racing sponsorship recently and may look to continue that in 2013 with a
www.freebets.com branded feature race. Our new PR partners Square in the Air will hopefully have plenty of ideas for brand develop- ment too.
As well as
www.free-
bets.com we run ten other affiliate sites and many of these require further devel- opment. We’re particularly conscious that the 2013 Cheltenham Festival is now on the horizon and there’s much to be done for our horse racing sites such as
www.horseracingresults.co .uk and
www.cheltenham-
festivalnews.com.
what’s taking place, it’s a huge event and a huge opportunity to learn and to be inspired. We bring our team to the event and just walk around for hours and hours looking at how com- panies do business, how they have developed big licence projects, which sound effects they’re using and so forth. The exhibition is a very exciting situation to be in, and we make sure that we take a lot of it away with us.
I think the bigger the event, and bigger the scale, the more you will attract the top guys. I want to be
My advice for attending is to plan in advance, and book meetings in advance, plus go to the conferences. There are a lot of interest- ing panels and speakers there, lots of behind the scenes discussions and its more interactive. People are more candid with their views and information, they aren't wearing their sales hats, so they tend to have more in-depth discussions. You see a different and very interesting side to the industry there.”
Improving the Gamble Aware presence
In a monthly column, chief executive at The Responsible Gambling Trust Marc Etches details one of the projects that the organisation is funding with money from the gambling industry.
PROJECT: GAMBLE AWARE B
ackground: Gamble Aware was launched on 1 September 2007 to coincide with the implemen- tation of the 2005 Gambling Act. The early rationale for the site was described in the Gambling Commission’s then emerging Review of Research, Education and Treatment (2007) as follows: “
...the development of the new Gamble Aware website designed as a one-stop shop for information and advice about gambling. It aims to help consumers manage their gambling, understand how gambling works, learn about new player protection measures being brought in under the Gambling Act (primary and secondary pre- vention), and find out where to get treatment and advice if they feel their gambling is getting out of hand (tertiary prevention).”
Gambling Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising: The Gambling Commission’s guide to gam- bling advertising codes (Sep- tember 2010) requires gambling operators to follow the Gambling Indus- try Code for Socially Responsible Advertising (August 2007). This Code of Practice commits the gam- bling industry to display
www.gambleaware.co.uk on all broadcast and non- broadcast advertising. New Strategic Approach: Despite the considerable investment of time and money into this project, the Trust believes the current site is weak in terms of pres- entation, functionality, quality of content and clarity of purpose. Also, the origi- nal aspiration that the
website should act ‘as one part of the Gamble Aware brand, and its role should be located within wider (edu- cation) campaigns’ has not been successfully pursued. For these reasons, the rede- velopment of the Gamble Aware website is one of the Trust’s nine core objectives: “To redevelop the Gamble Aware website as a core element in an effective edu- cational programme, which both prevents problem gam- bling and gambling-related harm and signposts treat- ment and support for those in need.”
Re-establishing ‘Gamble
Aware’ Purpose: The Trust believes that the primary purpose of the web-site should be: “To operate as an effective on-line resource that: i) provides accurate information about the nature of gambling and problem-gambling in Britain; ii) promotes respon- sibility in gambling both as a player and as a provider; iii) helps gamblers, gambling providers and others to recognise behavioural prob- lems; iv) signposts to a range of specialist advice and support services.”
Next Steps: The next step is that the Trust will consider a range of questions and to determine whether they offer a sufficient guide to building content appropri- ate to the primary purpose. The questions relate to the nature of gambling and ‘problem-gambling’, pro- moting responsibility in gambling, and signposting to specialist advice and support. The intention is for the website to be re- launched in December 2012.
BettingBusinessInteractive • OCTOBER 2012 53
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