Interactive CHINA ONLINE & MOBILE


What happens in China, won’t stay in China...


Perverting the old saying, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, the sheer scale of the Chinese domestic gaming market means that its impact is being felt around the world and it’s influence and ramifications must be noted by all stakeholders


Rapidly expanding, and at the cutting-edge of innovation in online gaming, China’s gambling market is abuzz with opportunity. But with a complex 4,000 year history, and a very different modus operandi to what we’re used to in the West, it’s hardly surprising that foreign companies have found it hard to understand and to navigate. This means some companies are not only cutting themselves off from the largest gambling market in the world – they’re also damaging their posi- tion in the West.


Many Western companies have a tendency to assume they can achieve success in Asia by repli- cating products which have worked in the West. But Macau, the Vegas of China, has proven them wrong. Although from a commercial and legal perspective Macau and Las Vegas have some commonalities, the products upon which each business is built differ vastly.


The rapid growth of Macau as the epicentre of gambling in the East followed a similar path to Las Vegas in the United States (U.S.) – growing itself as the only place where punters could legally place a bet. In the U.S. and other Western coun- tries there is a disparity in rules and regulations across federal and provincial systems; similarly in China, each province has its own requirements, legal challenges and consumer habits. Gaming has a particularly complex status in the country: it is enormously popular as a social activity, but other than playing the lottery, gambling for money remains illegal outside of Macau.


Let’s look at an example of the differences in gaming cultures: casinos in Macau that imported all their products from the U.S. found that people weren’t using the slot machines. In fact, slot machines account for just four percent of takings in Macau. Instead, punters headed for the tables in droves. They also played different games to


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Westerners at the tables. Roulette had far less appeal; all the focus was on baccarat with 85 per- cent of players choosing it.


But it wasn’t that Chinese people didn’t like slot machines, it was that the machines didn’t compli- ment Chinese gaming and pop culture, as explained by Desmond Lam Chee Shiong, a gam- bling expert at the University of Macau. Citing popular movies such as The Shell Game [1980] and God of Gamblers [1989], where suave charac- ters use their wit and supernatural powers to amass great wins on tables, Desmond noted in his 2005 journal: "Everyone wants to look cool like the actors, learn the skills (be it earthly or super- natural) and beat the house".


Social gaming, meanwhile, is very common in China: mahjong, for example, is often played at social gatherings, whether at a friend’s party, a wedding, or a funeral. This might sound like more of an anthropological observation than business advice, but these differences really matter: Chinese gamers come to the market with a totally different set of expectations to Western players. Certainly, Chinese pop culture reflects these atti- tudes: a huge number of gambling-themed films are produced, and almost as many TV series, which, as mentioned, have influenced gaming habits and elevated the status of playing table games in casinos.


At Geonomics, we understand that these cultural attitudes make a difference – you need to know exactly what kind of experience your gamers want to get out of your products. If you don’t take their expectations and gaming psychology into account, you won’t be able to design products your customers like. This is especially important in the case of China: the psychology behind gam- ing is deeply embedded. A casino executive in Macau once said: "The difference between


Carly Mae Penworthy, Global Marketing Executive Geonomics, a gaming company that creates location-based lotto games.


In the case of China: the


psychology behind gaming is deeply embedded. A casino


executive in Macau once said: "The difference between


Westerners and the Chinese is that for Westerners, gambling is about entertainment and calculating probabilities. For


the Chinese it's a battle with destiny."


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