ROAD TO WORLD CUP


Road to World Cup: cross-sell opportunities for online casinos


With this year’s World Cup unusually taking place in the winter, operators will be adjusting their content calendars in preparation of a bumper end to 2022. With December traditionally a busy period for the online casino sector with the holiday season, how will a winter World Cup affect Christmas promotions and cross-sell opportunities?


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IO spoke to Alex Kornilov, CEO at Betegy, Ian Catchick, chief product and business


development officer at BetGames, Thomas Smallwood, head of marketing at ESA Gaming, and Roman Bogoduhov, head of accounts LatAm at EvenBet Gaming, to find out how they’re preparing for this winter’s period of sporting events.


GIO: With the World Cup taking place in November and December this year, what impact will this have on your product roadmap and Christmas promotional efforts?


Thomas Smallwood: Of course, there is a unique element to the sporting schedule this year with the World Cup taking place in winter. Here at ESA Gaming, we have already taken the necessary steps in order to seamlessly adapt to this. One of the main changes taking place ahead of the World Cup is an earlier start and a later finish to major leagues. We made some adjustments in the past to ensure we have some new style of content out for the football season, which started in England on August 6. As well as a new mobile Roulette we will also be launching our first Crash Game, with more innovative content to follow.


Alex Kornilov: We’re really going to be ramping our work with operators to ensure they can deliver top of the line, personalised campaigns that can excite and engage players throughout what will likely be the two busiest months of this year for gaming. When it comes to impact, it really depends on how much operators are willing to invest. If they’re ready to make it a serious priority, then it will no doubt shape up to be a great chance to use the hype surrounding the World Cup to engage with players and retain them for when the regular leagues continue.


I also see an excellent opportunity to cross- sell traditional sports bettors into casino and vice-versa, with casino already being a mainstay during the festive season. For us,


6 OCTOBER 2022 GIO


that means boosting their marketing to ensure that they can first attract during the World Cup, and then ease players into the world of casino with strategic, personalised promotions that will give the ability to convert into relevant verticals during the Christmas period.


Ian Catchick: As arguably the biggest sporting event on the planet, I expect that the tournament will have a significant impact on most supplier’s roadmaps and promotions around Christmas. For us, we know it’s all about making sports fans feel right at home in a casino environment. Our fixed-odds betting games such as Bet on Poker do that and more – and we’ve proven ourselves as one of the industry’s best when it comes to crossover products.


With that in mind, sports-based games are no doubt going to be key part of most suppliers’ products and operators’ product roadmap and Christmas promotional efforts. Having launched Twain Sport this year, I believe we’ve timed that perfectly. In effect, Twain Sport is our big bet on reinventing live entertainment – and a key part of our product roadmap and likely Christmas promotional efforts this year. Leveraging a unique partnership with the Hybrid Sport Federation, we will provide betting on top-notch, action-packed and high-frequency sports, including basketball and football.


Roman Bogoduhov: Some of the markets in which EvenBet Gaming has become a leader in online poker software are incredibly enthusiastic about football, including Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. This autumn, our promotional efforts in South and Latin America will be concentrated on the benefits of sports betting and online poker cross- selling, as we expect an enormous betting boom starting early before the World Cup. We’ve already signed deals with several major sports betting operators in the region, including Apuesta Total, DoradoBet, along with others. By Christmas, we expect to have a great deal of fresh and actionable data on


cross-selling, which we can use to promote our offering further during the event.


GIO: Major sporting events like the World Cup present huge cross-sell opportunities for online casinos. Do you expect this winter to be one of the busiest periods ever for the online casino sector?


IC: Historically we know what happens to casino traffic around major tournaments, as well as the festive season. Given that the holiday period is already a busy time for the iGaming industry; we certainly expect the addition of the World Cup to in effect offer twice that this year.


As mentioned above, the world cup taking place during one of the busiest periods for the casino sector means that we should expect a rise in engagement and retention. At BetGames, we see a lot of players engaging with our products during a period of high demand, and with sports bettors demanding more these days – we anticipate a great response for casino.


We’re well positioned for this increase in traffic, our games deliver simple gameplay that delivers a high quality and short burst of betting entertainment. As we know, emerging generations of players have a different value set and are used to consuming content quickly, therefore with our rapid products – whether that’s Twain Sport, Bet on Poker or our Lotto Reloaded series, we can provide players with an experience that they look for and one that can perfectly complement major events.


RB: There’s no doubt this will be the case. December has always been a hot month for sports betting, but this year is going to be very special. This goes doubly so for online poker players as there’s so much cross-over in the appeal of the two games, with skill, team spirit, and big victories being common between the two pastimes.


This is not necessarily the case for slots players, for example. There’s a learning curve involved in sports betting as it’s based on a knowledge of the game, rather than on chance.


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