BtoBet has recently expanded to encompass BtoBet sports and BtoBet games, how does the splitting of the business into component parts add to your business model?
A clear strategy and a clear structuring of the company is obviously extremely important when seeking to achieve an improved way of operating and in turn achieving better results in the upcoming years.
We wanted to make sure that what we do with the games, and all the content that we provide, we have reached our offering to those who are focused primarily on the casino, but also we aimed to enforce all the services that are part of the management and the sustainability of the system, hosting services and everything related to the essence of the business.
On the other side, in our sports betting business, we have tailored an offering which allows operators to specifically propose what they need in their respective market of operation based on the preferences of their end-players, in areas such as events, risk management strategies and advertising.
The combination of these two businesses -gaming and sports betting – is a very important one for us, Neuron Gaming and Neuron Sports are both single platforms but they can be cross-integrated and marketed. Simply put, this means that the Neuron Gaming platform can easily be integrated with any sports betting market, and also Neuron Sports can also be likewise integrated into any gaming platform.
We give the operators the flexibility to choose because there are too many differences in the markets, too many different business approaches to the players, too many regulations popping up every day, so we would like the operator to have a chance to choose what’s best for them and their day-to-day operations.
We trust in the strength of proposition of both our sports betting and online casino platform, but still, we want the operator to fill comfortable in selecting a specific product from these two areas based on their individual requirements.
Can you tell me a little more about the culture of the BtoBet team?
The culture of the BtoBet team is very important. We care a lot about the people that work within the company. The people in BtoBet are make up the business and they are passionate about our products and the opportunities within the company, that they are our essence.
Our culture as a whole is simply TRUST; we have to trust each other to accomplish more and we are also keen to establish trust in the relationship between us and our clients. This trust is the basis of true partnership between us and our clients.
How important is it to your business to encourage dialogue with your suppliers and partners?
Absolutely essential. We don’t see ourselves as someone that is separate from our partners. As soon as we close a contract with any of our operators we begin a partnership. It’s not only about taking responsibility for something; it’s about taking responsibility for the success of their business.
We don’t see ourselves as people who just do their assigned tasks and nothing else, on the contrary, we take that businesses goals and vision into our plans and product roadmaps and together with our business partner we go through that process of realizing that vision.
It is important to embrace the vision of our operators and deliver accordingly. Applying that methodology allows us to achieve better results in a way that is more comfortable for our operator partners, generating high trust, stability, and reliability and their success become our success.
How important is expansion into Africa to your business model in the future?
African expansion is very important and in recent months we have agreed on a number of strategic partnerships with operators across the region. Africa is such a big market with a lot of potential and totally different from every other market that we have encountered up to this point in terms of culture & opportunities on offer.
I believe that African expansion is one of the pillars of our business that will get stronger over time with all of the deals and business partnerships that we undertake in the future.
What’s new in the Technifying i-Gaming tour for 2018?
Our goal is to embrace new markets, for example in Italy, Romania, Poland and other countries where we are stepping up expansion efforts and in addition in the LatAm market, by acquiring big clients in Colombia and Mexico. Spreading out towards regulated markets is the principal focus of the 2018 tour and we plan to expand faster and more readily.
In terms of the technifying element of the tour, we aim to bring the technology closer to the operators: using elements like artificial intelligence (which we are improving all the time), with features that aim to help client retention and fast return of investment in terms of user acquisition and all the content we have embraced (we have over 40 providers) over the last twelve months.
In your opinion, what does the Technifying tour add to your expo proposition that your competitors do not have?
It showcases the flexibility of our offering, in terms of market expansion and regulatory synergies, the customisation opportunities that we offer, the artificial intelligence tools that we are embracing and enhancing month by month and the optional flexibility that allows the clients to choose which part of the business they take be it sports betting or gaming.
In this way, we give our operators flexibility, because they want to be unique and to achieve results they have to design their own unique selling point. We offer to operators the possible assets to enable them to be unique on the market and make an attractive offering for their players.
It has been just under a year since you signed agreements to deliver your white label solution across the LatAm region, how has that delivery gone and do you plan to expand this further in 2018?
BtoBet is a leading technology provider in Colombia and pioneer in the country with our platform and services. We acquired some new clients in the LatAm region who are utilizing our white label solution: We have passed all the BMM certification for Colombia, and now we are at a point where we can really expand further our operations there and in other new regulated areas in South America.
What are your impressions of the LatAm market?
I find it a very good market to have exposure in, even though many of the countries are yet to be regulated some have started down the path towards full regulation. This enables operators who already have exposure in the region to target these markets as they slowly become regulated.
For example, the regulation in Colombia is a very good step for the countries’ government, because it gets the gambling industry under the control of the government. Even more crucially, it allows those operators who have already been operating under grey market status, to start operating legally without any hindrance.
Having a BtoBet presence there gives us a good head start on the competition. The people there, and indeed the whole of the LatAm region, are very receptive to sports betting and casino gaming.
Can you tell me a little more about the development of the Neuron Gaming Platform? How has it evolved?
We developed that over several years, with a lot of investment and knowledge from the market and it was our intention to do something exceptional that is not already available. We were starting from the point of view of a business seeing the positive growth in the gambling industry over the last five years and the growth in countries regulating their gambling markets which then chooses to open a gambling-related business (be it sports betting or casino gaming).
For new companies entering the gambling sector, there are greater opportunities online rather than in retail. Retail does have its place in certain regulated markets, but online is gradually taking over. The problem of managing growth becomes harder to provide data on players and costs of expanding into each regulated market.
Our aim is to provide cost effective tool for the operator which grows their revenues rather than increasing their costs in an effective way. We have a platform that thinks like an operator, preventing fraud, preventing loss of players in a cost-effective way, to not employ sales marketing led tactics, but to have the tools to develop a small business into a bigger one in a cost-effective way.