Small Casino Operators Vulnerable By 2015?

Within the next few years the online gaming industry will see many of biggest gaming vendors amalgamate. This will leave many smaller operators exposed, said the Industry’s biggest players at the European iGaming Congress (EiG) in Copenhagen.

Gigi Levy,  888’s CEO, made the prediction that eGaming business deals within the next couple of years will become larger between major industry players like the Bwin/Party merger. Currently there’s way too many small businesses and good buyers are far and few in between. This will cause smaller operators to become “bottle necked” and they don’t possess the resources nor capabilities to expand.

Mangas Gaming CEO Nicolas Beraud is in agreement with Levy, fewer operators will survive but they will be significantly bigger. He also said that the majority of European countries would be regulated and countries outside of Europe too. In turn this would have created an extremely competitive environment by 2015 where internet casinos’ gross revenue will be far lower than it is today”. The expanded gaming market results in more competition which in turn will necessitate an increase in the quality of products”.

Social media site will become an integral component if operators are o be successful by 2015.  We are living in the Facebook era, social interacting via networking sites has become the standard of life today”.  Levy predicts that consumer attainment will move from Google to social media and that Facebook will start accepting “real cash” gaming, to kick-off with the United Kingdom in the next couple of years.  Soon a major contributor toward the gaming industry would be smart phones we are on the cusp of an “exiting period” as a result of the pace technology has advanced the last couple of years”.

Playtech’s CEO Mor Weisner, agreed with Levy and implored internet casino vendors to become more innovative and said that operators will find other jurisdictions outside Europe. “PMU has its sights on various other markets apart from France”, he added, he’s of the opinion that more Italian casino vendors will engage the French market and Italy will see an influx of gaming operators from Spain.

CEO of Betsson, Pontus Lindwall, agrees with the above and said that expansion to newly regulated markets is essential but only where “possible”. The other problem why most operators pulled out of Franch is because of the high taxation rate in the country. Henrik Tjärnström, Unibet’s CEO, said that the company still desires a slice of the French gaming market.”