GPWA Times - Issue 20 - March 2012

Dmitry Bodrov of Lotos Affiliates fills us in on what’s been happening lately in Russia, which has Europe’s second-largest number of Internet users and according to Dmitry is poised to take the number-one spot. Russians love to gamble, wit h online slots being more popular than online table games. Nick Vlachos comes to us courtesy of Yachting Poker Affiliates, which is part of the B3W Affiliation group. He has lived in Canada, Greece and England and now resides in Malta. He foresees lots of exciting technological innovation coming to online poker in the next few years. Lotos Casino just opened last year. What has the first year been like? And what have you learned that will let you im- prove the business going for- ward? We officially launched in September, but the preparation process, of course, started much earlier and took a while. It was not easy at the start and it is still not, but we’re moving on and getting better day by day. So it was pretty hectic as you may imagine – getting ev- erything done in time, solving the legal issues, dealing with numerous unexpected problems. . . . At the same time, it was a great experience and I’m looking forward to the new challenges! You offer English- and Russ i an - l anguage support. What are your primary target markets? And do you plan on offering more languages in the future? The primary markets we target at this point include Russia and the former CIS countries, like Ukraine and Kazakhstan. We also do offline marketing where it is possible. The legal situation for gambling is not stable here, so we have to fit in the requirements to stay within the law. This year we plan to expand our reach to Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. At the moment we are planning to add the Ukrainian language to our software and website, but in our long-term plans we are looking to offer other languages as well. The graphics on the Lotos Casino home page are focused much more on table games than slots. Do your players tend to be geared more to table games or slots? Slot games are more popu- lar than table games among gam- blers in Russia, and our players are not an exception. The reason our home page is focused on table games is because people associ- ate casino with table games rather than slots. And it all looks more attractive, of course! Nevertheless, we plan to use slot images as well. You also offer a poker room. What has drawn more players, the casino or the poker room? And what poker network are your players in? Is it a stand- alone network? Or are you part of an existing network? Poker draws more players, of course. Online poker is extremely popular almost everywhere in the world right now and Russia is not an exception. The majority of our marketing campaigns are poker related as we are not allowed to promote casino offline in Russia or Ukraine. Poker players tend to gather in communities much more than casino players and this brings a lot of new players who are just starting to get familiar with the game, so the social aspect is a key factor here, I think. LotosPoker is a white label proj- ect of the 888Poker network, which currently ranks fourth on PokerScout and is one of the most rapidly developing networks at the moment. What do affiliates need to know about Lotos Casino and Lotos Poker in order to effectively mar- ket the brands to their players? What distinguishes Lotos from other casinos and poker rooms, both in terms of the player expe- rience and what you offer affili- ates? First of all, at the moment we target a Russian-language au- dience and offer Russian-language technical support, including toll- free telephones in Russia and Ukraine. This is very important, because the share of bilingual peo- ple in those countries is much less than in Europe, for example, and people value support in their na- tive language. Second, it’s the 888 network and the 888 software, which is very popular among players all over the world. We also offer exclusive localized promotions, drawings for tickets to major offline tourna- ments and other valuable prizes. Af filiate Manager Interview Series DMITRY BODROV Lotos Affiliates “Russia ranks sec ond in Europe for the number of Inter net users and I forec ast a number- on e spot in a few ye ars. It is a very bi g market with g ood potential.” MEET THE AFFILIATE MANAGERS Affiliate Manager Interview Series