GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 24 - April 2013

For instance, if you achieve something in poker, you can be rewarded in the casino game. By doing that, we give the players more excitement, because they can use their rewards in many different types of games and try other games. But also for the opera- tor, we enable cross-selling to other prod- ucts that they would like to show the play- ers, too. We’re really excited about that. Q: You’ve been able to take this con- cept and implement it across different game sectors and verticals? KJELL: We’re trying it out in poker first. Then, we will roll it out to the differ- ent products. JAQUES: That’s something that we’re planning for this year, so it’s not far out. KJELL: Amaya is all about the conver- gence of land-based, mobile and online. With Instant Rewards, we’re able to stimu- late offline players in casinos to play in an online environment, achieve something there, come back to the casino and actually get something in the casino. For instance, you can hand out a voucher code to a lot of players in the casino to try the online product. If they play a couple of hands, get a pair of kings, for instance, and then come back, they get a free buffet in the casino or they can play in a tournament on Monday, for instance. Q:You’re able to track a player back and forth between the two and stimulate that. Talk a little bit about mobile. If you go back three or four years, everyone thought that no one wanted to play pok- er on a phone. But now, we’re getting to the point where – JAQUES: You’ve had a change with that. Q: – you’re carrying the tablet. And you can fit a decent-sized poker screen onto my phone. JAQUES: Yeah, definitely. Q: Talk about the changes in technol- ogy that have allowed you to go into mobile in a big way, the response you’ve received to the mobile product, and the numbers of players who are playing on mobile devices. KJELL: First of all, if you look at why mo- bile has really taken off, the technology in phones now is so much better. That’s one reason. The second reason is that people are more used to using mobile phones in another way. They’re used to shopping on the phone. They’re used to playing games. 27 Can mobile and social save online poker ?