GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 24 - April 2013

that you’re kicking around in your head, saying, “Wow, that would be really cool if we could do that”? KJELL: Well, we are, like I said, focusing on mobile. You will see a lot of things hap- pening on the mobile side. Apart from that, we are naturally integrating a lot of the Amaya content into the other products. For instance, I want to integrate some of the casino content into poker as well. That’s something I’m looking forward to. Q: So people, while they’re playing the game, they could be playing a slot ma- chine on the side, that sort of thing? KJELL: Right, right. We already have that today, but right at the table. You can just play a slot right at the table when you’re playing poker. But also, with Amaya, we want to integrate the group’s games as well to the best extent, and make it a very seam- less integration for our customers, so they don’t need to do anything. Simply switch on the games and they will have the games. Apart from that, we are, as you know, quite strong on the liquidity and ecology side. We launched Essence a couple of years back. That’s working out really well. We have some other initiatives in that area that I think are very important to have, especially being in the U.S., being in a state-by-state environment, being able to manage a small liquidity and to make it profitable. Q: To follow up on that point, because one of the big shifts in the industry, and we’ve talked about it throughout this in- terview, is nation-by-nation regulation. In the U.S., it’s going to be state-by-state regulation. Talk about how tricky it is to implement, especially from the poker side. Implementing a product that has to be customized that much from a reg- ulatory standpoint to meet the different regulations for different jurisdictions is a complex process. How have you built that flexibility into the system? JAQUES: What Europe has told us is that despite what you’d think, market number two doesn’t necessarily go and say, “How did you guys do it? Oh, that makes sense. We’re going to do the same thing.” Market number two says, “We are market number two, and we are a bit better, so we’re going to do it our way.” What we’ve learned is although you’re in one, it doesn’t mean it’s that much easier for number two or three. It’s easier, but it’s not a simple thing for market number two or number three. Europe, over five years now, there are five markets. In the U.S., there are 50 states. Maybe the first year is going to be one or two, but pretty soon, it’s going to be a waterfall, where there’s going to be several states going every year. So Ongame developed its latest iteration of the poker software, P5, which launched in 2009. Fortunately for us, it was developed with regulation in mind. It’s a very modu- lar, flexible product, which means Italy says, “Oh, you have to change this, and you have to report transactions to us as they happen.” OK, we change this module, we take that out, we put the new one in, and we launch it. We’re ready to go. KJELL: What’s really important is that it’s essentially one code base across all the different regulated markets that we have. We don’t need to roll out different big ver- sions of the code in specific markets and make a lot of adaptations to that code. Like Don says, it’s modules, so for Italy, we need this one. For France, we’re not allowed to do that, switch it off. That’s going to be very important in America as well. JAQUES: The modularity and the flex- ibility – a single code base means those are all the right pieces. That’s the foundation of what you need. But in addition, because we have new software and new technology, we also have a very small technology stack footprint, so that we can enter a new mar- ket for a relatively low cost. As you alluded, poker is the most com- plicated of all the games, especially in the B2B environment, because of the volume of the transactions, the B2B nature of it, and the peer-to-peer nature of it. Casino, you’re playing against the house, and B2B, it doesn’t really add so much. But on the poker side of things, it’s very complicated, especially when you start thinking about fraud and security, and all those things. In a regulatory environment, it’s crazy. Five countries in Europe have adopted regulations over five years, and we’re the only one to be in all five, and to be in all five when the market opened. The U.S., like I said, can be that waterfall. OK, it’s going to be Nevada, then New Jersey, but then California and Illinois, and they’re going to start to move much faster. We’re excited about the opportunity that we have, and what our technology brings to us, because our competitors, our peers, can’t keep up in Europe, or haven’t been able to. They’re not going to be able to keep up in the U.S. We have the track record behind us, and froma sales perspective, that’s gone over very well with the customers. They understand. Q: Now, Fredrik, you mentioned being able to manage small liquidity, and big- ger liquidity, and that sort of thing. Talk about the differences in managing a big liquidity versus a small liquidity, and what goes into thinking about it, and how you have to approach it. KJELL: I think it’s really important to realize that different customers have dif- ferent needs. Some want, for instance, a specific level ring fenced. Some want the entire network liquidity. We’ve been quite successful in Europe managing our cus- tomers’ needs and managing a big liquidi- ty. We have developed one specific technol- 32 Can mobile and social save online poker ?