GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 24 - April 2013

ogy which we’re quite proud of. It’s called dynamic ring fencing. Let’s say we’re managing a smaller liquid- ity. It’s a small liquidity, but we have one customer who wants to have a private li- quidity at some times during the day, and at other times, where the liquidity is lower, he wants to expand and use the full net- work potential. We can, in real time, contract or expand that liquidity for that customer and basi- cally ensure that he has the highest profit- ability when there is a big liquidity. He can have more ring-fenced games and also the best availability of games. Because when it’s low peak, or off peak, then we can ex- pand and contract the number of ring- fenced tables and allow for more network tables to come in. Obviously, if you have a very big liquid- ity, you can be more static. But in smaller liquidities, you have to be dynamic and adapt to the different hours of the day. Q:You have to be flexible to maximize. KJELL: We don’t do it on a time-based basis. We do it on the volumes coming in, and do it automatically. Then, we can au- tomatically seat players at the right type of table they should be playing at to make sure we have the right type of liquidity at the different levels. Adding to that, of course, you need to be very flexible when you adjust which type of limits you have there. Should we have this limit? Should we not have that? Should we remove these top limits and try to kind of contract the players – collect the players at certain levels? It’s constant work. You need to constantly do it just to maintain the liquidity. JAQUES: You’re constantly dialing in. It’s not the secret recipe, and if you follow this recipe, then you’re OK, because you have to constantly be monitoring all aspects of the network. We’re talking about liquidity and dynamic ring fencing. That’s the cash game side of things. To be successful and do the best that you can for your liquidity, you also think about the tournament side of things. We manage the network schedule of tourna- ments. The balancing act there is pushing the guarantees to the maximum amounts and limiting the amount of overlays, so that you as the network and your opera- tors aren’t paying too much money to at- tract the players to tournaments. Those things come with experience. Ongame is like a big wall with these little di- als, and we’re constantly dialing things in. You can’t do this properly and get the right result on the other end unless you have the right people. That’s where being in the in- dustry for more than 13 years starts to pay off for us. All these dials – what comes out on the other side is profitability. That’s the bottom line. Profitability for us and profit- ability for our operators. Q:The operators have to be able to trust your ability to run the network, and that has to be sort of a critical component of this entire process. KJELL: Definitely, yeah. But we work very tightly with operators. We have a net- work board as well. We gather about every second month, sit down in a room. We dis- cuss the network, we discuss the numbers. “Do we need to make any changes? Do we need to add any new type of games or fea- tures? Should we remove any limits?We see that you are losing a lot of money on these stakes. Should we remove them?” That’s something we do on a network-wide level. Also, in conjunction with that, we have weekly business updates with each part- ner from the account management team, discussing the numbers, discussing vari- ous promotions. “You can probably run a reactivation campaign on these customers. Here are the customers. We suggest this type of campaign.” Like Don is saying, we’ve been doing this, and we also have a B2C history in the com- pany. I think that we are quite a good part- ner. We understand that side of the busi- ness as well. We don’t deliver technology. I don’t see it as that. We deliver our service. Q: I have just one last question, and then we’ll wrap it up. You were talking about the B2C aspect. From a supplier stand- point, do operators worry about that B2C background? Is that a hindrance or an advantage as you go through the process? I talk to different operators and one of their biggest fears is their supplier is going to end up becoming their competitor. JAQUES: Ongame previously was owned by bwin, and I can tell you at that point, it was always challenging for us. Who doesn’t, in the gaming world, see bwin as a com- petitor? All of our operators saw bwin as a competitor, and at that point, there was no doubt who was pulling the strings. As much as we separated ourselves within bwin as a B2B side of the company, if I’m in an op- erator’s shoes, I’m always going to question what the true motives behind Ongame are, because they’re owned by bwin. That is, for us, one of the most relieving parts about becoming part of the Amaya Group. Amaya isn’t some B2C brand that also has Amaya. Amaya is Amaya, which is a B2B company. For us B2B guys, having worked previously under the umbrella of a B2C organization, it’s a night-and-day re- freshing experience. This is our bread and butter. This is what we do. In the case of Amaya, they also have inter- nal B2C brands, but for the right reasons. In their case, it’s almost like the history of those brands is to basically be the guinea pig for the previous Amaya casino compo- nents. Then, they try to develop it, and they can say to their customers when they bring in a new product, this one works great like this, because of this and this and this. It’s a valuable tool to aid their B2B partnerships, rather than a competitive business in B2C. For Amaya, it’s all about the B2B. Any B2C or services capabilities are about that. It’s about offering services to customers. KJELL: I think what we’re seeing in Europe now is that as the market climate is getting a lot tougher, especially due to reg- ulation, that operators actually are starting to request more and more services. They are looking over their staffing, trying to find more cost-efficient ways of handling their business, and they are looking for many more services. I think our coming from somewhat of a B2C background, I think that’s beneficial. We understand those challenges they have, and we can also understand which type of services they are looking for. Q: Finally, is there anything that you want the customers out there to know, or you want me to know? Any particular points that we haven’t covered already? KJELL: What we’re doing now is all about the convergence, like we said, of land-based, mobile, online. And also, we’re not looking to follow. We’re looking to lead. JAQUES: From my side, my selfish focus is U.S.-based. I would say, just continue watching this space. Poker is going to be a competitive market in the U.S., and I think that there will be a limited number of successful B2B companies. We’ve made some splashes already with the signing of Mohegan Sun. If you’re serious about on- line poker in the U.S. and we haven’t spo- ken yet, then we should be speaking. 33 Can mobile and social save online poker ?