GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 8 - April 2009

36 GPWA Times | and directed the online casino project by Group Slot Machines in 2001. In addition to his title as COO, he is also project man- ager for LeCroupier. Czajkowski, meanwhile, has seen first- hand what a visually pleasing online ex- perience can do for a casino. After help- ing SportingBet earn eGaming Review’s “Non-European Sportsbook of the Year” in 2005 and 2006, Czajkowski moved on to PlayersOnly.com, where he developed a live lobby. The end result helped Play- ersOnly get nominated for “Innovation of the Year” in 2007 and was very much like what you see now at Buzzluck – attractive casino hostesses working the room, eas- ing visitors into the site. The major difference, however, is that the come-to-life experience at PlayersOnly ends once you hit the tables. “The only thing we changed at PlayersOnly was that we put a Flash movie at the front of the interface,” says Czajkowski, who left PlayersOnly in 2008 to start eGaming 2.0 and begin the development of Buzzluck. “After that, everything else was all of the standard stuff that you see at every other site. And yet, because that interface was so different from all of the others, we took a site that was moribund and declining and turned it into something that was ex- citing and to this day is very successful. “At Buzzluck we’re starting with that con- cept and we’re taking it to the next level.” Althoughneither LeCroupier nor Buzzluck offers poker, both casinos would be wise at least to imitate in part what PKR has done to flourish as a 3D-based venue. “We knew what we were doing, so [the immediate success] is no accident,” says PKR Technologies Chief Operating Offi- cer Leon Walters, who added that there were plenty of “industry naysayers” as the Banking hard on 3D Casinos “Allowing people . . . to create a unique persona is a hugely powerful loyalty driver. It also looks damn good.” — Leon Walters, COO, PKR Technologies