In the second part of a European market deep dive, Relax Gaming’s Regulated Market Program Manager Hanna Johansson and Nadiya Attard, Chief Commercial Officer, analyse the developer’s recent entry into the Greece market.
Both Attard and Johansson discuss the regulatory landscape across Greece, including the limitations on jackpot products, as well as the changing player trends in 2023.
CasinoBeats: So we previously discussed the Spanish and Italian markets. But turning our attention to Greece, this was a new market for Relax Gaming this year. Why has now been the right time to enter? And what did the process involve?
Nadiya Attard: The decision to enter the Greek market was based on several factors, I for one have had my eye on the market for years! First and foremost, the market had recently been regulated, opening up new opportunities for us to operate legally and transparently.
Secondly, Greece had consistently performed well in the past, making it an attractive target for expansion. Given my background in the B2C space, this market has been on my wish list for quite some time.
Our entry was not without its challenges. With the rush of suppliers attempting to enter the market at the same time, Relax had a bottleneck with the ISO certification, which caused some delays. That aside, the process was ultimately successful and definitely worth the wait with all the opportunities that have opened up!
Hanna Johansson: Our new market entry projects goes far beyond preparing our game content and those of our studio partners, it’s also about making sure that we’re fully aligned with the operators in the market that want to take our titles, and Greece was no different.
Naturally, we want to be able to make available all aspects of our fantastic product portfolio, and at the same time, without any delays. To do that, we undergo extensive preparation work in order to hit the ground running upon market entry.
Looking back, this worked really well in Greece, where the certification and approval process of our games was quick. Doing your homework first always pays off – and that’s a key part of our market-growth strategy.
CB: What were the key licensing challenges when entering the Greece market and did Relax need to develop any new games to meet the market specific requirements of Greece?
HJ: With the exception of the ISO certification, Relax Gaming did not encounter any significant challenges with the Greece market entry.
Our B2B license application process went smoothly and with Relax APEX, our front-end framework architecture, and our Client Config API, we have the ability to deliver market-specific product requirements very easily and swiftly. This worked seamlessly for Greece and the work was completed over the course of just a few days.
Noteworthy is that the Greek market has a maximum wager requirement of €20, and a maximum payout limit of €140,000 per game. Although we haven’t developed any games exclusively for this market, we’ve adjusted the maximum bet per game to conform with these requirements.
CB: How do you plan to disrupt the Greek igaming space with Relax Gaming titles? Are there any certain titles you believe will be particularly popular for bettors?
NA: From our knowledge of the Greek market, we know that players are already very familiar with land-based titles and have quickly warmed to slot game mechanics. We will be monitoring our top-performing titles such as Money Train, Money Train 2 and Money Train 3 to see how they are received by players. Of course, we have high hopes for our content and believe they’ll make quite a splash across Greek shores. After all, we offer something truly special!
CB: Are there any additional requirements for aggregation or jackpots that impacted the scope of the Greece market entry?
HJ: Relax Gaming currently works with more than 90 partner game studios, offering access to over 6,400 games through its platform. From an aggregation perspective, to ensure a swift market entry, we prioritized and focused on a selection of 40 games from Relax and its Silver Bullet partners for the market launch.
Nevertheless, we also invited all our Game Server partners and platform-2-platform studios to offer their games via our platform in this market and we have several partners already live or in the pipeline for go live in Greece. In simple terms, we limited the scope of what we could focus on in order for us to be in good standing for go-live on day one; speed-to-market is always a priority for us at Relax.
The regulatory restrictions on global jackpots in Greece has impacted what we can provide in that regard, but we have instead focused on our best performing titles and delivering the best possible player experience. I’m sure with that alone we’ll be able to drive differentiation in the market!
You can read part one here
