Despite the grey winter skies that often overbear the British Isles, there is some light breaking through as the igaming industry prepare for ICE London, the world’s biggest gambling industry trade show.
This is the last year that ICE will take place in London before settling in for a stint in sunny Spain for Barcelona 2025, and for leading provider BetGames, there is the chance to sign off in style.
Ian Catchick, Chief Product and Business Development Officer at BetGames, discusses the company’s plans for ICE, as well as an impressive product showcase and a busy year ahead.
CasinoBeats: ICE London 2024 offers an unrivalled opportunity to present your developments to the industry – what would you highlight to attendees visiting BetGames at the show?
Ian Catchick: Throughout the last year we’ve been extremely busy working on various aspects of our product offering, and as a result, we can’t wait to showcase everything at ICE.
In addition to our classic portfolio of easy-to-follow games, we will present a wider range of curated content and verticals. Everything from RNG and sports-themed games, branded and exclusive content opportunities for partners, to our traditional game show verticals, bringing together an extensive library of content that caters for different player types. We also proudly present our new crash game Skyward, as well as a new classic roulette game.
Alongside the new instalments of content, we are set present our new user interface, which gives bettors two different ways to play our games. There is the option to use a sports-style bet slip which offers the widest range of markets and betting opportunities in a very familiar format for sports bettors. Alternatively, our new Casino View makes it easier to place more common bets far quicker, using chips to play in a traditional casino environment.
This dual approach enhances the overall player experience by providing a seamless gateway between sports experiences and casino gaming.
We’ve also focused a great deal of effort on developing the BetGames proposition. Identity is key as we want to ensure we are the go-to gateway between sports and games. This is supported by metrics like low CPAs and strong LTVs, which back this up for recreational players.
CB: Casino View is a new intuitive interface for your Wheel of Fortune products – will this follow similar efforts to make casino products more appealing to sports betters?
IC: The main message of Casino View is that it prioritises a sleek gaming experience for players. We give customers choice which is important. The expert bettor could prefer a sports view, but for someone that wants a more recreational, fast and intuitive experience they can use Casino View or toggle between the two.
Initially, Casino View will be offered on our Wheel product, which has already gone live and seen some interesting results already. Naturally, we are then progressing with the next game – the popular Dice Duel – and from the start of February, four of our games will integrate Casino View, with the intention to roll out to the rest of our games in the near future.
We deploy, we launch, we optimise, and then look to move on and tackle the next challenge. That’s the model and we have shown great detail and care in crafting the Casino View. This demonstrates our commitment to providing casino players with that quick, slick, seamless gaming experience that we’ve become renowned for.
We looked at market insights and assessed the suitable needs, and after speaking to key partners, combined with our own inhouse knowledge, there was extensive evaluation and review of the player journey which influenced our approach to building a product built on accessibility.
CB: BetGames has a version of the casino classic Roulette in the works – how have you approached such a classic casino staple to ensure there is something new there for players?
IC: BetGames has always been renowned for taking concepts and putting its unique stamp on them. Roulette is a commodity game, and we can’t really change much, but that’s fine as players already love it and as most people know, it has a proven track record of success. Players are loyal to it, so why fix something that isn’t broken?
What we have done is focused our efforts on the presenter experience, making it as compelling as possible. The intention is to mirror the experience players would get in a land-based casino.
We offer the game in five languages, not only reinforcing the need for accessibility but providing a localised product, making a global game localised. This gives the opportunity for partners and operators to create branded versions of the game to give its own bespoke look and feel.
It makes serving a global classic as a local product far easier, helping it become successful in different markets. Reducing the language barrier also improves the experience of our partners in Latin America while making a product that is engaging, entertaining and simple to understand, while being relevant for locals.
CB: Your game library continues to grow – how are you identifying new offerings for partners? Is it led by demand from operators or more from BetGames’ heritage as creators?
IC: Our approach to identifying new offerings is a combination of in-house innovation, close collaboration with partners and a relentless evaluation and understanding of market trends. This has a massive influence on how we develop our roadmaps as when we’re building a new game, we have the flexibility to meet the ever-growing needs of the market.
This approach is perhaps unique, but we consult with a number of our partners throughout the game build process to ensure we build something that has a higher probability of success, demonstrated through some of our recent local launches, which have seen exceptional performance data and seem to be working well.
CB: With Brazil finally opening up what opportunities does this offer BetGames? Will the potential of the huge market influence future product development?
IC: We can’t wait to see some of the development in Brazil, and we firmly believe that not only do we have the right content to support the market, but we’ve also got some products that offer something different to the customer base there.
We focused our player experience for Brazil on providing that seamless gateway between sports and games – methodology seen throughout all our territories. Taking the example of games like Skyward, we’ve gone on to produce its own unique, personalised and branded game for some of our partners in Brazil, alongside our Roulette, where languages cater for a Latin American, Portuguese speaking player base.
Introducing innovative products like Twain Sport T-Kick and T-Basket 24/7, our high-intensity football and basketball-themed games, are some of the ways we plan to capitalise on the potential of such a vast market, by acting as a perfect bridge between sports and gaming.
Our development roadmap includes further enhancements to our gaming portfolio and bonus tools, ensuring we stay ahead in delivering an appealing and tailored gaming experience for the Brazilian audience. We can’t wait to play our part as we think there is a lot we can offer.
