Q&A: Edward Ihre, founder of Codeta

On 7 June, Codeta was born – a table games operator with live casino at the forefront of its offering.

The business is focusing on a segment of the industry that is growing fast. According to its research, live casino is worth ?770m in Europe alone and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 18% globally over the next two years.

Codeta founder, Edward Ihre, believes there is an opportunity in the market for a live casino-focused operator and has ambitions to take the leading position of table games online.

EGR spoke with Ihre to learn more about the new business offering and the competition it faces from other operators.

eGaming Review (EGR): What prompted you to launch Codeta?

Edward Ihre (EI): I’ve been in the industry for almost 14 years and have been eager to start my own business. By coincidence, one of the founders of Evolution Gaming Fredrik ?sterberg is a very good friend of mine, so I’ve been following the development of live casino for the past 10 years and through my core business Ihre Consulting, we work with over 140 different gaming companies.

We feel we have a pretty good take on the market and where it is going, which operators are focusing on particular segments of the market as well as the geo market themselves. Fourteen months ago, we felt we had to do something on a global scale and on the back of that we started to do some research into what sort of positions in the marketplace were available to us.

The hunch was that everyone was focusing on slots, regardless of geomarkets, so we felt there might be an opportunity to take the live casino position, potentially the entire table games positioning. Our research found that within online gaming overall, casino is the product that has the biggest growth, and in particular live casino is estimated to have a growth of 44% year-on-year.

After conducting quantitative and qualitative research, as well as player interviews, we felt we had a very strong business case and a major opportunity to really make a difference and be very different from other operators in the market.

EGR: What does Codeta offer?

EI: The ambition of Codeta is to become the global provider of table games, and live casino is obviously a big part of that, as well as RNG games. During our research, we found that when table game players do not sit by the tables and want to unwind, they like to play slots. We have slots as well, purely on the back of the research, but not in order to compete with the slots-focused operators.

EGR: How are you looking to differentiate your offering?

EI: With the current casino operators out there, it feels like everyone tries to differentiate themselves by quantity. The games we’ve chosen are hand-picked, we try to focus on quality rather than quantity.

It also feels like the casino operators are trying to leave it to the consumers to make an informed decision as to what games to play on. But from our research, it’s impossible for consumers to make that decision among over thousands of games to choose from, we want to make that selection for them based on the insight we have gained.

We are looking for the consumers that are seeking the thrill, the chance to show their skill and have the potential to improve as players. All of this is quite the opposite of what current casino operators are looking to do, even less being aware of.

EGR: What markets do you operate in?

EI: We’ve launched in Sweden, Norway and Finland, as well as an international site to see where the traffic is coming from. In September, our plan is to launch in the UK, as well as in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. We’re also looking at the Asian market too, as we know table games and live casino is a core market for them.

EGR: What are your plans for mobile?

EI: The website has been developed on a mobile-first strategy. However you define mobile these days, we feel that mobile is where we will all eventually end up. Also, with us initially launching in the Nordics where mobile is a key device, it would be foolish not to have a mobile-first approach.

EGR: With a number of operators launching live casino products, are you concerned with the competition you face?

EI: I’m glad that the competition is growing and educating the market about live casino is a good thing. The majority of online bettors haven’t tried live casino, and once they explore it, I think they will be pleasantly surprised.

EGR: Is this now the time for live casino to take-off?

EI: I think so. In order to get the experience you want from a live casino, having a 4G or good WiFi connection is important, plus a reliable device with greater display. As we move closer towards that, I think live casino will be able to attract existing casino players and also introduce people who haven’t played before.