In the fast lane: how pay and play is taking off in Northern Europe

A streamlined and efficient playing experience is one of the many reasons why there has been a plethora of new pay and play brands entering the industry over the last few months. While Betsson has launched pay and play brands in Sweden and Estonia this year, other operators such as Casumo, Kindred and MaxEnt have all dipped their toes in the market for the first time over the last few months. So, what is driving this growing trend, particularly in the Nordic and Baltic regions? Even outside of egaming, a certain level of user experience is expected by customers from everyday apps and websites, says Kim Ekelund, Betsson Group’s head of marketing for Sweden. “When we look at what ‘good’ looks like, we look beyond the industry – we benchmark our registration/payment/account pages versus the best e-commerce companies in the world. “With pay and play brands, both registration and deposit happen at the same time and are a simultaneous process, which is a clear upgrade as it leaves more time to bet and play instead of a long and sometimes tedious registration process,” he adds. Betsson Group launched its Jalla Casino brand, which uses Trustly, Swish and BankID, in Sweden in March this year and SuperCasino in Estonia in August, with its main objective being to broaden Betsson’s brand portfolio to meet the demand in this segment. In Sweden alone, pay and play accounts for an estimated 22% of the online gaming market, according to data from the Swedish Tax Agency.

Casumo’s VP of growth, Andrew Borg Manduca, believes the model has been so popular in the Nordics due to the high adoption of authentication by BankID. “BankID integrations, like Trustly, have been available for years and are used for all types of authentications – from governmental website logins to online payments. The population trusts the method and actually prefers the method,” he explains. On the players’ end, the main attraction of a pay and play brand is clear: they are clean, functional easy-to-use casinos, which focus on speed, with the underlying benefit being that there is no player verification on the casino’s side, meaning winnings are instantly accessible. That said, there is a pay-off. Given the omission of risk-associated checks, casinos are less likely to be so liberal with bonuses due to the possibility of bonus abuse occurring with bonus funds. MaxEnt’s head of product, Ion Minca, tells EGR that were he in the position of having the choice as a player, his preference would be clear. “To me, the benefit of having instant access to my winnings outweighs the benefit of playing with bonus funds. In the end, it comes down to personal preference, but I see the pull of instant transactions and pre-done verification as one that cannot be ignored. For this reason, I’d play on pay and play casinos over traditional casinos if they were offered in my country.” Malta-licensed casino operator MaxEnt launched its first-ever Pay N Play (Trustly’s trademarked product) GoSlotty casino brand in January this year. Following its withdrawal from the UK market, MaxEnt was looking for new ways to expand into other markets such as Germany and Scandinavia, while expanding on its operations without stretching its workforce or the need to add to it. The firm found that a Pay N Play blueprint checked all the necessary boxes to allow it to scale without cutting into the bottom line. After attending events last year like ICE and SIGMA, MaxEnt decided to pursue expanding its product offering into the pay and play market, Minca explains. “With how the gambling industry is evolving, the natural progression would be one toward speed as the main contributor to player experience, and we feel that the progression to a no-registration concept with instant withdrawals would be the natural way for things to progress.” As more and more customers in the Nordics expect no registration, instant transactions and minimal waiting times, it was the right move for MaxEnt to enter the pay and play fray. So much so, its data shows that Finnish players, for example, who held accounts at both GoSlotty and MaxEnt’s sister casino, Slotty Vegas, were viewed to migrate their gameplay exclusively to GoSlotty casino. The reason for this was GoSlotty’s advantages over traditional online casinos which, while feature-rich, do not benefit from Pay N Play’s casinos’ time-saving functionalities. For Casumo, launching its first Pay N Play brand was a chance to diversify the gaming experience for players. Kazoom Casino, powered by GiG and supported by Trustly, launched in September as a “key building block” in the brand’s roadmap. “With Pay N Play seeing strong adoption across the Nordic markets these past years – giving players a greater sense of ease and security in the onboarding, deposit and withdrawal process – the method was a clear requirement for us to bring a highly relevant and competitive brand to market,” says Borg Manduca. On the operator’s side, the advantages of shifting to a Pay N Play model are noteworthy, according to Minca. “As costs rise and margins shrink in this business, operators are always on the lookout for ways to contribute towards the bottom line. In the Pay N Play model, much of the behind-the-scenes workload of traditional casinos is done away with. Player verification is already pre-handled by the bank while withdrawals are processed automatically. This alleviates a workload which traditionally falls on the risk and payments team. “We managed to scale our operations with the launch of this new brand without needing to grow our workforce. We seamlessly managed to scale our operations without piling on overheads and that can only be a good thing,” he says.

Facing challenges head-on

Of course, setting up a new brand is not without its challenges. Launching a new Pay N Play brand alongside MaxEnt’s traditional casino brands like Slotty Vegas was venturing into new ground for its development team. The operator’s back-office system was not built with such a concept in mind, so much rethinking and adapting was needed. “We had to communicate with Trustly continuously to adapt the platform to the new flows and processes that are inherent in the Pay N Play concept. These changes would need to be addressed, documented, developed and integrated, and they run across all aspects of the user journey,” Minca remarks. GoSlotty, which is powered by Trustly, is primarily focused in Germany and Finland, although plans to expand the brand into new jurisdictions are in an advanced stage. Estonia and Denmark are on the cards and the operator expects further progression into these markets shortly. For Betsson’s SuperCasino brand, an added hurdle was launching a new brand in a country where casino advertising is prohibited. “Customers in Estonia are already aware of pay and play brands and how they work. Our challenge was to launch a casino brand without advertising. Our goal was to create a brand that stands out, is easily recognisable and casino-oriented. We managed that through the unique branding of SuperCasino.ee,” explains Martin Varrand, Betsson Group’s head of marketing for the Baltics.

Grabbing attention

As the pay and play sector becomes more crowded, standing out from the competition by offering unique features is the key to success. For Varrand, SuperCasino’s USP is to be an entertaining platform and to provide the best customer experience in the market. “We have fun and engaging campaigns, offer sportsbook and live betting products, and we are utilising Betsson’s strength to partner with unique and exclusive game providers and launch new games to our market through SuperCasino.ee,” he explains. In Estonia, which has a population of 1.3 million people and around 20 licensed operators, launching a new brand to the market and making it eye-catching was a tough challenge, explains Varrand. “We positioned SuperCasino.ee as a fun brand that stands out in all types of communications by driving happiness. When done correctly, online gaming can be really entertaining and that’s exactly how we’re trying to position the brand in Estonia.” As for differentiating factors, Minca believes GoSlotty has more than its fair share. “While the layout is clean and functional, GoSlotty isn’t short of awesome features on top of the Pay N Play benefits for players to take advantage of. There’s daily and weekly tournaments with rolling rewards and features such as the Wheel of Fortune with instant boosts to enjoy the over 40 and growing game providers on our portfolio.” Another new feature is the GoClub loyalty programme, which is currently in development and due to launch in November or December. “With GoClub we will be able to reward players with weekly cashback based on their gameplay. It’s simple, it’s practical and, fundamentally, real funds cashback is a tangible reward that players truly appreciate. We want to keep players engaged because in today’s world it really is a battle for screen time.” Casumo believes with Kazoom Casino it has built a brand that “conveys the energy and positivity of play while removing anything unnecessary from the product”. Going forward, the online casino operator is hoping to launch the brand in additional markets under the MGA licence as well as considering locally regulated markets such as Sweden.

Safe play

On the responsible gaming side, MaxEnt has also rolled out its source of funds threshold from Slotty Vegas to GoSlotty. Trustly does not collect any extra information besides what is required for the registration and therefore it needs to be completed on the operator’s side. Due to the speed and ease of access that pay and play products offer, responsible gambling needs to be front and centre with effective monitoring in place. Casumo’s VP of growth says it has to be holistic in its approach and look at the overall gaming activity, while ensuing the platform can quickly identify players that may be showing signs of gambling-related harm. For Betsson Group’s Jalla Casino and SuperCasino.ee sites, both offer the same responsible gambling processes and features as the operator’s other brands. Players can set multiple limits, self-exclude and also take a self-assessment test. For those operating in Sweden, an added challenge has been the strict deposit and bonus limits imposed since 2 July. The restrictions for online casinos include a SEK5,000 (£428) deposit limit, alongside a bonus cap of SEK100 (£9) and time limits until the end of 2020. A former adviser to the Nordic regulators tells EGR that there could be a responsible gambling issue relating to deposit limits in certain jurisdictions and even more so where deposit limits are capped like in Sweden. “As the money goes in and out of the player account, it actually counts against the deposit limit – the operator doesn’t get to account for all the withdrawals so customers can reach their limit pretty quickly,” he points out. When asked about the responsible gambling issue in Sweden due to the deposit limits, Minca tells EGR: “While we do not operate in Sweden at this time, I can see that the current interpretation may raise some friction between operators and the regulator. What I can definitely say is that the right balance needs to be achieved between player protection and feasibility. “We need operators and regulators to work hand in hand with the player’s safety as the ultimate goal, through the implementation of well thought through requirements which protect genuinely vulnerable players,” he adds. On the other hand, for Jalla Casino Ekelund doesn’t see this as an issue as the withdrawal process is similar to its other brands in Sweden. However, he argues that the biggest concern is that deposit limits have a negative effect on channelisation in Sweden. While the rise of pay and play brands shows no sign of abating, what is fairly clear is that regulatory and responsible gambling requirements need to be a top priority in order to keep players safe and to keep them coming back for more. It looks like the need for speed will not lose its appeal anytime soon.