Media to be central in future of egaming, top CEOs agree
Media companies will play a crucial role in the future of the online gambling sector but are unlikely to pose a major threat to established operators, chief executives including William Hill Online's Henry Birch, Unibet's Petter Nylander and 888's Gigi Levy agreed this week.
MEDIA COMPANIES will play a crucial role in the future of the online gambling sector but are unlikely to pose a major threat to established operators, chief executives including William Hill Online’s Henry Birch, Unibet’s Petter Nylander and 888’s Gigi Levy agreed this week.
The chief executives were speaking on the CEO panel of the European iGaming Congress and Expo (EIG) on Wednesday, on which the future roles of media companies in egaming featured prominently after many operators signed partnerships with leading media houses in soon-to-regulated markets such as France. The topic also featured prominently in this year’s eGaming Review Power 50 of leading operators published on Monday.
888 chief executive Gigi Levy, who also emphasised the importance of business-to-business deals (B2B) for operators, said that regulation and the subsequent entry of major publishing and broadcasting companies into the sector will present an “opportunity/threat” scenario as operators seek to acquire B2B deals.
Levy said: “More media partners will come on board as they see the potential revenues egaming can generate, especially as they have seen falling advertising revenues. They have big brands with major reach and could easily market their online gaming verticals as [to do so] would represent just a fraction of their marketing budgets.”
The possibility of media firms acquiring an egaming firm or entering the space as operators proper was discounted, however, as panel members agreed that punters will remain loyal to established, dedicated operators rather than egaming arms of wider media brands.
William Hill Online chief executive Henry Birch said: “Yahoo and others have tried to offer bets but customers have shown that they gravitate back towards established betting brands that have been in the space longer. In addition, media companies are not going to come in with takeover offers for operators – they are not betting companies and betting is not their core business.”
Unibet chief executive Petter Nylander, who joined Unibet from the OMD media strategy firm he co-founded and who has worked as the chief executive of two Swedish private TV operators, added: “I worked for a long time in TV and the tensions between the different departments in terms of resource allocation would lead to huge tensions and conflict within broadcasters.”
The integration of betting and gaming components integrated into sports viewing or other entertainment content was a more likely scenario, many on the panel agreed, but would compel operators to continue to shoulder all the risk in terms of sports betting and to pay for the airtime afforded them.
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