Need to know, 18 September: reasons to be cheerful
This week's EIG saw chief execs including Henry Birch, Gigi Levy, Petter Nylander and Norbert Teufelberger in an upbeat mood...
THIS WEEK’S EIG saw chief execs of the world’s top egaming operators in an upbeat mood.
Speaking at the CEO Panel discussion in Copenhagen, Bwin’s Norbert Teufelberger, 888’s Gigi Levy and Unibet’s Petter Nylander all agreed that while regulation is key to future of the online gambling industry, both the EU and US will allow legal, liberalised egaming markets.
Teufelberger said that he “still believes that in the next two to three years we will see more markets opening up” despite last week’s ECJ judgement against Bwin; while Nylander said that “consumers have created the market and governments are just trying to catch up,” and Levy declared that “it is quite clear that regulators will try to catch up and that the [US] market will open.”
Norbert Teufelberger was also upbeat on the prospects of the Asian market opening, adding that “we have a strong brand there due to short sponsorship” and that Bwin’s purchase of MMOG brand UnitedGames on Tuesday was primarily concerned with the Asian market.
Just in case, however, 888 and Partygaming will both pursue B2B strategies as a hedge against local monopolies if emerging regulation is protectionist, Levy and Jim Ryan said, Ryan adding that “anyone who wants to be on this panel in five years time will have to have a B2B offering.”
Together with Nylander and William Hill Online’s Henry Birch, Gigi Levy also predicted that 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.
In the UK, meanwhile, the mood was gloomier, with Betfair having its second ad in two months banned by advertising watchdog the ASA, and one academic unveiling research that he claims proves that problem gaming is ten times more common among those who gamble online.
The study by Mark Griffiths, professor of Gambling Studies at Nottingham Trent University, used data from the most recent British Gambling Prevalence Survey to show that the level of problem gambling among those who had used the internet to gamble was ten times higher than among those who did not. But then as one reader posted angrily “people don’t have gambling problems because they can gamble online, they gamble online because they have gambling problems. Idiot!”
Feel free to join the debate yourself. Perhaps in more moderate tones.
In other news this week: Stan James signed a RightPrice odds tie with Botsphere; Canada’s HeadsUp revealed it is to launch an online TV network; and OnGame signed up as EurosportBET as its latest poker client.
Have the Need to Know delivered free to your inbox every Friday: subscribe here.