SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Ahead of next week’s Betting on Sports Europe Conference (7-9 June @ Twickenham Stadium) – SBC catches up with Thomas Smallwood, Marketing Manager of ESA Gaming, a specialist supplier of seamless easy-access online casino games.
ESA Gaming has developed its games portfolio to ensure that operators benefit from optimal cross-sell opportunities with wider audiences, which it believes will be a determining factor for World Cup 2022 success…
SBC: What makes Betting on Sports Europe stand out as event?
Thomas Smallwood (Marketing Manager @ ESA Gaming)It is the premier event for the sports betting side of the business and to put our unique content in front of such an audience of industry professionals is very valuable. It enables our games to hit home with the key decision-makers and visionaries looking to add revenue and increase loyalty amongst their players.
SBC: How are you preparing for the upcoming World Cup?
TS: As well as continuing to develop alternative lightweight games designed for sports bettors, we are launching a suite of Promotional Tools to help operators cross-sell at lower cost, to new and existing audiences. Our EasySwipe™ games are proven to boost revenue and boost loyalty, without disrupting the sports betting experience – now our Money Drops and Tournaments will make cross-selling even simpler.
SBC: What industry innovation will capture the most attention in the next 12 months?
TS: Broadly speaking, I think alternative and curated content is the key and this is why we are developing new games which have specific audiences in mind, rather than more generic, graphic-intensive slots for example. However this innovation has to go hand in hand with the tools to enable operators to promote it, therefore an eye for the whole player experience and changing audience tastes are crucial to capturing people’s attention.
SBC: What core challenges do you help solve for your customers/partners?
TS: Cross-selling is a big thing that we have greatly simplified. Our games are proven to do so at lower cost as well as helping to increase loyalty and consequently add sports betting revenue. But this is only one aspect – tastes are changing and players from different generations are looking for alternatives. Our EasySwipe™ games provide a new vertical – mobile-first games that balance innovation and trusted themes to resonate with new audiences as well as old. Our production pipeline for 2022/23 is packed with new lightweight titles with simple and engaging gameplay from our immensely popular sports-themed Mine Games to a suite of new Crash Games.
SBC: Who have you especially enjoyed working with over the past year (partner/client)?
TS: This is a tricky one! We are a relatively small company and the last eighteen months have seen rapid growth. We signed many agreements which has challenged us internally, we are licensed and certified in many major markets and each partner and indeed each market has its own idiosyncrasies. It would be remiss of me not to turn this question around a bit and say; Our Team. We have faced a huge volume of work, certifying, licensing, growing sustainably, selling our products and implementing healthy working practices and processes. Amongst all of this nobody has lost focus on our core values of wanting to offer the best service and create something genuinely different. It has been a pleasure and an honour to be working with the ESA Gaming team!
SBC: What are you hoping to learn from the conference at Betting on Sports Europe?
TS: I am particularly interested to keep up to speed with how senior sports betting professionals see the sector evolving, and particularly how player acquisition trends will develop in the future, with all the challenges of more highly regulated markets.
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