Inside Asian Gaming

May 2012 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 91 ONEworks game, they’re not betting quite as tightly. As a result, operators’ margins are better when customers are betting by mobile device. Why are they betting more often? It’s probably because they are betting more‘in running’. So if you’re sitting at the bar wanting to have a bet, and watching a game in-running with your friends, it’s easy to bet by phone. It wouldn’t be easy to pull out a laptop to do that. And the days of ‘phoning your bookie have pretty much gone. Lots of small bets is good for the operators. And big bets can ruin the fun [in terms of the liquidity of the operators and bet pricing for the other transactions]. We make it very simple to bet.We have pre-sized bets offered so that players are not going to bet too big without specifically typing something in to the handset. We think that’s an important safeguard for the players. Although our heritage is Asian, developing European markets is an important aspect of our development. ONEworks was the first sports betting company to get what’s called an Isle of Man network licence [allowing platform providers to work with sub-operator betting companies on either a business-to-business or business-to-consumer basis]. So we’ve set up our own hardware hub in the Isle of Man to replicate what we do in Asia. Why do operators prefer to sign up customers via their traditional websites rather than a mobile handset app? There are issues with customers signing up via a mobile device or depositing funds via a mobile device. The process is a little more complicated. I mean complicated technically, not in regulatory terms. When you’re depositing money or using a credit card, or a bank wire or one of the payment processingmechanisms, there’s usually quite a complicated multi-step process. While you can do that on a phone—just like you can on a home computer or laptop—sometimes the screen real estate is a bit complicated. So I think the operators’ view at the moment is ‘Let’s just make sure we sign up the customer on our traditional site where it’s as easy as possible for them’. Then the minute they’ve signed up they can use PC or mobile. “When customers bet by mobile device while they’re watching a game, they’re not betting quite as tightly. As a result operators’ margins are better.” With the European operators where the payment processing is a bit more standardised, the operators are asking if we can build the sign up process into the app. So we have to take their [computer] sign up process and convert it into a mobile process. ONEworks doesn’t provide the electronic wallet side of the mobile betting business. We’re always integrating our sports book product with the operators’ wallet mechanisms. Are Asian betting operators using ONEworks to expand their business in Europe? A couple of our Asian operators are alreadyquitewell-establishedinEuropeand have an Isle of Man licence or an Alderney licence. A lot of Asian operators—in order to reach their Asian customers—have been sponsoring European soccer teams in terms of shirt sponsorship or stadium advertising. Through that they have also got a customer following in Europe. They’re doing reasonably well in Europe and their product is very price-competitive because Asian pricing is generally finer in terms of operator margins than European operators’ pricing. Is the ONEworks platform more focused on serving Asian-style betting products than European ones? Probably what we lack at the moment is the full range of types of sports bets that are common in Europe. In soccer, for example, everyone likes tohave these thousandsof bet variations. They don’t actually make you—as an operator—any money. The number of bets placed on these things is tiny. But operators like to say they have a full range of bets. We’re looking at ways of offering that in partnership with a few other people. I don’t think they’re necessarily going to be popular products in Asia, which in bet volume terms is obviously a powerhouse. But we might look at doing some joint ventures with people that bring us that pricing in. We work in Asia with an affiliated company that has a team of traders that trades these events and prices. So if there’s enough demand fromour licensees we will go back to them and say ‘Can you put some traders on to trade these markets?’ A lot of those products—such as the [soccer] corners market—are algorithm- driven off other events in a game. TomHallisrecognisedasoneoftheworld’s leading experts on interactive gaming. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and investor forums and has been actively involved in gaming since 2002. Mr Hall was the founder in 2002 of AsianLogic—one of the pioneers of online gaming and betting in Asia. He remains as non-executive Chairman of what is one the largest and most established operators in the region. In parallel to AsianLogic, Mr Hall was instrumental in the development of Playtech, the world’s largest supplier of software for online betting. He joined the Playtech board in 2002. He subsequently became the CEO, with responsibility for overseeing global customer growth. He then swapped over to Global Business Development Director shortly before Playtech’s 2006 flotation on the London Stock Exchange. He remained as a Playtech director until 2010. That year he joined ONEworks™ —one of the world’s largest sports betting platform providers—as Business Development Director. Tom Hall