You are in:
Something for the ladies
A new British Website is rethinking the presentation of online gaming in an effort to attract female players, reports Barnaby Page.
Plus: New Jersey legalisation draws closer
It’s all too easy to think of online gaming as a single, undifferentiated business where an operating licence, plus a platform, plus some marketing spend gets you an automatic money-spinning machine.
But in truth, of course, just as there are niches in the land-based sector, so there are online. And, just as bricks-and-mortar casinos have worked hard in recent years to shed a sleazy, smoky, sexist image that ceased to exist in reality long ago but has remained perpetuated by film and television, one of the most interesting new approaches to the British online market is aimed squarely at female players (although men are welcome too).
The Website, BlushBomb.co.uk, uses the Plus-Five Gaming white-label service – which means most of the technology hassles are sorted, leaving the operator to concentrate on the business – and offers casino games and Bingo. So far, so standard. What’s striking, however, is the way that far more than most online brands, BlushBomb presents gaming as part of a lifestyle.
While the marketing of online gaming generally focuses on monetary benefits such as jackpots and free games, BlushBomb takes a softer approach, proposing gambling as a “me time” pursuit. It also features celebrity news, female-focused articles, and promotions and competitions from well-known brands; players depositing real money can win a spa break; and the operators are hoping that its Facebook and Twitter activity will expand into the creation of its own online community.
Women are hardly a niche market – indeed 46 per cent of Web gamers are female, according to Nielsen research. And many, of course, will continue to frequent the countless sites that aren’t themed in the colour known to designers as Teenybopper Mauve. But BlushBomb’s founder Justina Cruickshank (also a director at the Marmalade online-gaming consultancy) is betting that enough will want a softer and more social gaming environment.
A challenge to DC
New Jersey’s Senate has voted overwhelmingly in favour of allowing Atlantic City casinos to offer online gaming to the state’s residents and international players. Residents of other US states, however, will not be allowed to use the gambling Websites.
The law now has to be passed by the State Assembly and approved by the Governor before it can come into effect, although their ratification is expected.
It will make New Jersey the first state to legalise online gaming for its residents and for foreign gamblers – and the legislation’s creator, Democratic Senator Raymond Lesniak, admits frankly that it represents a challenge to Washington’s foot-dragging on the issue.
“We are going to be raising World Trade Organization issues by taking international gaming in New Jersey and showing how juvenile our federal government’s policy is with regards to gaming,” he was quoted as saying. “It makes no sense. We’re trying to isolate and segregate something people want to do, and we create a mass of restrictions that’s unconstitutional and quite frankly just dumb.”
Only land-based casinos will be allowed to offer online gaming, and the servers must be located within Atlantic City itself, policies likely intended to give the ailing East Coast gambling capital a shot in the arm. Licences are expected to cost $200,000 annually, and there will also be a 15 per cent tax on gross online gaming revenue. Permitted games will include Baccarat, Blackjack, Craps, Pai Gow, Poker, Roulette and slots.
Meanwhile, online operators continue to prepare themselves for legalisation across the US, which it is now assumed will come eventually – if not soon. The French-owned, Malta-based Chiligaming, for example, is to launch an online subscription poker operation next year targeted at the US and the Asia Pacific region. Subscription Poker, where players pay a monthly fee rather than place stakes on individual games, is legal in most states, yet according to the firm less than 15 per cent of the nation’s 60m Poker players have joined a game online.
Just as important for Chiligaming, however, is the foothold that it will gain in terms of both brand recognition and regulator familiarity, an advantage that could pay off handsomely as the American market liberalises.
Interactive tech
International Game Technology (IGT) is creating a new interactive division combining its WagerWorks and Million-2-1 units, an indication of how significant the non-land-based business is becoming to the major casino tech vendors.
Ten-year-old WagerWorks has supplied gaming platforms and content to more than 50 online operators, while Million-2-1 has spent eight years delivering mobile products including slots, table games, SMS games and lotteries, as well as marketing services and platform technology.
Oh yes we are
Bwin and PartyGaming, two of the biggest names in online gaming, have acted to damp down rumours that there are problems with their planned merger, and say it will go ahead in the first quarter of 2011 as scheduled.
