Shooting for success in the biggest regulated gaming markets such as Italy will be a key priority for BGaming in 2021, said the firm’s head of sales Claudio Stagno.
The casino games provider, explained Stagno, has focused efforts this year on becoming “more accessible” to major operators by integrating its content with various leading platform providers and aggregators.
For example, we learned last month that it was exploring new market opportunities in Latin America (LatAm) together with Salsa Technology, while also integrating with others including EveryMatrix, BetConstruct, SoftGamings and iSoftBet.
Stagno added: “This [integration push] is something we will continue focusing on in the new year while also targeting more regulated markets like Italy and Denmark. We are hoping to receive our Malta Gaming Authority licence by the end of January.”
Despite the increased prevalence of country-specific regulations, the MGA licence is still an important gateway to some of the biggest gaming markets, and particularly on the supplier side while B2B licensing is limited to the likes of Romania, the UK and recently Greece.
A list of the biggest – and fastest-moving – gaming markets certainly includes Italy, where online casino revenues have passed €1bn for the first 11 months of this year. For context, this matches the numbers for the country’s entire online gaming market from 2016.
Stagno admitted that the online casino industry was somewhat spared when it came to weathering the COVID storm as more time spent at home meant a “great opportunity to retain existing players and attract a wider audience”.
However, he stressed that slot providers must now devote more time to presenting the wider “entertainment value” of the games, rather than just pushing new features and chances to win, noting a big change in how casino games compete for the “entertainment time” of the player.
Closing a breakthrough 2020 for BGaming, a company only born out of the SoftSwiss software group in 2018, Stagno called on readers to look out for the launch of its first branded online slot ‘Ring of Riches’, developed with the World Boxing Council.
