What first inspired your interest in ICT and, specifically, gaming?

I’ve always nursed a deep interest in innovation, artificial intelligence, big data analysis, search engine technologies and natural language processing. Computer science underpinned all these interests and has been my career choice from an early age.

I started off by competing in the International Olympiad in Informatics way back in 1995, where I had won a bronze medal. I’ve worked in ICT since I was 16, acted as the president of the Malta ICT students association (now known as ICTSA) and read for a PhD in computer science. I’ve been involved in the gaming industry since its very beginning in Malta when the Lotteries and Gaming Authority was initially set up over 10 years ago.

Online gaming uses various elements from traditional computing and statistics, but with an added element of fun. Online gaming, especially real-money gaming, is also ripe for disruption. The online gaming industry relies on a small number of platform providers, which provide the essential software for online casinos to run and manage their business. The vast majority of platforms are built and engulfed in legacy technology, with very little in the way of innovation. This, together with the growing dissatisfaction from various operators with existing platform providers, sparked my interest to use the platform itself as a source of competitive advantage.

What convinced you to invest in the gaming industry?

The potential in the gaming industry is monumental, with overall estimates of the industry exceeding €23bn according to Juniper Research. The value of the online gaming industry is growing year on year, with average growth rates topping 10 per cent, in some cases even reaching over 60 per cent, according to gaming industry research firm MECN.

While being quite innovative in content creation, the online gaming industry has been in need of an innovative injection in core operational platforms. For many years operators had been engaged, dependent and fundamentally held back by older technology that was difficult to update and that was not designed with modern operations in mind.

In 2010, we decided to do something about this and I invested in Bit8 along with my business partners. Initially I asked for input from over 50 different country and product managers working in the industry, who were all enthusiastic about our ideas, and I founded Bit8 together with Keith Galea and Brian Fenech.

Recently, I’ve been awarded the Top IT Entrepreneur of the Year 2014 at the Malta Economic Update Top Entrepreneur awards held last May. The Bit8 investment contributed significantly towards this recognition.

You commenced operations in 2010 and in just four years, are considered among the best in the gaming industry. What has fuelled your growth?

There are multiple reasons for our growth, with our main product, the Bit8 Platform, being the main one. Our team are all professionals with years of experience in the gaming, financial, software development, and other ancillary industries. We have distilled the best practices and adapted artificial intelligence and other elements typically associated with investment banking and trading desks, to make sure we have the most innovative, intelligent, profit maximising and highly-modular platform in our space.

Bit8 has attracted a growing number of operators using its platform and modules, including five of the top 50 casinos in the world as clients, one of which is in the top 10 global casinos. We have also recently concluded technology licensing deals with some of the largest casino suppliers in the world.

Our sales have been doubling every two months since 2013, with strong growth in the European market. Bit8 has started making inroads in the US market and has successfully closed its first external round of investment in 2013, getting a venture capital investment injection needed for our marketing and sales expansion.

Bit8 has been attracting intense interest in trade events. We held over 70 meetings at ICE 2014 in London and had one of the highest footfalls during EIG 2013 in Barcelona. This interest is steadily being converted into closed sales.

Earlier this year, Bit8 was nominated in the top category as Innovator of the Year at the IGA Awards. What are your plans to sustain your standing?

Competing with the top brass of our industry with much deeper pockets than us, reinforces our vision. Recently, we were also nominated for Platform of the Year and Software Rising Star at the eGR B2B Awards to be held this month in London.

Sustaining a standing is frequently harder than gaining entry into it, and for this reason we are in recruitment mode. If you are an engineer with a passion for developing and testing innovative, disruptive products, consider joining our winning team.

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