Social digital games of skill are being seen by the Lotteries and Gaming Authority as the natural evolution for Malta from the i-gaming industry – but one of the main operators in Malta believes that this is “naive”.
“Betsson looked at social digital games of skill a year ago and we decided not to go down this route. It is a very exciting sector but it is very different to i-gaming. The tendency is to try to draw parallels between them but once we looked into it, we found that in reality there is very little in common as you are dealing with different customers and different demographics,” Betsson chief executive officer Ulrik Bengtsson said.
“Many other companies have tried but DoubleDown are the only one who actually managed to penetrate both sectors. For us, it is a closed chapter.
“Is it the next step for Malta? I think it is very naive. You cannot just see it as being a natural progression because it requires the same technical skills,” he said.
If not digital games of skill, then what is the future? This is what he described as the “million dollar question”.
“What we need is a new user interface for doing the same old things. Take hailing a taxi as an example. It is absolutely obsolete to think of doing that by going out into the street and waving one down,” he said.
“Everything is now software based and this is where gaming is now. Sports betting is ancient but things have not really evolved beyond moving online.”
The challenge is to make that leap in user interfacing, which will require not just technical know-how but also world class brains who understand customer behaviour, he stressed.
Another option for Malta is to expand to new markets. At the moment, there is considerable buzz about affiliates who channel players to operators but Mr Bengtsson has reservations on this too.
Ulrick Bengtsson, Betsson CEO.“Affiliates need to be paid and there is less and less money to give away in this regulated market,” he said.
He believes the regulatory window in Europe is closing – making markets to the east and west much more interesting, something that the LGA has already identified as worth pursuing.
“We have already seen how hard it is to make inroads into Europe where each country has its own history and policy. It will be very challenging for Malta to achieve elsewhere what it found so much resistance to in the EU,” he said.
Betsson is constantly assessing its own options and recently decided to move Sportsbook development to Malta from Manila.
“When we started Sportbook in 2005, it was very labour intensive so we decided to go for a low-cost option.
“We had over 100 people working in Manila at one point, now down to 65.
What we need is a new user interface for doing the same old things
“But we realised that we needed particular skills for the next generation Sportsbook brand and we also needed to be closer to our customers – not only culturally but also geographically as the time zone difference was a problem. We considered Stockholm, Kiev and London but eventually decided to bring that business to Malta,” he said.
The company plans to close down its operations in Manila by the end of the second quarter 2015, creating around 40-50 jobs here in Malta.
The biggest challenge will be finding the right skills.
“As it stood, around a third of our employees in Malta were Maltese but we are seeing that ratio decline because we cannot find the right skills. We are even taking people straight from schools but that is not enough. At the moment, things are too focused on ‘gaming’ rather than on technology. We need levels of software development that were not needed before. We are seeing a lag in new competencies. It is important for people to understand the career options on offer.”
This complaint has been repeated many times: Shouldn’t Betsson start to put its money where its mouth is?
“You are right. Perhaps instead of lamenting that there is a lack of skills, we should be part of the solution,” he admitted.
The obvious solution would be more collaboration with the educational institutes and Mr Bengtsson admitted that Betsson was already talking to the Eduction Ministry about the feasibility of a setting up an academy through some sort of alliance.
“It is worth exploring. Now we need to instil a sense of urgency.”