Our back-on-track plan has enabled us to make a quantum leap in product development and to perform much better in the market, says Betsson Operations CEO Jesper Svensson.

What are the challenges and opportunities that the maturity of the iGaming sector brings with it?

I started in the gaming industry back in 2006 and I can indeed confirm that over the past 12 years, I’ve seen a rapid and healthy development when it comes to how the industry has matured overall.

One of the triggers of this maturity is also of the industry’s main challenges at the moment – to stay on top of the changing regulatory frameworks. In the last few years especially, we’ve seen more and more countries wanting to locally regulate their respective markets. Recently, we witnessed a lot of rapid transformations in countries, such as the UK, Italy, Sweden and the US.

As a company, we take compliance extremely seriously and we are usually one step ahead in these things. Today we already have licences in 11 different jurisdictions.

Over the last years, as an industry we have been very good in capitalising on technical developments, like the increased penetration of smart devices, broadband speeds and WiFi availability. As we mature we are providing our customers with a more sophisticated and diverse product than ever before.

For example, in the past six months alone, at Betsson, we’ve significantly improved the loading times of our sites and increased the amount of markets that customers can place bets on during live events (that is, bet in-play) on our mobile sportsbook product.

You have been with Betsson for five years, with the last year as CEO. What have been your highlights and how has the company grown?

It’s been a fantastic journey and in a way I can’t believe it’s already been five years. I remember very well when I joined in 2013 as the managing director for Betsson’s flagship brand, betsson.com. Back then I was new to Betsson and also new to Malta.

Another highlight for me personally was when I was promoted to be the chief commercial officer of the company, and then CEO.

So many things have happened in the past years. The company has grown significantly as we increased our standing in the countries where we were already established and also by expanding onto new markets. We also grew through acquisitions – during my time at Betsson we’ve acquired a number of great brands.

Another milestone I cherish is when we started to roll-out what we call OBG – One Betsson Group – a leading-edge technology platform for all our brands that allows us to build and update sites much more efficiently. This is key for us to better leverage the multi-brand model that Betsson has.

Other highlights include when we signed some great partnerships with various brand ambassadors and sports clubs. A personal favourite for me as an old ice hockey fan, is when we became the first gaming company to sponsor the Swedish Hockey League.

Last February you went through a restructuring exercise. Did this exercise meet your aims and expectations?

I believe it’s important to give context to the whole exercise which we call the back-on-track plan, which we started about a year ago with the intention of improving the company’s performance. Over the past few years, Betsson’s organic growth was lower than we had projected and we were not as efficient as we wanted to be. As a consequence of the new companies we had acquired, we ended up with too many layers and quite a few duplicate positions. We therefore had to review and restructure our operations.

Part of the back-on-track plan was to put acquisitions on hold and dedicate most of our effort and resources in improving our core platforms and develop our products. We also looked at our marketing function and found a new way how to make it much more efficient and cost-effective. This of course led us to an exercise of right-sizing which resulted in having to make a number of people redundant. While this was painful, it was unfortunately inevitable.

Today, Betsson is in a much better position than we were just a year ago. We made a quantum leap when it comes to our product development, essentially in our sportsbook vertical.

We’re also performing much better in the market, even better than anticipated. Between January and September 2018, our revenues increased by 15 per cent while operating income (EBIT) grew by 28 per cent. We also saw our net income increase by 30 per cent. We have made all-time high results in the last quarters which shows that the company is now back on track. This increased revenue growth is a result of the restructure combined with an improved product offering and a more efficient marketing spend.

Does Malta still offer the right infrastructure, work-life balance and HR supply to the iGaming sector?

Betsson was one of the first gaming companies to start operating in Malta, back in 2004. I still think that the island is a great location and Malta has a strong pro-business approach.

Malta is really experiencing an economic boom, so I believe much has to be done from an infrastructure perspective to sustain growth. If not, we risk more traffic, longer waiting lists for schooling and higher real-estate prices. I hope Malta can keep pace with its own economic success and thus be able to sustain growth for more years to come.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been in Malta for five years and I truly enjoy living here. I think the work-life balance is great, and in the last years we’ve also seen an increase in entertaining places, events, arts and restaurants.

From an HR supply, there is a lot of gaming talent on the island however we’re struggling with certain roles, especially the tech-related ones.

Does Malta’s pitch as ‘Blockchain Island’ affect your operations?

Blockchain is the talk of town at the moment so as a company we as well see what this technology could mean for our operations. Malta becoming the blockchain island is likely to affect us, primarily from an employment perspective where competition can increase for certain roles and skills. It’s already somewhat difficult in getting the right talent for tech roles and that is why we had to open new tech offices outside of Malta over the last years.

With regards to HR, what are your main challenges in attracting and retaining talent?

One of the main challenges is indeed the industry’s success on the island and that we’re some 300 odd companies operating and competing for the same talent in the same location. At the same time, Malta being an iGaming hub means that there is a large pool of very talented and experienced people already available on the island. We’re very pleased with our standing at the moment. We’ve seen a big increase in the amount of applications for our open positions – just in October we received more than 3,500 applications.

This year Betsson celebrates its 55th anniversary. How are you celebrating?

It all started in 1963 with slot machines in restaurants which were primarily in southern and central Sweden. Over the past 55 years there were a lot of ups and downs but the important thing is that we’re today one of the top companies within the industry globally. We’re celebrating our 55th anniversary with some of our key stakeholders and strategic partners. We’re also celebrating internally with our Betssonites and one of the initiatives is to give an extra day of leave to everyone globally in December. We truly owe a big thank you to everyone who contributed to our 55 years of success!

What are your short- to long-term plans?

We will continue working according to our back-on-track plan in order to further improve revenue growth and earnings. We want to be the company we should be and can be – for our customers, our investors and our employees. Our ambition is to outgrow the market in a profitable and sustainable way, and continue to be a long-term, leading, online company.

What innovations in the iGaming sector should we expect in 2019?

We are excited about what 2019 will bring. One of the main changes for us is the re-regulation of the Swedish gambling market – where we will finally be able to operate on a level playing field with those who enjoyed a “monopoly” before this change.

We are likely to see more changes in regulations the coming years and that is both a challenge and an opportunity. Furthermore, we can see that data modelling and artificial intelligence is starting to have a positive impact and play a more important role in the industry, for example we use it for our responsible gambling tool that we have developed to pro-actively identify, intervene and minimise gambling-related harm.

Overall, I think the coming 12 months will be very interesting and we are looking forward to what’s to come.