What secrets lie within the ever-evolving world of iGaming and online poker? Unlocking the full potential of this dynamic industry requires a deep understanding of the latest trends, strategies, and innovations, and online poker holds the keys to the future of iGaming.
For operators, streamlining operations, enhanced customer experiences, mixed with your competitive edge is what sets your business apart. However, online poker is currently the most powerful tool in attracting new players to your platform. Tune in to find out why poker is so alluring to players, and how to utilise it as a catalyst for your business.
0:00 Specific markets see online poker decline.
0:48 Who are the main markets of online poker?
5:41 How poker players shift to other gambling sectors.
7:05 The growth of online poker.
9:47 Cross-selling to boost revenue.
13:04 How to tap into new markets in iGaming.
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Welcome to “15 Minute Mastery,” the ultimate show for iGaming professionals, hosted by industry veteran Dmitry Belianin. With over 17 years of experience, Dmitry brings unparalleled insights and wisdom from top industry experts in just 15 minutes. Each episode delivers actionable strategies from all iGaming verticals to improve your personal and business performance. As the founder of Belianin, Dmitry also shares his expertise in nurturing high-potential iGaming startups. Subscribe to “15 Minute Mastery” for concise, high-value content and stay ahead in the competitive world of iGaming.
What's interesting about poker is the only game among big gambling verticals that is skill-based. In poker, it's essential to have skills to win. People are excited about poker because it offers them learning curve. You're listening to 15-minute mastering, a show that empowers you with insights from leading iGaming experts to enhance your personal or business performance. The show is brought to you by the ei-powered data analytics platform Blask and supported by Ted Given Affiliate and Media Company already media. Voila starts the leading casino partnership program and next.io, the world's iGaming community. Hey guys, everyone and please welcome to 15-minute mastery. In today's episode, we've got Mitri Stars-Tankov, who is the CEO at Evenbad Gaming, which is the leading poker platform provider. Hey Dima, how's it going? Hi Dima, it's going fine, thank you for the invitation. It's a great day to talk about industry. As many know, you're one of the world's leading experts in online poker and it's been one of the biggest passions in my life and this is what led me into the world of online gambling many, many years back and for many, right now, online poker is a bit of a sacred industry, something which has been on the paragon of online gambling, part of my many years back, now seem to be declining, right? And there is a common saying that the online poker is declining. So what are your thoughts on this perception and is there any evidence of support or to refuse that claim? Sometimes people live inside bubbles so they see what's happening only around them and they can't see what happens across the ocean or even in the neighbor country. What I'm saying is that it really depends on specific region and market. So let's say Europe, it's a saturated market, there's no growth for poker for sure, but at the same time, for example, we jump to the US, it's the motherland of poker from one side, but still it's just opening now for regulation and licensing and definitely it will experience growth in the US along the regulation coming and so forth, then we go to Latin America. Still players, there are way a major for poker, they are just playing Texas Holdam, they are just learning how to play Omaha and Omaha 5 card games and all other variations and it's still for them, like it's a new game. The same happens in Asia, so growing markets, many more players in India and so forth, Africa absolutely untouched territory, so there is no poker because it's the emerging market. So really it depends on specific time and market situation. What's interesting about poker, it's the only game among big gambling verticals like sports betting and casino that is skill-based. All other verticals, you know, like, okay, sports betting, there are some skills required, but in poker, it's essential to play, to have skills to win, right? And it creates, it's kind of virtual poker and also the same time stigma of poker, it's a learning curve. People are excited about poker because it offers them learning curve. They start as a novice, they make first steps, they got some challenge to understand how they can win, they go learn some more, try to play, to use the techniques and so forth. So they grow up, this makes, creates additional excitement for poker. But at the same time, when this learning curve has some final point, so when players reach this final point, for some reason, when they are stuck at some level, people who consider poker as a challenge, they get bored and they leave poker because they are not more interested, there is no growth for them. But please don't forget about casual players, there are still some casual players in this game. Let's see to CIS market. As we heard from operators, from biggest operators in this market, there is no change for the last 10 years in this market. It's not declined, it's almost on the same level. So there is enough amount of players who play this game casually. So let's say there is no simple answer to this question. You actually touched two very interesting topics I want to ask to dig a little bit deeper. So the first one you mentioned, the size of the industry and the dynamics of online poker industry is really tied to the market maturity and the market situation. So you mentioned like Latin America is one situation, Europe is the other one. And I think it's similar to the online sports bet and online casino. So what do you think are like the top markets for online poker right now? If you can mention maybe like three to five countries or something, and why you think these markets are particularly strong for online poker. So if you talk about existing markets, still Europe CIS countries are very strong poker markets. And maybe there is some kind of decline or plateau at these markets, but still they are making money and still people play poker. If we talk about strong emerging markets or promising markets, number one for me, it's the United States, because yeah, there are so many poker players, it's kind of, it's a game integrated into their culture and people love to play poker. It's actually great to hear that it's still an emerging market. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, you know, like countries that like invented poker itself, like still an emerging market for this game, that it's just because of the regulations happened in the past, you know. So very promising markets, you know, regulated markets, plus, you know, sweepstakes models opening there now, so and so forth. So for online, I think it's, it's an emerging market with great potential. Then Brazil, you know, KCP now like the second biggest series in the world for poker after WSP plus they also have been one B, SOP series in Brazil. And every time, every time, every new event, they break, they have break records, beating the periods with about number of players, now guarantees and so forth. So they are growing. And India, yeah, very promising market, I would say like penetration of poker there, it's very low, but you know, one of 1.5 billion people. So there's some big potential to grow. I would say these regions plus Asia, the whole Asia like Southeast Asia and maybe, maybe in the future in five, 10 to 10 years, it would be difficult. Another thing which you mentioned in your first kind of answer was the user behavior. And I think this is very important here because, you know, like the iGaming industry is like traditionally, you know, online sports betting, online casino. And a lot of like user behavioral patterns are, you know, mostly tied to these two when you think about, you know, online gambling and product design and UX and whatsoever. But there is one really strong behavior loop where, you know, the players, they start playing online poker and then they, you know, migrate to other niches. And obviously, there is a big intersection between the sports betting and online gambling. So what you think is like the usual percentage of the poker plays that transitioning from like online poker to sports betting on an online casino. And what kind of factors could contribute to that migration? The point is, I would say it's between 25 and 50% conversion rate. Poker should be considered as a acquisition tool for other verticals, for sports betting and casino. So poker can facilitate to acquire players. And then operators can cross-sell to other verticals in order to increase ARPU from players and LTV. So like, it's kind of normal way of thinking to consider poker as acquisition tool and casino games as a retention tool, as a cash cow, money generator. And think number two is like, it really depends on operator, how they do this cross-selling, how they offer casino games and sports betting bets into poker, how they integrate these offers into gameplay of poker, how they play. For instance, you know, GGs, they have these interesting games when players can win additionally additional multiplier by making bets on outcomes of European Championship matches and so forth. So like, you can start from 25% and easily increase up to 50% by making it more proactively, naturally, not only sending them emails with free bets and free spins, but giving some kind of incentives, for example, play these free roles or tournaments and get free spins as a reward and so forth. So like, and I know many operators, they exploit this model when they acquire by poker and then they migrate cross-sell players to casino games. And kind of, well, interesting thing about India, you know, like in an open international market, as I mentioned, poker is a acquisition tool and casino games are a money generator. In India, since gambling, casino games are prohibited, I mean, like official market, poker acts as a money generator. So typically, in the Indian markets, operators, they acquire by casual games, by fantasy, daily fantasy sports, and other games. And then they cross-sell players to poker or army, to increase LTV and RPU. So it depends on on markets. Nice. I think it's really insightful. And one question here, like, do you think like when player goes to online casino and sports betting, it actually cannibalizes his, like, revenue in online poker, or it just adds on top of his, like, user value in online poker from your experience? From my experience, if it's organized in a proper way, it works as a synergy. So like, operators can give additional bonuses and money to players through free roles, tournaments, jackpots in poker. And then for 80, 90% of the cases, players spend this money in casino games and sports betting. So there is no cannibalization, in my opinion, really, if it's organized in the right way as an ecosystem, they work together in synergies, they are complementary to each other. I think this is a really good insight for many operators who doesn't have, like, online poker integrated in their existing platforms, that it's not only the acquisition tool, but at the same time, it's a really nice way on how to increase the revenue per user, because I think, you know, our industry is very focused on acquiring users, but at the same time, not making sure that they retained well enough, not making sure that they extract more value out of the user in their platform as they could. So I think online poker, like, as you mentioned, could be the breach, you know, between the retention and the increased average revenue per user. So I think this is a really cool insight, and this is very helpful. So I think one last question from my end here is, like, the size of the industry so far. So you mentioned that, you know, there are some markets where the industry is really growing. It's really cool. I was the fan of poker. I'm, you know, this is music to my ears when I hear such a thing, but, you know, if you can compare, like, the size of, like, online poker with the size of, you know, the sports betting or online gaming, what will be the, you know, the size difference between these two. In revenue size terms, terms, I think poker is just 5% of the total market. And it's clear when you read reports of multi multivoltical operators, and you see how much they generate by poker. But, you know, like, it really depends, again, on market in India, since sports betting and online gambling on casino games is prohibited. Poker generates about 100% of revenue, because it's only right now, game plus Rami, but Rami is, like, kind of similar stuff that allows operators to generate money from real, for real money operation. But let's say I anticipate that in in the US, again, the distribution between poker sports betting and casino will be different, so poker will take bigger parts of the industry than in other markets right now. Let's say some newly opened markets, like in Southeast Asia, when you first introduce poker there, for the first few years, they tend to demonstrate that in poker they can generate much higher numbers, like even 20, 30% of the market, maybe 50% of the market. But then, you know, since eventually casino games are much more massive in terms of how much money you play as generate per hour, playing casino games. Eventually, it goes down as long as casino games become to be more popular. This conversation has been a pure gem from the value perspective, because you shared so many real cool insights about the industry, about the markets, about the cross-sell techniques. I think a lot of people, especially operators, will find it useful. So thank you so much for this conversation. I really enjoyed it and let's keep in touch. Thank you. Thank you for the great conversation and see you. [BLANK_AUDIO]
