With its livestreaming real slot machines, offering an authentic casino experience to online players, awager has lofty aspirations to revolutionize the gaming industry. CEO Roy Greenbaum shares the company’s journey from its origins, the strategic recruitment of top talent and its ambitious plans for 2024.
For those of our readers who are unfamiliar with awager, how would you describe the brand and what it brings to the marketplace?
awager stands at the gateway of the next era of the gaming industry, bridging the traditional excitement of land-based casinos with the comfort of online access. Our award-winning products ensure players can access various physical slot machines and electronic table games (ETGs) from anywhere, anytime, through modular design, real camera views, sound captures, and a cutting-edge interface, creating an exciting gaming experience just like within a casino.
It seems to have been a long journey that led you to where you are currently. Can you share how that unfolded from its beginnings to the awager we know today?
After leaving 888, my business partner and I started a boutique project company that engaged in various igaming projects, ranging from live dealer platforms to RGS, games, and social sports apps. About eight years ago, we came up with an idea for a product that would address the player experience gap between online and land-based. We believe that this product creates a genuinely omni-channel solution that will revolutionize online casinos and want, through a series of proof of concepts in casinos worldwide, to establish our proprietary technological solution.
In 2020, we launched our first product version with Hard Rock in Atlantic City, officially shifting from project-based work to a 100% startup company. Two years later, following our second version release with Loto-Québec, the company was acquired by a leading private equity firm, providing awager with the necessary tools to execute our vision for this product.
How has your ability to attract top talent from leading global igaming companies impacted awager’s development?
When delivering such an innovative product to the biggest brands in the industry in challenging markets like New Jersey, you need to have the best of the best on your team. I have been working very hard to find those individuals who, on the one hand, have proven operational and commercial experience but are also open to learning and exploring new concepts and ideas. As our product is so innovative, our entire team, from developers up to the executive team, all need to be able to ask the right questions and think outside the box. I am very pleased with the outcome. We have a strong, talented, and dedicated team from industry leaders such as DraftKings, 888, Evolution Pragmatic, etc. that works together to realize our vision.
We’re roughly halfway through 2024. How has the first half panned out for awager, and what’s your outlook for the next six months?
The first half of 2024 has been very promising for awager. We have signed agreements with major operators and are on course for our New Jersey launch while also starting to ramp up with smaller but very important operators. By the end of the year, we are set to release the third version of our product, which will be of significantly higher quality. This new version will provide the ultimate product envelope for our technology, allowing players to enjoy a seamless and immersive gaming experience.
In the second half of the year, our roadmap is clear: we will launch our third (and newest) version with three of the four biggest brands in the U.S., introducing our product to hundreds of thousands of new players.
After everything you’ve been through, seeing the new version of your product launch simultaneously with the three largest brands in the U.S. must be exciting, right?
Absolutely. The growth and exposure to hundreds of thousands of players is truly exciting for us. If we’ve learned anything from our journey, it’s the importance of not giving up, continuing to learn, innovating, and listening to our players and partners to deliver maximum value. Our future excites me and all the partners in the way of awager.
And finally, what is awager’s vision for the future of online gaming?
Our vision is to provide an unparalleled gaming experience that combines the excitement of land-based casinos with online convenience. We have commercial teams worldwide working to make our product globally recognized while maintaining our core concept of delivering an authentic land-based casino experience to online players. By continuously innovating and refining our products, we believe we will stand at the gateway of the next era of the gaming industry.
