Following a number of noteworthy developments, including Aristocrat’s recently completed acquisition of Neo Group Ltd (NeoGames) for $29.50 per share, SBC Americas spoke to Aristocrat Interactive’s Content & Aggregation VP of Sales & Business Development Andrew Maclean, a few months post-acquisition to learn about the progress that has been made.
Previously at Pariplay, part of the former NeoGames, he forms part of the Content & Aggregation team at the multi-faceted structure known as Aristocrat Interactive. The five-part construction, officially launched in June of this year, comprises Gaming Systems, iLottery, iGaming & Sports, iGaming White-Label and Content & Aggregation and boasts significant expectations and ambitions.
“The advantages of this merger were clear, and we expect the joining of each of our expertise to strongly propel Aristocrat Interactive’s position as a must-have content supplier to operators across the globe,” Maclean explains.
Aristocrat Interactive represents an enterprise value of approximately $1.2bn and is expected to deliver a number of key opportunities, with a strong focus on marking the North American market as one of the company’s top three performing regions globally.
“The success we had as Pariplay has given us the expertise to continue leading”
Speaking of his time at Pariplay prior to the acquisition, he says: “Pariplay had positioned itself as a veteran in online content distribution. Prior to Aristocrat Interactive, Aristocrat was still fairly new to the igaming space.
“While its Roxor studio, which Aristocrat acquired in 2023, has a long content producing pedigree going back over 20 years, Aristocrat’s igaming business, Anaxi, had been operating for less than two years. Together our combined Content & Aggregation team is poised to provide unmatched knowledge and experiences to customers.”
November 2019 represented one of several landmark moments in the history of the former Pariplay when those all-important first steps were taken to capture a slice of what was widely labeled as the US igaming gold rush.
What was billed as a “breakthrough agreement” alongside 888casino in New Jersey subsequently saw the group elevate its standing via further entries into Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, with a slew of commercial tie-ups following suit.
As efforts across the country become intertwined with an active expansion strategy across the Canadian online casino ecosystem, Maclean elaborated on a mission of fully establishing itself as a major competitor within North America.
“The success we had as Pariplay has given us the expertise to continue leading and providing our operators with the best-in-class content,” he continues.
“The resistance to igaming legislation seems to include more hurdles than that to sports betting”
“Now, with our three in-house content studios (Aristocrat Interactive, Roxor Gaming, and Wizard Games), our Ignite program offering exclusive content, and third-party suppliers, we (Aristocrat Interactive) can offer our operators the widest range of content in the market.”
“We work closely with start-ups, medium-sized studios and well-established suppliers to be able to distribute them across North America. Growing as a team post-acquisition has opened the doors to expand our market growth.”
While acknowledging the team’s recent impressive growth across the aggregation space, Maclean exuded significant confidence when discussing the current year, which he says will deliver a series of fresh partnerships, market entries, and overarching performance.
This comes despite widespread knowledge that igaming legislation is severely lacking behind that of its online sports betting counterpart. As the latter has spread like wildfire across the North American market, the former has been struggling on a legislative basis.
Maclean, who boasts an extensive 20-year history of gaming history at the likes of Bwin, former Pokerstars owner Amaya, NYX, and the now Light & Wonder, firmly puts this down to political and cultural hurdles.
“The resistance to igaming legislation seems to include more hurdles than that to sports betting, and this can at least partly be explained by the strongly rooted American sports culture both in terms of live events and also televised engagement.”
“…we are confident in our abilities to navigate through the different requirements for day one market entry”
“Our strategy is simple – apply for online casino licenses as soon as a new state opens up so we can fully support our operators within that market with both our in-house studios and full aggregation offering. This is a big priority for us.”
“The North American market is at times a challenging one, but we are confident in our abilities to navigate through the different requirements for day one market entry.”
Upon being quizzed on the primary differences between the U.S. and Canada, Maclean explains: “The Canadian regulated market predominantly consists of the provincial lottery customers across the country that operate on a monopoly basis.
“So far, only Ontario has moved to an open regulated market, which we entered on day one of the market opening, and we have seen a lot of major U.S. and EU operators moving into this space.”
When examining specific player preferences and major trends in each country, the company has focused much of its attention on delivering a range of localized content centered around popular brands, sports teams, and recognizable names.
This has witnessed a range of partnerships entered for a selection of major IPs, including NASCAR alongside 916 Gaming, Spinberry for a Wayne Gretzky slot, and in-house studio Wizard Games who home in on developing specific, dedicated content for players in each country.
“…we are heavily focusing on the North American market, with a vision to expand across the US and Canada”
“In terms of casino verticals, we are also seeing varying trends between the different US states, so it is important that we have in our aggregation offering a broad variation of content suppliers,” he adds.
Continuing: “In all, the North American market is still maturing. What’s intriguing though is we are now seeing crash game products entering these markets, so it will be very interesting to see how popular they become. Crash content holds the ability to totally dominate a market, as seen in Africa and Latam. Whilst in other more mature EU markets the results are very different.”
When looking ahead at what’s to come for Aristocrat Interactive’s Content & Aggregation business, Maclean says, “We have some very exciting new opportunities on the horizon. Based on the trends we’re seeing, we are heavily focusing on the North American market, with a vision to expand across the US and Canada.”
“In the next year, we also plan to continue expanding into additional markets, releasing new games, and bringing fan-favorite land-based titles online.”
As Maclean mentioned earlier, Aristocrat Interactive is “only just getting started.”