It’s hard to believe that in a saturated industry that has such a long tail that a genuinely fresh experience could be uncovered. However, Awager stands firm in a belief that it has found a missing piece to the puzzle when it comes to the desires of players.
In the culminating part of an SBC Summit Americas two-part special, General Manager for North America Warren Steven, explains a belief of why this is so, and what missed opportunities for operators could be easily rectified.
SBCA: What does live gaming add to an online portfolio and how does it elevate the offering as a whole? In addition, when addressing a unity between these two, how do you believe Awager closes this perceived gap, and what feedback have you received to back this up?
Warren Steven: When you go to a focus group of casino players, specifically those that haven’t played online, a lot of the feedback is that “I don’t trust it”, “I can’t see it” and “I can’t touch it so it’s not tangible”.
This led to us to ask that question ‘what will it take to convince you to come online?’ And the answer centered around a desire to play a specific machine.
So it was a no brainer. How do we commandeer the machine so that we can allow someone to feel like they’re sitting in front of it? That technology in the modern world is now in prime time and we can stream at 4K in near real time.
We can control the interface using proprietary technology and literally anywhere in the state, by regulations, we can provide a near perfect almost digital experience.
Sometimes we’ve got to worry about being too good, because people don’t trust that it’s a real cabinet. We zoom in and they’re convinced that it must be digital.
When it comes to existing players that just prefer the online experience and don’t really like to go down to land-based casinos, you actually have an opportunity, if you have an omnichannel experience, where you can acquire a customer through an online channel, but you can drive them to the property the other way. Incentivize them to come back to the property.
You can start by saying there’s a physical machine on the property that you can play at home, and then you want to go down to the property and enjoy the hospitality. The innovation we add allows marketing teams and VIP teams to get very creative in that.
Those that can leverage this better are those that have a land-based brand with an online process. With the sportsbooks that don’t really have a physical space it might be harder.
What they do is replicate the casino experience. For example, we have built a studio, fully branded by an online sportsbook, and it’s a physical casino space that you walk around.
The technology allows you to browse and walk around, pick a machine so it’s not just a thumbnail on a website that takes you directly to the game, but you go into a lobby that allows you to navigate around it. The technology now allows us to be a bit more creative in how you present the product.
Whether you are a land-based guy that hasn’t played online, or you’re an online only person that wants to feel a little more land-based, those are the techniques that we possess.
SBCA: Awager has plans in place to swell its presence significantly. Delve into this in a little more detail, which regions fall on the company’s radar?
WS: Regarding New Jersey, we want to optimize first. We are live with FanDuel at the moment. There’s 119 machines live in a studio in Atlantic City, and we have two more operators coming up.
One is just finished with certification and they intend to go live shortly. One is in a casino on the floor of a property in Atlantic City and one’s in a branded studio that we run and operate.
That diversity allows us a good stepping stone from there. We have other operators that we have contracts with and will be expanding.
For us right now, we have space in New Jersey. Because it’s very complex, you have to build it before you can sell it. We have that challenge, but at the same time we preempt a bit of it.
The obvious choices from New Jersey are the bigger online gaming states because no operator just wants to operate in New Jersey. They are what we call traveling wallets.
If someone travels to New Jersey or Michigan etc, they can still play and just get presented with different content. We intend to be building studios in all the gaming states, and any future gaming states as well.
We have big ambitions. Just like the live dealer studios or in all major states we intend to be in, but it starts with being successful in New Jersey. If you can be successful there, you can probably be successful in the rest of the United States as well.
SBCA: When looking at more mature gaming markets, where do you see the opportunities to acquire new customers, and how do you best capitalize on these?
WS: I still feel that in mature markets, which already have brick and mortar gaming, the databases haven’t really cross sold as efficiently as they would have liked.
You’ll hear anecdotal stories around MGM did very well when they launched in Michigan and they leveraged their database etc, but I still think there is so much more potential to those databases. When you bring a product like us to the table, operators see the gap.
When they say we’ve cross sold 20% of the land-based database, that means there’s still 80% left to go. That’s an opportunity. They’re already acquired, you just need to find a product that convinces them.
Some might be better than others at cross-selling their existing land-based databases, but I still think it sits in that 70-80% range of opportunity .
For the likes of the sportsbooks with a casino bolt-on, the real challenge for them is they are prolific in their sportsbook acquisition. They do so well at cross selling, but the age group is quite low and predominantly male.
What is the gender difference from a slot player in land-based? It’s pretty 50/50 from male and female, so you’re sitting on this opportunity to acquire a more diverse player base.
These players are very proficient at playing slot games. They know good quality slot games, and understand the nuances. These are real fans of slots, but not in the digital space because they want to sit down and feel it. It’s tangible.
We literally have a button that you can hit and spin and play on your laptop, and that tactile feedback makes them feel like they come and do that.
Operators have the opportunity to go and acquire a different demographic than the normal, traditional sportsbook. When it comes to acquiring sports players to casino, the economics is funding. You need products that can retain customers better.
We find that players who engage with the larger product have longer gaming sessions, move up the bet cycle in terms of denominations, get a tolerance for the game much quicker and have a real relationship with that device.
There’s technology we’ve built when you can queue. You want to play that machine, you know the machine number and have a good feeling with this machine, or I can get into the queue, and once it becomes available I get notified and I can go in.
I think all these companies are looking for some innovation that pushes the casino entity to another level. We do that. The only challenge is we are a one-to-one product. I go and have a personal relationship with one device.
We can’t have 50 people playing on that same device. That’s a challenge. You have got to drive the right player, the right demographic, the right RTP etc.
That means there’s got to be a little bit more tailored marketing bias to find players rather than sending an email to thousands of players and seeing what lands. That’s where the operators will have to spend a little bit more time.
