Win Interactive management team has given it the capability to do. Jones explains. “I’m sure there are clever enough people at bwin.party who could be moved across from real-money poker operations, and I’m sure they’d quickly be able to get to grips with social poker, ultimately social and real money are very different. As a result it’s probably better to have someone who already understands the social world and can address the peculiarities of this particular market.” Evergreen products Janssen adds that bwin.party do has a natural advantage, in that gambling games are “evergreen, naturally sticky products. A lot of social and mobile games have a rapid peak, followed by a sharp decline, such as the example of Draw Something, which grew from zero to 48m users in eight weeks, then fell away 25% following the purchase, something which happens less with pure gambling products.” Questions could still be raised over the early strategies for product development; while Rabinowitz has described social gamers as “35 year-old females from the Midwest,” he has also spoken of sports betting as being bwin.party’s “main opportunity in social”, describing it as an “inherently social product”. This may not seem to add up at ?rst. The most successful social gambling products tend to be slots, casino and poker – not sports. Still, this could be a move to attract as wide a demographic as possible, though Stevenson notes that the social gaming sector’s main comment on the deal has been that “buying a hidden object company [Orneon] suggests it’s a strategy designed for a female audience; bingo and slots rather than poker and sports.” Jones, on the other hand, says: “The difference in convergence between people who pay to play social games in markets where real-money gambling is allowed, and markets where it is not is probably the most intriguing issue here. “My prejudice would be that if you put a social betting game in front of a group of UK customers, they wouldn’t ?nd it particularly exciting as they can do the real thing, but if you put it in front of a group of US people, maybe this could be attractive,” he explains. State-side This prospect could well give bwin.party even more incentive to establish itself in the social space as it gives it an additional in-road into the US market: “Say the US regulates online poker, and all platforms – even Facebook – start accepting advertising, you’d want to have your foot in the door and a presence on Facebook prior to that happening, because however it develops, there’s going to be a lot of traffic and potential customers going through it. “Do you want to be in a world where regulation changes and you have to enter that platform as and when it licences, or do you want to be experienced
in that space already? Essentially it’s a strategy for operators to protect themselves from future change. If I were bwin.party I would de?nitely want to be there,” he says. Ultimately the social gaming sector seems to have reacted with mild surprise rather than any great shock at the news – IGT’s Double Down acquisition is clearly the yardstick for egaming companies looking to announce their intention to go social. But in bypassing the giants in the sector, bwin.party has been able to quietly establish a presence without damaging to its bottom line, and even strengthening its position in a potentially regulated US market. However, as Janssen stresses, “only time will tell” whether Win Interactive will be enough to establish bwin.party as a social operator of note.
“BUYING A HIDDEN OBJECT COMPANY [ORNEON] SUGGESTS IT’S A STRATEGY DESIGNED FOR A FEMALE AUDIENCE”
Rob Stevenson, sales director, Hooplo
Social butterfly Rabinowitz previously headed up 888’s social arm Mytopia
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48M
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Number of users Draw Something acquired in eight weeks
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