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Part 2: Leading by example: How European land-based operators have engaged with igaming Building an omnichannel future for European casinos
“ It’ s a business unit with a separate channel manager, and we have the land-based industry. I’ d say that pretty much describes the situation at the moment, especially the prepandemic situation.”
The separation of the business units is compounded by the‘ licence plus’ system, which is in operation in countries such as Switzerland.
This allows casinos to obtain an online licence should they choose to apply for one, further cementing an online gaming offering as distinct from an existing casino business.
The licence plus system, similar to the tethering requirements prevalent across US states, prompts casinos to find a partner in the online gaming industry and adapt their games for a particular market, rather than extending their land-based experience to the web.
“ The land-based casino industry has a big interest in the future to be allowed to engage with existing customer bases in the field of online gaming, but that’ s a long-term development,” Pamminger says.
“[ It needs ] a change of gaming law. There must be a way that land-based casinos can extend their offers into the online world – especially with their existing customer base.
“ A good thing for the customer would be if they had an online gaming product related to the casino they know. They know who we are, they know where we live, they can come to us with any problems, we are directly
“ The ones that took the risk like Bwin just did it, came to the market and established their product. Now we’ ve seen many years of online gaming. But the land-based industry is only now getting involved in this business”
HERMANN PAMMINGER, EUROPEAN CASINO ASSOCIATION
approachable. We will see what we can do and what the developments might be, and try and integrate more with the online gaming world.”
LAND-BASED INDUSTRY AT A DISADVANTAGE
Pamminger adds that amid the Covid-19 shutdown“ online gaming websites were winners”.
“ This showed the land-based industry that they had to think about it. We want to be more sustainable and we also saw that our guests, who we value highly, were seeking alternatives for their gaming habit,” he explains.
“ They made the step during the pandemic to engage in online gaming and maybe for some operators that have a land-based site and an online site, it may make absolute sense to make their land-based guests sign up with their online gaming website to make sure they don’ t look to a different brand on the internet.”
The ongoing global pandemic has played a major part in the clamour for online gaming services, with customers having no choice but to turn to the digital version from home.
However, it could be argued that land-based casinos may be at a disadvantage when compared to strictly online casinos that have had a head start in the market.
Such a weakness could become a strength, however, as there’ s already plenty of existing framework of how to run a successful online casino. Diligent brick-and-mortar operators have the opportunity to take note of what works well and tailor the framework to their specific situation.
“ The fact that we are not digital natives is a disadvantage, but you can see there’ s an advantage as well: when you haven’ t done it for a long period of time you have to listen to specialists and what the customer expectations are,” Lassiaz says.
“ That’ s exactly what we do because we don’ t know it. We are on a learning curve – we are still listening a lot but of course it will not give us the experience of the player. We are gaining some time because we are learning from other people, including pure players’ mistakes. We’ re starting at a disadvantage but the fact is we are learning fast from other people’ s experience.”
Building an omnichannel future for European casinos