FEATURE
for a wide range of consumer brands
before joining the igaming industry in
2008 at Betfair.
“At Betfair we sponsored Manchester
United and Barcelona and obviously
you wanted to use that but there were
lots of rules and regulations about
what we could do and could not do
and players could not be used too
prominently. There are loads of things
to think about — it was the same at
PokerStars with Ronaldo and
Neymar Jr, there were a lot of things
that weren’t allowed.”
Since he switched from the operator
to the affiliate side, the compliance
part of the branding equation has not
abated, he says. “Just recently bet365
went out to all its affiliates and said
they wanted to have Ts and Cs on
everything. I know many affiliates
didn’t listen to this and were shut down
but we took it seriously and within
a fairly short time we had updated
everything. I definitely think the tone
coming from operators recently has
gotten a bit harder. They are starting
to send a message that Ts and Cs need
to be there.”
I do enjoy. You have an idea, you can
present it to the senior guys and they
say yes or no and then we move ahead
really quickly, whereas at PokerStars or
Betfair you could spend months
wondering ‘Are we doing it or not?’”
Peteri’s next challenge is to continue
the Raketech rebrand through its many
affiliate sites – starting with the main
sites and VIP sites and moving down –
and given the wide range of markets and
products it offers, he says, “there is not
a boring day at work, that’s for sure”.
Asked what his biggest challenge is,
Peteri jokingly replies that “the days are
too short”, but says he enjoys the fact that
the industry is constantly changing.
“It evolves a lot and there are loads
of new and exciting products. If you
look at how slot games looked eight
years ago, they are very different today
and with mobile and all the different
technologies it is sort of like the same
product but it never gets boring.
You do the same thing but it doesn’t
feel like you do the same thing. It is
a very quick industry and I think
there is a fantastic energy in most
gaming companies.”
Peteri admits his move into gaming was
somewhat unplanned. When he moved to
London he knew little about the industry
but an acquaintance of his wife was
looking for people at Betfair: “I contacted
them and before I knew it I was hired as
an art director there.” But he says that
the decision to continue in gaming is very
much a conscious one: “I have enjoyed it
since I started and I have no plans to stop.”
“Betfair and PokerStars were massive companies and
there are lots of procedures and long approval lines.
Here it is a bit more entrepreneurial and we ar e able to
move faster, which I do enjoy”
With a workforce of more than 100
people, Raketech is well-resourced to adapt
to these kinds of demands in a
way that one-man-band affiliates are not,
but Peteri says it is still small enough to
have an entrepreneurial vibe.
“Betfair and PokerStars were
massive companies and there are lots
of procedures and long approval lines.
Here it is a bit more entrepreneurial
and we are able to move faster, which
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