F EATURE
iGBA: Some of those areas you just
mentioned, such as Asia and Germany,
are not fully regulated. Are you happy to
target the unregulated markets as well as
the regulated ones?
PS: Yes, there are benefits to doing that. There
are drawbacks, obviously, as you can’t advertise
much with paid advertising, but for us it is not a
problem because we target our visitors with SEO.
As long as the brands we promote are fair to the
players, because this is the most important factor.
You want them to have a fair game and be sure that
you send someone to a place where they will enjoy
themselves and not be scammed. So as long as there
are such places, we think it is OK to operate in that
market, assuming it is not illegal. Also in Germany
there are licences in one state [Schleswig-Holstein]
and if you have a gambling licence from there you
are able to run TV ads. The brands we promote
from Germany are mostly licensed in that state.
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“We have been thinking about
targeting Germany and Austria more
and are now also thinking about Asia
as this is quite an interesting market”
iGBA: Do you have plans to grow via acquisition
in the future?
PS: We haven’t really found anything that would
suit our budget and our vision and mainly we are
looking to build our own projects.
iGBA: How many employees do you have and
what are their specialisms?
PS: We have 30 people. We have a lot of content
writers, mostly journalists who cover the news
and we have writers of guides for casino. This is
the biggest part of the team. We also have some
tech guys and a small team that takes care of the
marketing compliance in the UK where there have
been some changes.
iGBA: You seem to invest heavily in editorial
compared to many of your competitors of a
similar size. Why do you think this is important?
PS: We believe that a portal should provide value
to the visitors and visitors should come because
they find something for them. It is not only
about promoting brands and making money.
We think sites should be providing people with
the information that they are looking for.
iGBA: How do you make sure that they are
not scam sites, particularly in Asia? iGBA: Your sites focus mostly on B2B news
as opposed to many other affiliate sites,
which seem aimed more at consumers.
What is the reason behind this?
PS: We go for brands we have been working with
for quite a long time and usually with affiliate
mangers who we have been working with for a
long time. It is quite hard right now to be sure
about a new brand, one which is just three or six
months old, so we don’t work with such brands. PS: We are primarily a media company and then
we are an affiliate, and for us this type of news –
things that happen in the industry – is the news
that people are interested in and the news they are
looking for. News about the types of new bonuses
and content like that is more promotional. We do
iGB Affiliate Issue 69 JUN/JUL 2018