“ We launched the casino YouTube channel and saw more than two million impressions just in the first month ”
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more time with the people around you and focus on family .”
It is also fair to say that the acquisition has proved fruitful to the brand and its owner Better Collective in the last five years . “ I think that it was good timing for us ,” Fourniadis adds . “ The business has grown a lot from then to now as we have almost tripled our revenues and that ’ s the aim for the end of 2023 compared to 2018 .”
In his role Fourniadis runs Greece , Romania and Italy as separate teams but there is a strong emphasis on synergy within Better Collective . “ For Greece , we have a really big team when it comes to working on social media , especially YouTube , TikTok and Instagram ,” he explains . “ We also create a lot of podcasts in Romania and we try to replicate things we ’ ve seen work in Greece across to the other markets .
“ Video shorts work really well in Romania but only on Facebook , not so much on YouTube .”
What ’ s the reason these social strategies differ from market to market ? Fourniadis says that it ’ s down to “ a lot of cultural differences in the audience from each market ”.
MARKET DOMINANCE
Those Southeast Europe markets are largely dominated by a small group of operators . Stoiximan , Kaizen and Bet365 control nearly 70 % of the Greek market and Superbet , Betano and Unibet have around 65 % of the share in Romania according to Fourniadis .
Yet , the MD for the regions at Better Collective sees the potential in localised brands and their appeal to the average player . “ Such brands having a majority of the markets means that localisation can give you a lot of value and a really good establishment in the market ,” he says .
“ Of course , having the appropriate product is key and local companies have a better understanding of how the local players will react to a product . So they can have more of a tailor-made approach that international operators sometimes struggle to [ achieve ].”
SHIFTING FOCUS IN GREECE
The market in Greece is already shifting to casino over sports , as confirmed by the Hellenic Gambling Commission ( HGC ). The regulator found that in 2022 , casino revenue actually overtook that from sports betting in the country by around € 700,000 (£ 601,000 /$ 750,000 ).
The 15 % increase in casino revenue and 7.2 % decrease in sports revenue from 2021 to 2022 led Fourniadis to explore diversifying the content for his brands . “ Betarades is a sports betting tips community , but we are trying to create a lot of casino content ,” Fourniadis says . “ We now also have a dedicated casino website where we have a really strong YouTube channel uploading shorts with igaming stories .
“ We launched the product in March and saw more than two million impressions just in the first month and we have a lot of videos with more than 100,000 views .”
A FINE LINE
When it comes to compliance , content platforms like YouTube have strict guidelines , which are usually backed up with steep bans . “ What we have seen a lot of times on YouTube with our channel is that you can easily get a strike from the platform even when we ’ ve not broken any rules due to the content subject ,” Fourniadis says .
“ If you receive one strike you can ’ t upload for a month , two [ strikes and ] you ’ re out for 90 days and the third kicks you off the platform .”
“ We launched the casino YouTube channel and saw more than two million impressions just in the first month ”
While Fourniadis knows it may be hard to convince platforms like YouTube to loosen their compliance algorithms , he does wish that the gaming commissions had more dialogue with affiliates .
“ I think we should have a closer line to the compliance stuff that ’ s being introduced all the time from the gaming commissions where we have
74 • ISSUE 94 • iGB AFFILIATE LONDON 2024