Juniper Research

Author of the report, Dr Windsor Holden, commented: “Social gaming companies such as Zynga are seeking to move from play-for-fun casino games into real money gambling, while pureplay mobile casinos including Probability have begun to integrate with the Facebook mobile platform. In this way, consumers will be able to use their social networks to register for casino games, substantially increasing both the reach and engagement of such services.”

Sports betting, which already accounts for a growing amount of wagers, will be “overhauled” by casino gambling inside five years. Much of this hinges on the U.S. market hitting the figures being quoted and it also being able to legislate successfully on an intrastate context.

WHERE IS THE LOVE?

Asia is one part of the world that will be wondering where the love is as there is no mention of what effect mobile gambling or casino could have in that part of the world in the press release. Given the growth the rest of the industry is realizing in this part of the world the $100 billion projection for 2017 is slightly pessimistic. Mobile penetration is huge in both Europe and North America but Asia will also see this growth filter through.

If you look at China as an example, the country has seen an insane level of growth in the number of people buying internet ready mobile phones with the number expected to boost the total amount online to 701 million by 2015. To put that into context it’s double the U.S. and Japan combined and still just 51 percent of the population. You can see then that if mobile gambling starts to take hold the opportunities are endless.

FROM RETENTION TO ACQUISITION

Another change identified by the report is that mobile will move from a retention to an acquisition one in the next few years. The same was being discussed at the recent mGaming Summit in London and would mean the movement towards mobile will get even stronger.

Social gambling, which was mentioned by Holden as a factor linked to mobile growth, will be a huge factor and the two married together could determine how big mobile casino becomes. Put this together with Asia and the growth experienced will be endless.

Statista’s chart of the day, which is at the foot of the page, clearly illustrates the shares of Facebook set against one of the world’s largest social gaming firms, Zynga. It doesn’t take a Harvard degree to work out that where Facebook goes Zynga follows and that such a strong relationship with Facebook isn’t doing it any good in the short term. CalvinAyre.com contributor Vince Martin wasn’t wrong describing Zynga as one of the dumbest stocks around. Now that it’s at $6.80 – down from $10 at opening – you can see why.

From a gaming industry point of view, there is a couple of ways to look at the struggles. In the optimism camp, there will be those that say social gaming can come to the rescue and save the day. “Remember when Zynga announced they were thinking about gambling”, is what they will say, along with “just think of the untapped resource of users they have”. Of course the gambling industry could have a great time with the customer base. It’s not as simple as that though.

It wasn’t a coincidence that Zynga said it was interested in gambling came the day after their shares had dropped off massively and it’s not pessimistic to say their main motivation was to drive the share price up. Then there’s the quandary of having to convert free play customers to ones that pay.

There’s the obvious chance that Facebook will start to recover some its pre-IPO value and all the one-night stands/sons/daughters/wives/distant relations (delete as appropriate) will be okay. It started off today back up to just over $32 and Zynga followed suit with a similar rise. So just keep an eye out which way Facebook goes; Zynga is sure to follow.

All signs point towards the company doing fine. The IPO that precedes the flotation has already earned them $16 billion and no other big tech company even came close when they had their respective IPOs. Statista’s chart’s of the day, which you can find at the foot of this article, show that the second most lucrative IPO, Google in 2004, raised little over a 16^th of Facebook’s IPO capital ($1.67 billion). That alone will make the big wigs at Facebook mightily optimistic and the market capitalization gives more reason for confidence.

The valuation of $104.2 billion puts them behind just Apple ($495.7bn), Microsoft ($239.7bn), IBM ($228.3bn) and Google ($203.1bn). It’s perhaps more significant that they’re ahead of the likes of Amazon, eBay, HP, Dell and Yahoo and you get the impression there value will be one that won’t be staying in fifth place for long.

Almost all the other tech giants, a group that includes Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google, have seen huge spikes in the price of their stock before it levels off and is steady. It’s another fact that points to the company valuation hitting even higher heights than it’s at now.

The market value and money raised from the IPO will be of comfort to a gaming industry that is attempting to grab social gaming by its horns and ride it into the sunset. Facebook will be a huge part of this and at the moment it looks as though the world’s biggest social network will be here for some time yet.

Bingo is one side of the online gambling industry that is increasingly being shaped by the advancements made in mobile and social forms. Thanks to its popularity and the demise of land-based bingo halls here in the U.K. there have been a number of firms flooding the market wanting to pick out your balls and hand you a dobber.

One company that has its bingo-calling suit at the ready is the owner of popular portal OhMyBingo.com, 15Marketing. At a recent conference, CalvinAyre.com’s Becky Liggero caught up with Ben Starr from the company and it was obvious where he thinks the future for bingo lies.

“Lots of focus is on mobile and Facebook and we think that it’s the future,” Starr said. “Having a Facebook app is really cool and cutting edge and having a mobile one is quite cool as you’re everywhere.”

It’s not unusual to see firms posting treble digit percentage point gains when it comes to mobile and this has more than translated to the bingo industry. Going forward, if companies are able to marry mobile, social networking and gambling together, whichever side of the industry you’re in, it will reap big rewards. Whilst Starr remained excited about this he did recognize the online bingo market is already one that has been “flooded with new entrants” over the past few years as it’s “remarkably cheap” to launch.

15Marketing has the imaginatively titled 15Network to enable them to have a better understanding of how to operate even more successfully as an affiliate. It means they’ve reached the end of the rainbow as far as affiliates are concerned by opening a white label. Starr did admit that this isn’t the “ultimate goal”.

“You can survive with good content, something that I’m a big believer in. If you can build a small, active community with good unique content you can make a name for yourself in the affiliate industry,” he said.

In terms of the future for bingo, the online side of the industry is facing proper regulation and taxation in the U.K. for the first time in 2014 with the introduction of a Point of Consumption tax. It’s something he thinks has been “expedited” by mainland Europe’s insatiable appetite for regulation.

As for jurisdictions outside the U.K., many bingo firms have puppy eyes for the Spanish market. Starr stated that they’d be waiting to see how operators get on, as he has no plans to be “industry leading” in the country. U.S.A. won’t be getting any of their attention, affiliate-wise, until the “major states open up”, but Starr did admit that as an operator “we’d love to go in there”.

Facebook

Private firm bet365 has extended its deal with Stoke City to become the club’s shirt sponsor for the upcoming season. The news strengthens a five-year partnership that has seen the Stoke-on-Trent become increasingly visible at the club’s Britannia Stadium.

Denise Coates, joint chief executive of bet365, told the club’s official website: “We are delighted to have reached an agreement to become Stoke City’s shirt sponsors. It is a perfect fit for us as a Stoke-on-Trent-based company with a global reach and international markets to become shirt sponsor of our local Premier League club.

“This builds upon the extensive sponsorship, LED and advertising we are already committed to at many Premier League clubs and within the sports industry in general. It also further demonstrates our long term commitment to the Club.”

bet365 are the latest in a long line of gambling industry firms to take the plunge into Premier League sponsorship and much of it correlates with similar spikes in Asian viewing figures. Of those currently sponsoring teams in the top flight, two, in Bodog (West Brom) and Genting (Aston Villa), have Cantonese lettering on the shirtfront and Asian expansion is a big part of their sponsorship deals. We will wait to see if bet365 go off on a similar tangent.

Paddy Power’s latest advertisement has been given an 18+ rating by the video sharing website YouTube. Their goalline technology ad has been given an over-18 restriction and a spokesperson told CampaignLive: “Despite having a six figure view count and an overwhelmingly positive reaction by viewers, the fun police have decided to slap an over-18 restriction on our latest viral.”

In terms of the statistics on slow loading times the report shows in 2006 users were happy to wait for four seconds for a page to load. That then halved to two by 2009. Add to this that Google now considers a page “slow” if it takes over 1.5 seconds to load, subsequently relegating it down the rankings, and you can start to see why firms are getting caught out.

The report itself surveyed 60,000 Internet users leaving any of 80 websites that were included by the firm. 8 percent of the sample cited slow loading pages as a reason for abandoning purchases. QuBit, run by four one-time Google employees, recognized that not everyone would complete their purchase so weighted the average conversion rate of web shoppers (4.35 percent) against the value of global sales (£496 billion) and arrived at the £1.73 billion.

QuBit’s report doesn’t implicitly mention the gaming industry but it’s plain to see that these statistics will be of interest. If your ears haven’t pricked up already then the next fact will have you at panic stations: 74 percent of users will abandon a mobile site after waiting for five seconds. Mobile is experiencing an explosion in gaming activity right now and people on the move are even less patient than normal net users. It translates to “if you have a slow app, punters will be on their bike before you know it”.

These figures again place a huge emphasis on the need for brilliant customer service delivery. There are so many gambling sites out there that if yours is noticeably slower than anyone else the punters will simply go elsewhere and the statistics here will be a wake up call to any of the slow coaches if nothing else.

Facebook will have you think that any one of a number of factors contributed to the IPO’s delay. First off they were initially hoping to push it back a couple of weeks and instead of the original May 17 date it would be on May 28. COINCIDENCE ALERT. It just happens to be Memorial Day then so they couldn’t possibly stick it on that date. Now it’s being given a tentative “early to middle of June” date by cNet and you wonder whether June will see the IPO either.

They can easily hide behind the fact they’ve gone on quite the shopping spree recently with the acquisitions of Instagram for $1 billion and 650 patents from Microsoft for over half of that. Observers have also pointed to the firm’s profits dropping earlier this week. There’s an issue much more pertinent than any of these though. Facebook are a clever company and have obviously done their homework on the stock market. By doing so they noticed that Internet companies have been dropping like a stone in recent times.

We consulted Statista.com‘s big chart of the day (see below) and it showed that from March 26 to April 25 three of the largest firms to float have seen vast drops in the price of their stock. When you consider that Yelp was the best performing of the three with a decrease of 14 percent you start to realize why Facebook has delayed its IPO.

Groupon’s shares are down 29 percent over the period and social gaming developer Zynga, the one with closest links to Facebook, saw shares drop off by as much as 30 percent. If the other two dropping had set the panic alarms going then Zynga made sure the intruder alarms were well and truly activated.

We saw a similar thing happen in the gaming industry with poor performance meaning Skrill abandoned its own plans for an IPO this time last year. Being realistic Facebook has such a large user base (circa 900 million) to mean that an IPO could still be a success. Waiting a month or so is a shrewd decision and if the market’s gotten even worse by then they can just keep delaying.

Image courtesy of Statista.com

Statista.com’s big chart of the day illustrates as well that year-over-year growth in the same vertical has slowed from well over 100 percent this time last year to little over 41 percent in Q1 2012.

Before we delve into anything and set off any panic alarms it’s worth comparing the Q-to-Q differential to the same period last year. Q4 2010 to Q1 2011 saw a similar small drop following huge growth and it won’t be until next month that we find out whether a similar thing has happened. Every company is going to hit saturation at some point and that could be exactly what has happened here.

In response to the slower growth Facebook comes back fighting. The latest uppercut to the chin of its doubters came with the huge $1 billion outlay on Instagram last month. It’s the company’s latest attempt to tap into new revenue streams and gives them an uber popular app for a price they won’t lose more than a couple of nights sleep over. Further afield it’s becoming clearer by the day their attention should be focused on one area the gaming industry is extremely familiar with – Asia.

Statista.com’s big chart of the day on Facebook shows that average revenue per user (ARPU) is just $0.52 per customer in Asia. It compares unfavorably with Facebook’s biggest market of North America ($2.86), Europe ($1.4) and the worldwide average of $1.21. From the figures you can tell that Facebook’s plans in Asia haven’t born any fruit so far and that may be due to caution on their side or not stumbling across the right strategy.

Much of their success is likely to depend on the attitude of the authorities in the more lucrative jurisdictions. China is obviously the apple they most want to start eating from but it was less than two weeks ago the country blocked all foreign-hosted sites and this could be where Facebook could slip up. It could also be where social gaming industry find some solace – especially if censorship laws are ever relaxed.

In other parts of the world any social gaming industry specialists looking to take advantage of Facebook will hit problems with gambling industry firms already in the area with an established brand presence. Some Asian countries won’t present the same problems and firms could find this an easy way to make big bucks in Asia. Conversely Facebook will benefit through the cut they take and the ARPU in Asia will rise as a result.

Unfortunately for Facebook there are other obstacles such as local competitors. RenRen is China’s largest and already has millions of users but it’s controlled by the government and as such will be far less open than Facebook.

For Facebook to continue its growth at the current rate it’s clear Asia is where their next big push should be – if viable. Whilst the slowing of growth isn’t going to send them the way of MySpace, the world in which they operate moves at a fast pace and they know this only too well after buying a company that wasn’t even here two years ago. It backs up the fact that Facebook has its finger in a number of pies and Asia should be the next pie for the social networking giant to take a piece of.

“We have some valuable assets in both racing and football, and we are looking forward to working with our new agencies to maximise these along with a number of new product launches in 2012.”

Arnold KLP will be charged with creating advertising campaigns to capitalize on the summer of sporting events ahead.

Coral has put its advertising business up for pitch. CampaignLive reports that Olly Raeburn, managing director at Coral, has contacted agencies with the plan they’ll have a major brand campaign by the summer.

Betfair has signed a long-term deal to sponsor Great Britain’s boxing teams. The “five-figure” deal was signed with the British Amateur Boxing Association (BABA) ahead of the summer Olympic Games with the men’s and women’s teams both benefitting from the agreement. Head of UK brand marketing, Andy Lulham, commented: “It’s an exciting time to be involved with BABA. There are a number of promising boxers in its ranks who are more than capable of delivering success in what I’m sure will be a standout year for the sport.”

It becomes BABA’s “official gaming partner” and is an extension to an earlier agreement that saw Betfair sponsor the GB Amateur Boxing Championships at York Hall in London in November.

BetMotion focus on a number of jurisdictions that are extremely diverse and still realizing their full potential. Their main operations are in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico but they also retain a presence in Chile, Peru and Colombia, making sure they’re present in all gaming industry countries of note in Latin America.

Martin Benitez is managing director of BetMotion and as such an expert on the Latin American market. Working in so many locations gives them a number of different problems that need to be tackled. The diverse cultures that are present, even inside individual countries, mean marketing and customer welfare are at the fore of their strategy. In order to maximize their margins in each different territory they use different brands and looking at the company’s success so far it seems to be working.

Their formula means operating in a number of gaming industry locations across the region is seamless and for a market worth around $32 billion in 2011 you can see why they take it so seriously. It’s also an area that has seen ecommerce growth of 50% and that will only get higher as the market develops further.

The scope for sports betting is huge with two countries in Brazil and Argentina that are quite simply in love with the game. If major private firms were to tap into the market it could be huge but partnerships with firms, like BetMotion, would be the best way to go about it.

In terms of where BetMotion goes now, they’re looking ahead with optimism at further regulation planned and it’s hoped this will take their firm to the next level.

Betfred

“Back in 1998 Fergie told me to never pay out early again but Sir Alex need not worry, I’ve not got it wrong this time,” he said. “United are past the post for a record 20th title. Even with the derby to come a five point lead is just too much for City.”

The time he’s referring to cost Betfred £500,000 when he was became the first bookmaker ever to pay out early. United were 12 points clear of Arsenal at the time and managed to balls it up so they lost it by a mere point. Betfred are by no means the first firm to “eff up” the art of paying out early.

The most infamous of all these belonged to a bookie that has a stellar relationship with publicity. Paddy Power has used publicity to its advantage on many occasions. 2009’s US PGA Championship might not be one of the best. After 36 holes of Tiger Woods leading the field Paddy realized enough was enough. Woods was four shots clear of the rest and the odds were 1/5. What happened next saw Paddy lose £1.3 million and the Yang Yong-eun crowned Asia’s first major golf champion.

Paddy issued a statement at the time saying: “It takes a special kind of dimwit to turn what should have been our best ever golf result into our worst. Paddy Power punters are obviously the big winners here and have made like bandits getting paid out on Tiger as a winner.”

That didn’t stop Paddy Power as they’ve still been paying out early ever since. Last year saw punters betting on Seb Vettel to win the F1 world title and New Zealand to be crowned Rugby World Champions paid early. Lucky for Paddy he didn’t lose out there and even if he had they’re firm believers in the fact that the payout gives them free publicity that they’d otherwise have to pay a hefty amount for anyways.

Betfred could be footing a big bill should Fergie and United foul this one up and will just hope the ensuing publicity is well worth it.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t still huge questions surrounding three-year-old currency in particular. A growing number of people are sceptical of Bitcoin due to it not having any credible backing and seeing problems with it being used for illicit activities – such as money laundering and the sale of drugs. Aren’t they some of the same problems that normal currency has?

Banking and payment expert Simon Lelieveldt was quoted by Reuters as stating: “There is always a power base underlying a currency.

“Bitcoin is not going to fly because there is no central bank or power base. It’s doomed to fail.”

No backing from a central bank is why this youthful currency has a chance to thrive among huge swathes of the planet that are critical of the banking sector. Take countries like Italy and Greece where the economies are on their knees and being able to use an anonymous virtual currency is attractive.

It’s plain to see that for any anonymous payment system to get off the ground they will need some kind of backing and until that day comes they’ll largely be underground operations where super geeks thrive. When someone does harness one and make a success the anti-gambling over-regulating authoritarian governments will have to watch out. These are stealthy operations and anyone doubting they’ll be a success may be way too late to the party when one of them actually reveals itself as a global payments behemoth.

As quick as it gets

Fred Done’s firm has found a cash cow in the shape of Goals Galore and you can tell when you download the app. The best part is the fast track to GG as soon as you sign in. Unfortunately the app doesn’t stimulate your excitement like it could and compounds this with relatively slow loading times.

Pros

+ Dedicated Goals Galore tab on home page

Cons

- Feels very basic

- Slow

- Goals Galore odds not displayed clearly enough

Score – 5

Bet365

bet365 in association with New Era

This Stoke-based outfit has made their name by offering good value and reliability in equal measure, both of which are present here. Bet365’s app isn’t one that will jump through hoops and make you particularly excited. It does offer a quick and easy way to bet on absolutely anything and comes with a brand name you can trust. It might not be all-singing-all-dancing but it does the job.

Pros

+ No need to download from App store

+ Easy to use and clearly set out

+ Although web-based it’s specifically laid out for iPad

+ Good quality streaming

Cons

- Hard to find transaction history

- Boring and doesn’t have the wow factor

- Ray Winstone should be there somewhere.

Score – 9.5

Photos: a rarity in gambling apps

Betfair

Although this one’s out on its own as a betting exchange it gives the traditional sportsbooks a run for their money. It’s the quickest of the lot and the downloadable app is smooth as a new born baby’s backside. Placing a bet is simple and the same goes for topping up your account. It would be perfect…but there’s a distinct lack of streaming!

Pros

+ Made specifically for iPad and looks the part

+ Very quick

+ Easy to keep track of bets

Cons

- No streaming

Score – 8.5

Always giving the customer something back

Paddy Power

Paddy’s app is much like his company as a whole – geared towards customer enjoyment. The downloadable app has Money Back Specials (MBS) on the start page at all times. It’s quick and easy to place bets. There’s one quite significant spanner in the works though. The app stopped working numerous times during our test and it’s a real let down for a good-looking app.

Pros

+ MBS at its heart

+ Quick

Cons

- No streaming

- App regularly malfunctions

Score – 5

Sportingbet

If you decide Sportingbet is the one for you then we doff our hat to you if you can stay awake. The live score section is useful for football buffs but anyone else will find it hard to be motivated to return after their first visit. It’s hard to navigate around meaning placing a bet takes a while.

Pros

+ Live score section is useful

Cons

- Only available in portrait

- Slow and hard to navigate

- Extremely boring

Score – 5

Shake it out!

William Hill

Lets make one thing clear from the outset: Hills have got this right. The layout is very welcoming and works perfectly with the app. They’ve gone further than many competitors with sections like “Trending” – to identify what’s popular – and the standalone “Shake-a-Bet” app. Whilst the former might have traditional Hills customers wondering about fashion the latter could be the answer to getting the girlfriend interested in sports betting. It works like a slot machine and puts togethera random selection of bets in an accumulator. Hills offering, as good as it may be, hasn’t yet been optimized for iPad and thus doesn’t gain the top rating.

Pros

+ Layout straightforward and easy on the eye

+ Trending section is out on its own

+ Shake-a-Bet is an innovative option

Cons

- Made for iPhone

Score: 9

Ladbrokes

This portrait-only offering is very easy to get around. Each sport has an icon at the top of every page and if you can forgive the mad Italian commentator making an appearance you’ll grow to like it. Horseracing fans will have a field day with the streaming offering. Placing a bet is easy and contrary to some reports we had no problems with it crashing.

Pros

+ Horserace streaming available

+ Easy to navigate between sports on all pages

Cons

- The annoying Italian commentator greets you

- Only available in portrait

Score: 8

Sky Bet

Sky Bet’s app impressed us in that its streaming service was one of the best that we encountered during our review period. The app itself is out there in the boring stakes with Sportingbet and bet365 with nothing that really jumps out and says, “bet with me!” It’s a solid offering whilst at the same time leaving you with no feeling that you should be moving your account to Sky Bet.

Pros

+ Horseracing streaming among the best

+ Easy to place bet and navigate

Cons

- Boring

- Could use Sky Sports coverage more

Score – 7.5

With the new iPad out later this week it will be interesting to see if anyone aims to take a march on bet365 with an enhanced app. William Hill remain best placed to do so and an iPad app would put them top of the pile. In the meantime Stoke’s finest can sit pretty atop the pile.

Sky Bet

“It was our first foray into tech betting and there was a huge amount of interest in the markets but with two out of the three most heavily backed markets duly coming in, it’s safe to say the ‘ipunters’ cleaned up! No doubt they’ll be heading straight down to the Apple shop with their winnings!” Jacob said.

Betting was suspended by Sky Bet after techophiles had gotten wind of the specifications and wanted to earn some extra cash to buy the new toy.

“The odds of the new hardware not having a carbon fibre back plate had been backed into 1/16 from 2/7 and we took a hit with it not being called the iPad2s, which was a 100/30 shot initially. The only surprise was that the new ipad doesn’t have 128GB of storage, which had been backed in from 6/1 to ½!” Jacob added.

Mobile payments made through one medium will hit unprecedented levels by the middle of the current decade. Juniper Research has calculated that transactions using Near Field Communication (NFC) will reach $74 billion and the online gambling industry is one of those getting excited. More and more in-store payments are being taken using the technology with mobile devices increasingly being relied upon as a form of payment.

“Our report demonstrates the spectacular growth we see across all segments of the mobile commerce market. Four of these segments (money transfer, physical goods, NFC and coupons) will more than treble in transaction value over the next three years, whilst digital goods, banking and tickets will still on average, double over the same period,” said report author David Snow.

NFC could make it very easy to deposit and withdraw from an online gambling account. For now it’s unlikely it will be allowed to happen but at some point in the future it’s inevitable.

“He was responding to our We Hear You campaign asking if we had any mischief planned for Cheltenham in the wake of our giant Hollywood sign a few years ago.

“We simply couldn’t resist the challenge and had to dig really deep to come up with something to literally measure up to the giant sign. I think we’ve achieved this.”

It comes after the “PADDYwood” sign in 2010 and the bookmaker has made a sizeable donation to the National Trust for this year’s stunt.

Exchange operator Betfair will release its Cheltenham promotions on Monday via their mobile site. A Tweet from BetfairRacing revealed: “Just signed off our promotions for Chelt [sic] week. Big reveal on Monday morning. Make sure you’ve got Befair [sic] Mobile installed on your phone!”

British racecourses are donating thousands of tickets to military personnel. Next week’s Cheltenham Festival marks the continuation of racing’s support for charity Tickets For Troops. Cheltenham Racecourse started off the initiative with tickets for the festival’s first three days and in all 78,000 tickets are being donated to service men and women. The festival draws an annual attendance of 200,000 with around £600 million for the entirety of the four days.

Social media is now supposedly so important that it’s mentioned almost everywhere you go. Most adverts have the logos of some social network in the corner while anyone in attendance at the IGA this week will be well versed on the power of social media. Even academics have turned their attention to it. According to these social media experts, the “new internet” comes in many shapes and sizes.

The following have appeared as a result of an increased desire for user generated content and the advent of Web 2.0. Even blogs are considered social media as they allow companies to have a voice with which they can speak on a personal level with their customers.

In addition to blogs there are the usual social networking sites and content communities such as YouTube and Flickr. According to an article published in the Business Horizons Journal in 2010 even collaborative projects such as Wikipedia and virtual worlds like World of Warcraft can be considered social.

So apparently it’s not just Facebook and Twitter, there are a whole world of social media possibilities out there. But while it’s all well and good being able to provide a space where users can create their own avatars and discuss the benefits of living a second life online, is there any value in these forms of social media for the companies providing them?

Of course there is always going to be the argument that any form of publicity or marketing is going to provide brand exposure but it’s hard to imagine a solid return on investment being made with some of the less popular forms of social media.

The more commonly used platforms such as Facebook are fairly strict when it comes to gambling advertisements, although these restrictions are much more lax than they were twelve months ago. This means that actually getting players to click through to an external gambling site is even more of a challenge than it already is.

Those in favour of social media list customer engagement and loyalty as two principal reasons for interacting heavily in social media. But as these can be done free of charge by creating a Facebook page and a Twitter feed there seems little point in developing your social media strategy much further.

Standing out with social media is becoming increasingly tricky meaning that getting creative with it is a necessity. Some operators are beginning to do this. Irish bookmaker Paddy Power has always enjoyed thinking outside of the box and has used Facebook in the ‘We Hear You’ advertising campaign. Requests made on the Paddy Power Facebook page have then been turned into television adverts and generated considerable controversy as well as attention.

Betfair have also taken the initiative and hired a team of comedians to write gags for their Twitter feed. This is a tactic which has seen considerable success with the Betfair Poker feed gaining more than 15,000 followers as well as traction with Stephen Fry – one of the most popular Twitterers there is. At the time of launch Betfair’s head of central online marketing described the tactic as somewhat of a social experiment.

It appears that anyone who wants to be successful in social media is going to have to conduct experiments of their own. Even if they do see success then they’re going to have to be prepared for numerous copycats as there’s no use for Copyscape when it comes to social media.

Social iGaming

Everyone wants to tell us how important social media is to the gambling industry. This is highlighted by the fact that six of the nine IGA 2012 pre-conference workshops focused on the new saviour.

But while they tell us how important it is, few are able to describe how best to use it. Many in attendance at the IGA 2012 may leave the conference with a new sense of urgency with regards to a social media strategy but very few will know what theirs is going to consist of.

Most forms of online gambling are by nature fairly anti-social. Unlike land based gambling players are able to deposit, play until their heart is content and cash out without speaking to a single person. Then there’s the negative image surrounding gambling which may mean that many iGamers don’t want their friends and family to know that they’re gambling online.

These are challenges that few other industries face. With regards to advertising gambling is often grouped with alcohol and tobacco and quick looks at the social media advertising in those industries shows that there’s certainly no emerging strategic framework.

It has been suggested by many that there’s no need for social media in online gambling but with the potential in enterprises such as Facebook and Twitter it’s hard to ignore.

It’s more than likely that there won’t be any basic strategy that will allow iGaming companies to prosper in a social space. For affiliates that promote discussion Facebook may prove vital, poker operators with ambassadors may take to Twitter to engage their customers while for some simply a blog may suffice.

Currently there aren’t any iGaming companies that have found their perfect formula and as such taken the social world by storm. However, there are some making advances in the quest for a solid social strategy.

Top 5 iGaming Social Media Uses

1. Paddy Power Facebook Page – 75,000 likes and 57,000+ talking about it
2. Betfair Poker Twitter Feed – 15,800+ followers
3. Team PokerStars – 202,200+ likes
4. OnlineCasinosReview YouTube Channel – 86,000+ video views
5. Bodog Malaysia – 10,000 likes

For those of us less technically inclined, Garner put the intricate ins-and-outs of Panda into simple terms – stating that it is essentially a search engine algorithm update, which was rolled out across the internet after an analysis by Google that reviewed thousands of websites with duplicate content. The update removed the sites Google considered to be spammy – basically those where all the content was the same.

“The sites that got hit were the sites which produced lots of content which was essentially the same as the other pieces of content on that site,” Garner explains. “This affected odds aggregators – there were a few that got away – but these sites are the sites which take betting odds for various operators and put them all in one place so the bettor can decide which sites they want to bet on; who has the best odds.”

Garner believes there’s only one thing for such sites to do. “Just start afresh,” he advised. “There’s no way back.” Saying it how it is, he warned that operators will have to start from the beginning, with a new domain, or change their business model to succeed.

Liking the buying of links to that of a class C drug, Garner cautioned operators that though it helps your rankings in the first instance and it gets you dependant, “over time links get worse and it all goes wrong,” he explained. “Google, i.e the government, is looking over you telling you ‘If you buy links you’re gonna [sic] go to prison’ and get knocked out of the search. That’s the end of it.”

Garner left us with some juicy tips for any operators looking to rule the search-engine roost. “You’ve got to get the architecture right. If you get the architecture wrong you’ve got a big problem,” he said, while assuring it is crucial for any operator to structure the campaign properly with adwords.

“Once you start churning the money through it – if you’ve got the architecture of the campaign wrong and you change everything around – your quality score goes through the floor. You’d pay a whole lot more money per click, and in effect you get taxation for change.”

Unibet’s king of search made it clear that reorganising your campaign six months down the line will only lead to even bigger problems, and could mean you’d end up spending 30% extra on adwords simply because you’ve got to build you quality score up again.

Garner’s Number one piece of advice: get the foundations of your adwords right first time in your campaign and you’re laughing.

The UK transgender group, The Beaumont Society, said it wasn’t inappropriate as “the entire campaign would be a tongue-in-cheek look at the Ladies Day race meeting where these days a large number of cross dresser’s make a day of it”.

As we anticipate the next cheeky Irish chappy’s next ad in the “We Hear You” campaign, allegedly entitled “CHAVS”, we thought we’d see what you guys thought of the paddy power pandemonium. Is it all just a silly PR stunt? Did the ASA overreact? We launched a poll asking our readers: “Did the ASA do the right thing by banning the Paddy Power ad?” and here are the results.

With a massive majority, 65% of you said “It doesn’t matter, the controversy made it a success”, suggesting that at the end of the day, any publicity is good publicity, and it probably was just a cheap PR stunt. But who gives a shit? It worked! 20% didn’t agree and said “No – the ASA overstepped their bounds”, and only 15% of you (probably the proportion of our transgender readership) believed Paddy Power went too far this time, answering “Yes – it was inappropriate”.

If you can’t get enough of our immense polls- and no, you dirty minded creeps, we’re referring to our surveys – then get voting on our next question: Who’s be best to play Calvin Ayre in a movie about his life? Cast your opinion on the left hand side and tell us if Charlie Sheen, Nicholas Cage, Liam Neeson, George Clooney, Ben Stiller or even Calvin himself would best suit the role.