Issue #254
weekly
Dear Reader,
I'm back and intact. A few days in Nice is well...nice. And the Fourth Annual European I-Gaming Congress & Expo was the place to be (if you're into online gaming which I assume is true). But if you're into other things like dirty Frenchmen and boobs, keep on reading since this coverage is for you too.
So grab yo'self a hot cup o' java, and read on...
Happily yours,
Bryan
Can't read this newsletter in HTML? Click here (or copy and paste this link into your browser): http://www.casinomeister.com/newsletter.html#skip for the bitchin' online version.
No riots here...
So where should I start? Perhaps on the flight out of Frankfurt, but that was uneventful - which is good - or perhaps at my arrival in the hotel - nope, too boring. I could start with my walk along the promenade my first evening there. It was surprisingly crowded. I thought that in November not that many people would be visiting the French Riviera. I could just imagine how this would be in July - hot and sweaty, dodging inline skaters and bicyclists.I speak hardly a word in French. I can get by with the obligatory terms: excuse me, hello, thank you, goodbye, and other common terms that affirm civilized behaviour, but that's it. I was also on my own. The loner dude. My "usual suspects" travel partners - Ted Loh, Greedygirl, Brian Cullingworth, etc., were not attending for various reasons. I was by my lonesome on this one, and my first evening there was no one to dine with except my Rolling Stone magazine.
So my first meal in France was onion rings and barbecued ribs Texas style at the Buffalo Grill. Yeeha! Not too bad, but I felt a tinge of guilt for not jumping feet first into a French food fest.
Monday morning came and it was clear and crisp - short sleeves were possible, but it was cool in the shade. I had a nice brisk walk to the conference center. It was about 15-20 minutes; quite do-able and quite enjoyable. My hotel was by the beach at the edge of the old part of the city. The walk involved ambling through tight alley ways lined with art dealers and quaint gift shops.
The conference center was huge - expansive. And it was a little strange walking in there at first; it was virtually void of people except for scurrying Frenchmen setting up tables for the following day's lunch. The conference was on the third floor, and people were beginning to line up at the registration stands. It was merely the size of the exposition center that dwarfed the people's presence.
Expectations were high this being the fourth annual EIG. Each year brought in more operators, more marketers, more lobbyists and legal representatives, more people with ideas for this industry. And looking around, I noticed that there were way more black suits and grey hairs than ever before. Most everyone I talked to mentioned the same thing. This industry has become more corporate, and much more serious. No one can afford to take the industry lightly anymore, at least in Europe.
I've also come to realize that this industry is like a big plate of spaghetti. Most people involved with online casinos love their work (but not necessarily their jobs), and are in it for the long run. So some people go from one organization to another, and then sometimes to another. Or they start doing their own thing - consulting, marketing, or getting involved with some mysterious entity that blows my mind. My problem is that I've met so many people over the years...so many Brians, Franks, Stephens, Stephans, Johns, Elisabeths, that people get blurred. I really like nametags; nametags are my friends.
I digress.
Party Poker's CEO Richard Segal gave the keynote address, and he discussed the topic of going public. Pits and pratfalls that others may need to be aware of - he stated that early life as a public company was more exciting than expected. He went further to talk about the downside of public listing, and one thing is the transparency. Competitors will know information you may not want them to know, it will give them an edge they didn't have beforehand. Also, public scrutiny is not always a welcome thing. He then showed some examples of how the UK press had goofed on him with a full page photo layout depicting him with a cowboy hat and munching on a fat stogie while playing poker. Ha ha, I chuckled to myself - thinking of the some of the colorful people I know who are going public and what they might have to put up with.
Richard Segal went on further talking about marketing and the importance of affiliate marketing. 30% of Party Poker's players come through affiliates and he stressed their importance. There has been a bit of paranoia in the affiliate world. With mainstream media opening their advertising venues to online casinos, sportsbooks, and online poker rooms - many affiliates feel threatened as they would be turned into a cyber dinosaur. At the moment, affiliate marketing is still a crucial form of marketing.
From this point, the conference broke into two separate tracks: Roundtable Discussion - Convergence of Industries, and Effective Online Customer Acquisition Strategies for Online Gambling. I chose the marketing track since Heather Hopkins from Hitwise was giving a presentation on how Hitwise works.
Hitwise is a tool that some companies use to track the traffic of the Internet. The cost is astronomical and is beyond the reach of modest sites such as Casinomeister, but besides this imperfection - it's really interesting. It collects information from servers and is able to analyze traffic of competitors. She pointed out some interesting observances. Golden Palace receives a lot of traffic - true, and presumably it's from the lame-ass funny ha-ha eBAY auctions and sports event streakers. According to Hitwise, it's not. The two biggest peaks they had this past year was when they purchased the fence behind the grassy knoll of the JFK assasination, and when some swimsuit model had a GP check tattooed on her. So I guess buying old cheese sandwiches don't drive tons of traffic your way.
Moving on - Scott Neil from Sportsdatabases.com filled everyone in on what works and what doesn't on webdesign and how this affects customer retention and site popularity. Like most good webmasters know - quality content is a key factor. At the end of the day - content is king.
From there, I went on to check out the exhibitors. There were 43 booths this time; an impressive layout. This is an important leg of the journey since I have the opportunity to meet up with some of the people who can solve a myriad of problems. I met with Microgaming's CEO Roger Raatgever, and other concerned individuals and we discussed the spam problem that Fortune Lounge is dealing with. There are a series of complaints in our forum that illustrate a problem with players receiving unwanted spam mails, but are unable to unsubscribe. Everyone is frustrated about this: me, Fortune Lounge, eCOGRA, and Microgaming. I'm frustrated since it seems that FL is allowing one of it's affiliates to use spam as a marketing tool (thus their presence was dropped from Casinomeister several weeks ago). eCOGRA is frustrated because even though people are moaning about this in the forums, not many people have submitted their complaints. MG is truly frustrated since they monitor the forums, and people like me, Brian Cullingworth, and others have kept them up to snuff on the situation. And Fortune Lounge is frustrated because even though they have this massive email campaign going on, hardly anyone has complained to them directly. If bucket loads of players are being bombarded by this spam machine, where are the complaints?
Well, I for one am not going to fish for them - I have enough to do as it is. But one thing is for sure, I do not appreciate the fact that the Fortune Lounge apparently decided to sit on their hands and remain silent about this entire situation for six weeks. They seem to think that even though people complaining in the forums is a small percentage of users. They should know better than that. I know for a fact that investigative reporters from MSNBC, US News & World Report, and the LA Times have accounts in the forum. All it takes is something for them to find interesting (casino spam scams) and watch the shit hit the fan. So go ahead - ignore the forums.
And what a brazen attitude. The relationship between Casinomeister and Fortune Lounge has been adversely affected by this, but it appears they don't give a damn. What a shame. They were even awarded Casinomeister's Casino Group of the Year 2003 - goes to show they didn't give a flying rat's ass about that either.
Anyway, there was free beer at last, but beer in France? Don't know 'bout that. But it was a nice reception and I was able to gather a lot of information about a number of things.
And as that first evening turned into night, several of us spent some time maneuvering through the streets in old town, and stopping to chow down on some yummy fish.
The next day, I slept in. This is something that is impossible to do at home, and it's one of the reasons I travel to faraway foreign places - to sleep. I can sleep in the plane, hotel rooms, in alley ways, (anywhere but in the conference, that wouldn't look too hot).
I was bright eyed and bushy tailed on Day Two - and was ready to absorb whatever the lawyers had to say during the roundtable discussion: EU Case Law and Policy. At every EIG there is this legal discussion, and each year it looks just as cloudy and unclear. It seems everyone wants a piece of the pie. With the movements in the UK and in continental Europe, opportunities are opening up, but at the same time are getting muddled in bureaucracy or complex laws and situations. For instance, to advertise casinos (online or offline) you need a German gaming license. Betandwin can do this (an Austrian company) because they have gaming licenses from the former East German government that never expired. Without this license, German criminal law is broken. And this goes for casinos and marketing firms located outside of Germany. Advertise a German language casino to German players, you're technically breaking the law here in Deutschland. Isn't the Internet amazing? More on the German market here.
The next group of presentations "Focus on Eastern Europe" were interesting. The first presentation covered online casinos in the Russian Federation. Peter Speight, general manager of Shangri La Online Casino, gave a solid presentation on the state of things in Russia. There are three types of licenses casinos can acquire there: manufacture and selling of casino equipment, casino games, and casino slots. But even though these licenses are available, there is no governing body covering them. This was a bit confusing for me. So online casinos located in the Russian Federation are licensed - but they are not.
He also discussed the "mixed bag" of operators that operate out of Russia. Most of the Russian casinos are "home grown" brands with very poor customer service - many "backyard" operations. He also mentioned how some of these casinos are very quirky; one boasts of delivering cash to your door. He jokingly brought up the notion of a nervous delivery boy on the Moscow Metro carrying a bag full of money to deliver to some lucky player. He finished by stating that anyone wishing to get into the Russian market needs to come in with good morals, solid ethics, and a lot of energy.
Vasil Stumbov, CEO of Gamebookers, covered Eastern Europe. There are lot of opportunities there especially with mobile phone penetration - over 90% of the adults in the Czech Republic have mobile phones, and broad band connections are increasing rapidly throughout.
But when most of us think about Eastern Europe, player and casino fraud comes to mind. The risk of fraud is extremely serious in Eastern Europe. Factors such as highly skilled people, organized crime, feelings of being untouchable because of the Internet, and crappy laws make Eastern Europe very risky. The legal situation is tricky as well. Legal departments are used by local jurisdictions to lobby for what they (the jurisdictions) want - usually to secure monopolies. So as an operator, if you're looking to get into this market, it may not be a clear solid path.
The rest of the afternoon was spent mingling around the exhibition area. Everything seemed very mellow. Little did I know, there were flashing boobies in my near future. More on this as you scroll down...slowly...
InterBingo
Kiwi Bingo
Tiki Bingo
http://www.casinomeister.com/casinos.html#bingo
Check out the new section in our forum "Bingo!" for more Bingo information:
http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/bingo/
http://www.casinomeister.com/casinos.html
New Casinos:
Leisure & Gaming plc - RTG
VIP Casinos.com
VIP Poker
Main Street Casino Group - Playtech
Diamond Deal Casino
Vegas Casino Online
Las Vegas USA Casino
Twin Aces Casino
Slots.com
Sun Palace Casino
Fire and Ice casino Group - Oddson
Fire and Ice Casino
Hot Pepper Casino
All listed here: http://www.casinomeister.com/casinos.html#casinos
I like dem boobies...
Playtech was sponsoring the cocktail reception at the Hotel Negresco; a swanky five star on the promenade. The doormen and bellmen wear nifty uniforms, and the place drips with French Riviera casino money. The party was huge, but the French don't know what to do with beer. They served it either in wine glasses or short little water glasses. And they ran out of beer way too early for my taste. After that, the only thing left to drink was wine or scotch (huh? no Jack and Coke?). Man, it was time to find somewhere else to chill out.I have to mention that before I left, Roger Raatgever did find me a beer - one of the last few that were left. I felt so appreciated - and happy.
I left with a few others to find food. Italian Pizza which was better than the Italian Pizza I've had in Italy; very scrumptious. Since Nice is on the Mediterranean, the food is full of many Franco-Italian surprises. But better surprises were in store.
From there we had calls on our mobiles to head over to Waynes Bar located smack dab in the middle of the pedestrian zone, and only a stone's throw from our Pizza joint.
My first impression as we meandered into this loud and sweaty bar was that I was way too large a guy in this sardine factory. It was packed wall to wall, and I knew I'd probably never get a beer. But I figured "what the hell, I'll try at least once" and I squeezed my way to the bar.
On the way there, I saw many a familiar face - and I finally made it to the bar. I suddenly realized I was about to pay for my own beer for the first time. "Egads!", I thought, "How much could a beer be in France?" Well, I found out. It was a lot (can't remember), but I do remember giving the guy a ten Euro note and he began to hand me some change back with this puppy dog look in his eyes. I waved my hand in the international hand signal of "keep it". "HAH!" he yelled, laughing a I got another sucker to tip laugh. And he clanged the "tip" bell. Bemused, I stood there and realized there was a live band down in the level below the main bar, and they were jammin'. Again, I squeezed through the crowd and made my way down there. Being a self-proclaimed musician myself, I dig jammin' bands.
"Breathe" was the name of the band, and they were doing covers of your typical indie rock and a few stray others. Brits I believe, and they had the crowd dancing on the tables. It reminded me of a German Bierfest, except these guys played much better than any German band I've seen.
And people were dancing the freedom dance. Even a few suits were getting into it. A girl I'll name "Miss Boobs" for decency sake was doing her thang in front of the stage, gettin' all wild, grabbing at guys (not me, thank you), pulling off their shirts and tweaking their nipples. And these guys were falling for it.
The band took a quick break and announced that women who would flash their boobs at the bar would get a free drink of Champagne. I thought it was a joke until I checked out the bar's website the next day (you are reading this in HTML, aren't you? for shame if you ain't - you need to check out the online version NOW!) where they post the pictures of the winners of the free drinks. Check it out for any industry people you might know <grin>. I think I spotted one.
Well, it neared closing time and the band signed off with Nirvana's Teen Spirit - and I spoke to the bass player briefly - we both love Fenders.
Leaving the bar, I was all sweaty and such. I followed the herd out towards the exit, and it was a who's who of the online gaming industry. Everyone was slowly moving out the front door - I grabbed my jacket, looked at my watch, it was 2:30, and wondered if this was smart. Out on the street, people were walking into lamp poles and staggering towards another place that was still open. "To the Blue Whale" I heard a familiar voice cry out. It was Michael Caselli, editor of Bluff Magazine. He grabbed my arm and began to guide me along with a swarm of many happy other people. But suddenly he was distracted by someone who really needed a helping arm to the next location. "Blue Whale" they began to chant (supposedly it stayed open until 4 something - but I think they screwed up). This is when I made a clean get-away back to my hotel room. I was smart enough to know that my big comfy bed beats coming back at the break of dawn.
The next morning, I was chipper and it was a beautiful day. And on the way to the conference - I noticed again that there was dog poop all over the side walks in some places. A dry leaf in the corner of one's eye can cause you to trip over your own two feet thinking that it's a canine surprise. And I hadn't noticed any stray dogs yet - only a lot of French people walking their dogs on leashes. So I was only guessing that letting your dog poop on the sidewalk is allowed if not encouraged.
And French people drive like madmen. Believe me, I've driven around crazy drivers. I've driven through Florence in the middle of summer. But I swear these people try to hit you when you're walking across the street on the pedestrian crossing. I crossed the street legally on a crosswalk with a little old lady and cars were flying by. It reminded me of the adage: heaven is a place where the Brits are in charge of the humor, the French in charge of the food, and the Germans in charge of the traffic. But hell is where the Germans are in charge of the humor, the Brits in charge of the food, and French in charge of the traffic.
It was good to arrive at the conference in one piece and with clean shoes.
Day 3 - player fraud and player problems were addressed by Rick Smith of the Interactive Gaming Council and Frank Catania from Catania Consulting Group. They brought up some interesting points about how player problems arise. There is a cross-border complexity and lack of uniformity that players are normally unaware of. This is true. Many players who have problems have either fallen victim to misunderstandings or inflated expectations. Operators need to be objective when dealing with player issues. And one of the most important points that they made is that when dealing with a player complaint, turn a negative into a positive. This is a defensive marketing strategy.
With this in mind, I thought of all of the casinos that clammed up when approached with a player issue, how they stuck their heads in the sand out of selfishness or not understanding where the player was coming from. Things could have been very different and possibly so much better if these casinos just jumped in and spun the negativity into something else. So many missed opportunities lost to shortsightedness. What a shame.
My last evening was a nice relaxing loner interlude before the trek home. A candle lit dinner with me and my Rolling Stone magazine. The food is killer in France. I had a huge slab of sea bass covered with almonds or something baked on rice. Incredible.
And coming home, it was a relief to be back. So much to do - many, many PABs to deal with, and many cool plans for Casinomeister. Thanks again to the River City Group and to ATEOnline who produce the best igaming conferences around.
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Peace
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Bryan Bailey Webmeister Casinomeister |  |