Metal Casino on why its unique brand proposition will disrupt the market

Just two years since its inception, Metal Casino’s unique brand proposition has set it apart from the competition in what is an extremely saturated market. Not just a regular casino, the brand focuses on having a strong content base while on the music side it heavily invests in legendary brand ambassadors like Ozzy Osbourne to help push its passion for music and casino out to metal fans and punters alike.

Metal Casino claims it was formed “by a team of casino fiends and metalheads”, so it’s clear the operator’s love for music is at the heart of the firm. Between them, the founders have more than 30 years’ experience in music, gaming and tech companies, bringing with them experience from their time at Universal, MTV, Spotify, Microsoft, Apple and Mr Green.

The company’s passion and uniqueness are just two of the things that attracted managing director Kim Larsen to the firm. Larsen joined Metal Casino in February to head up the firm’s operations and establish a new base in Malta. Having previously worked as COO at River iGaming, he had decided to take a short break from working life to spend time with his family, but the approach by Metal Casino was an opportunity he says he just couldn’t pass by.

Former River iGaming COO Kim Larsen joined Metal Casino as MD in February

Since establishing the new Malta office, Larsen has also been building up his team. In May, Sven Strey joined Metal Casino from Gaming Innovation Group (GiG) in a newly created role of head of sportsbook. Larsen says he expects Strey to drive the new vertical to great heights.

On his industry experience, Strey says: “I have been in gaming for over 10 years now with various responsibilities, from CRM manager to country manager and affiliate manager. My experience is fairly [evenly] split between casino and sports but it has to be said that I am a sports nerd and my passion lies with sports and betting.”

Here, Larsen talks to EGR Intel about his priorities for the brand, its plans for venturing into new markets and new verticals and why Metal Casino is no regular casino brand.

EGR Intel: What enticed you to join the company after saying you would be taking some time off after you left River iGaming?

Kim Larsen (KL): When I left River back in October/November, I did need a little bit of time off. It was a huge undertaking at River where we managed to get a lot done in a short space of time. Before that I spent almost four years at Cherry. So, after River I went back home and spent some time with my family which I haven’t done for the last couple of years. Then quite a few interesting offers came along. I do love this industry, it’s the most agile industry there is. I started attending some interviews and then out of nowhere this brand came along. I had a look, saw Ozzy Osbourne and the people behind it, from the board (Petter Nylander and Dimitri Titov) and on the branding side. I looked into it and found the casino to be one of the most unique brands in the marketplace in Scandinavia and Northern Europe.

Most of the casinos are very homogenic. They sell the same product with different colours. But Metal Casino taps into the music aspect as well. It’s one of the strongest feelings and emotions that we have. The guys have done an absolute stand-up job creating the branding, foundation and building the overall infrastructure. I saw the potential of this as one of the greatest single brands out there. The content will be more and more important with the more regulated markets we get. We see Sweden is now regulated with limitations on what you can offer customers and how you can communicate. That means we can’t be mainstream and offer free spins etc.

We have a strong content base and the brand really does care about music and the metal scene. And that thread runs through the entire organisation which I absolutely love. I thought this is something that can rocket into something massive. I went over to Sweden, had a chat with the founders and, although it wasn’t the move I was initially looking for, it just felt right. Being given the mandate to run the operations the way I think is correct and bringing across a couple of people that I want to work with, it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.

EGR Intel: What have been your priorities since joining the company in February?

KL: To get all the operations and systems up and running. Metal Casino never had a Malta office before. They have been running this from Stockholm on a very small crew relying on third parties. The first thing I did was to set up full operations here in Malta but still keeping the third parties (GiG, FastTrack and Enteractive) for back-up and support. We are taking charge more of content and the operations side of it.

We moved into the office five weeks ago [March] and we had a small office party for third parties and friends of the brand. We have eight ground staff here in Malta. Some are moving from Stockholm to join here and we have recruited three highly qualified members from the industry to drive this forward. In order for us to have greater ownership of the day-to-day we need to have that presence. Last month Sven Strey joined us in a newly created role as our head of sportsbook ahead of our sportbook launch. We want to tick all the boxes but still stay true to the brand.

EGR Intel: Can you talk about the shift in the senior management team earlier this year? How does this support the company’s overall strategy?

KL: Clas Dahlen isn’t really stepping down but is moving to a more strategic role in the company. He’s still overseeing the branding part which is his absolute forte. He has done a fantastic job leading this. He left the CMO position but he is still in a strategic role looking at new markets and there are a couple of new projects to be announced very shortly. Pelle Wiman took the CMO position. He had been with the company since its early days. He came from a digital marketing background and he is very capable and talented. He is running the day-to-day marketing which is a good fit.

Michael Freudenthal still runs the company, however he left the Malta organisation and ops to me. You need to be on the ground in order to push things. His background is in gaming and start-ups. Frederik Loodh runs the financial, corporate side of things and moving the company to where it is going to be so larger than it is today.

The foundation is already in place. The guys need time to do what they want to do and to bring the company to new heights. Even though there is a new CMO, the leadership, ownership and founders are still there. On the day-to-day running of the business, we use outstanding branding and outstanding content to drive the projects to the next level.

EGR Intel: Metal Casino was formed in 2017, how have the first few years been and what are your plans from here in terms of entering new markets?

KL: We are venturing into new markets but I can’t disclose too much. We have competitors and all of us are looking at new markets. Our main market has been Sweden, which is close to home for the brand – but with Sweden being under regulation now it has become more difficult to compete without spending multi-millions of euros on marketing. It’s quite noisy in the market and all the big companies around us here in Malta that are Sweden-focused have unfortunately suffered quite severely in Q1. From our perspective, on a smaller scale we showed growth during this period on more or less every KPI, so that’s a positive thing.

It did open our eyes and with me coming from Norway and knowing the Norwegian market I obviously want to go in there at some point. We do look further into Europe. There are lots of extremely interesting markets but we need to release a couple of verticals before we can get a foothold there. Yet again it boils down to us having not just a casino but we also have proper content to back it up and we do have the music theme to tap into as well. New markets are what we look at every single day but we need to do it properly.

EGR Intel: Metal Casino’s approach is very unique and different with a heavy focus on brand and content targeting a very specific demographic. Why has this approach been so successful and has it helped you to stand out in an oversaturated market?

KL: It boils down to coming from something true and not just hard marketing. It comes from a proper love for music, generating that special emotion and wanting to create something for the fans. It’s not just about the free spins. We sponsor up-and-coming metal bands, big rock stars and we have legendary ambassadors like Ozzy Osbourne.  We also want to look at it at the grassroots level. We want to help up-and-coming artists and not necessarily for us to benefit from it but actually to be true to the brand of metal. This is something we are working on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92Thn37awJo

We have a presence at a rock festival in Sweden in June [Sweden Rock] and we’re going to roll out a sponsorship programme that would help up-and-coming bands. We want to contribute as much as we can to the grassroots of rock. I still feel a genuine involvement and love for the genre and it absolutely thrills me to be a part of that. If we can help up-and-coming bands and be part of that scene, I’m more than happy to help out as much as we can. We are going to do it from a sentimental point of view and branding perspective rather than a monetary point of view.

EGR Intel: How have your brand ambassadors such as Ozzy Osbourne impacted Metal Casino’s performance and do you have any more sponsorships/brand ambassadors on the horizon?

KL: We have one or two on the horizon but having Ozzy Osbourne as the main ambassador, given his legendary life, his status and his trueness to the cause of metal, gives us credibility. It is something the founders are immensely proud of. If you see the clips of him online playing casino it comes from the bottom of his heart. He is a living legend and we are thrilled to have him. And with Scott Ian [Anthrax] and Gary Holt [Exodus], it gives us a foundation we are proud of. There are also social aspects of the brand that are important to the owners and something we will keep doing.

EGR Intel: On your site, you have a gaming and music show that you stream live on Twitch and YouTube, what has been the response to that since its launch last year and how has it helped with the acquisition of new customers?

KL: Marielle, who is the host of the show, is doing a fantastic job. It’s growing and it’s creating that community that we are looking for. This is also one of the channels for crossover because there are people that like to gamble, there are people that like heavy metal and those two things aren’t necessarily combined in one person. We are gaining new followers every single day. We are looking to broaden it out and invite new guest stars. When Marielle was here in Malta last she did the show from here from an apartment studio. It is something we are going to keep expanding. The potential is sky high.

EGR Intel: Can you tell me more about your sportsbook product, how is that going? Why did you select GiG as your platform provider?

KL: Sportsbook is something we are working on. Choosing GiG, that was done before my time, however I’m really happy with their performance. Working with the GiG platform, with Marga as our contact, is a first for me as I’ve worked with Betsson when I was at Cherry which was an XCaliber platform. So, coming over to this, it’s a good product and so far so good.

In the merch room, players can purchase metal paraphernalia and gig tickets in exchange for loyalty currency MetCoins

I have launched sportsbook before. One of my brands in Cherry was the first one in the Cherry Group to launch sportsbook back in the day. The two verticals are a totally different species, however they tend to go hand in hand as well. Personally I’m not a punter. I don’t play hard but I do like to place a bet and I do like to play a little bit of casino and it’s absolutely something that can be combined. When we go into different markets that will appeal to a different audience.

The goal in a perfect world, maybe not for Metal Casino, on a brand for the future is to have all the verticals under the same umbrella. At the moment casino is embedded in our URL but we are looking into different fields and verticals.

EGR Intel: What is next for Metal Casino in 2019?

KL: We are looking to stabilise ourselves and to have an optimised way of running internal communications (newsletters, CRM) but also how we spend our marketing money. That goes for TV commercials, digital to SEO, ambassadors and sponsorships. We need to be clever about how to do this because we are still a very young company. The smarter we are, the better equipped we are to face challenges in the future. My goal for 2019 is to have a well-oiled machine that can kick ass. It’s not grandiose plans, however it’s something I’m pretty sure we are going to get to sooner rather than later.