Industry innovation should not remain in the realms of pure gambling

Everyone wants to be innovative. Often, when you ask a member of your team what will differentiate your brand from others, the answer will be ‘innovation’ and most times, when you ask what innovation is, they will say ‘technology’.

But what is innovation in a B2C operator, and is it purely technology-driven? If so, what types of technology are considered to be a driver for an online casino, sports betting operator and lottery? The first aspect is, of course, the customers.

The gambling industry doesn’t exist in a space of its own. An online gaming user is an internet services consumer – where gambling is only a small part of their everyday cyber life. A consumer will expect to see the general advancements in our online world immersed into their online gambling experience. This means that innovation in our industry cannot stay in the pure gambling realm. Innovation is the full online consumer experience, no different than others.

Apart from the very basics of gambling, like the simple action of placing a bet, in the current market, an operator cannot survive without a robust set of supporting services to drive its growth and maintain operation. From a variety of content from different providers, marketing channels and new technologies for media advertising, to personal marketing via communication services such as push messages and WhatsApp, analytics tools and models are constantly adapting to support these efforts.

New and robust systems to support personalised, segmented, real-time marketing are not only a nice-to-have anymore. Technologies from other industries are enhancing these systems, becoming an inherit part of what drives the gaming industry forward.

An operator needs a full platform to be able to support and serve this complex set of contents to its customers. Most B2C operators have faced the dilemma of in-house development versus outsourcing or purchasing systems to support their strategies for growth.

Drawing on expertise

A single operator, unless it’s massively funded, cannot support all services by itself. Therefore, with the need for technological advancement and continuous changes, where should the operator focus their time, resources and efforts? Should such a company be technology-driven because it’s an online business, or should it be marketing-focused?

The answer is both. It’s not a coincidence the world of UX is one of the biggest drivers for innovation these days; it’s where marketing and tech meet. A seamless, unified and unique UX is the manifestation of the marketing strategy with the technological innovation. A successful operator is one which can choose the services they’d like to help them, while being able to support such an integration internally.

The expertise for each of these services should be left to the expert product provider, which can, and should, provide the operator with all of the latest innovation. The operator’s expertise should be in the final product – innovative in serving to the customer the full experience.

The operator’s ecosystem should be one which can take all of the pieces and tie them up into a comprehensive, seamless and understandable experience. It should be able to react fast and maintain and absorb developments, while keeping its own unique build. A real innovative operator technology is the interpretation and manifestation of its integrated hub. Technology can never be innovative on its own when it comes to B2C, but rather it should always be a tool to create innovation for the end-user.

Avigail Nir is the COO at Mansion Group. With an extensive history of management experience under her belt in operations, product and marketing, she joined Mansion in 2017 and was promoted to COO in 2019. Overlooking operations, support, risk, analytics, product and UX, Nir’s focus is to continue developing Mansion’s long-standing successful presence in the industry.