“Retail isn’t dying as fast as ‘they’ predicted”

What products did you exhibit during this year's ICE Totally Gaming?

At ICE 2016 we launched our new Virtual Sports product via Inspired Gaming, and a specialist horse and dog racing integration with leading UK data supplier, the Racing Post. We also released a ‘small’ terminal version in the form of a prototype tablet for space-deficient venues. These were received very well by existing and potential customers, and we look forward to rolling them out into the estates of our retail partners later in the year.

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There is a huge overlap between the digital and retail sector, and they can operate in harmony

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How would you describe the player of the future and how are you adapting your product offering to cater to this new type of player?

The player of the future wants convenience with everything at his or her fingertips. If a certain sport is being bet anywhere in the world, then a customer should be able to access that betting event into a retail outlet as well as in the comforts of home. There is still plenty of demand for retail betting, but it needs to be in the right environment with the relevant information at hand. Our industry-leading self-service technology provides the customer with immediate access to tens of thousands of markets, with the expertly-designed interface driving longer betslips and healthier margins than can be generated online or mobile.

Do you believe digital propositions have cannibalized the retail sector? How do you find new ways to stay innovative?

There is a huge overlap between the digital and retail sector, and they can operate in harmony. While the convenience of betting on-the-go appeals to many, the atmosphere and surrounds of a betting shop still brings people through the door. By providing retail customers with all the available information and betting opportunities, sometimes the removal of distractions from a player’s immediate surroundings make the betting shop the more attractive option. Innovation is driven by advances in technology. Self-service technology now permeates most customer-facing industries. The best inventions aren’t necessarily first on the market, they are the first to get it right. We focus on delivering the right innovations that appeal to the end user and make our customers, the betting operator, happier rather than wasting resources on launching new features which aren’t yet suitable for the market.

What new forms of innovation will the industry see in the coming years?

Small-screen technology, while convenient, suffer from lack of available space. If you want to drive customers into betting 15-fold accumulators or a six-team Heinz (six selections, and every combination of doubles, trebles, 4,5 and 6 folds), you need the screen size to display it properly. Retail isn’t dying as fast as ‘they’ predicted. In fact, with better technology ideally suited to the retail venue, it’s fighting back.

Apart from a strong presence of both eSports and omni-channel gaming, what were the highlights of ICE 2016?

Sports betting showed it was ‘back in the game’ with many more stands than in previous years, both in retail and online. The benchmark for innovation is very high, and particularly with regions such as Latin America set to open up, it’s an exciting time to be in the industry.

How do you assess your participation in the 2016 edition of ICE?

Our most successful show yet. This was the first year we exhibited on our own at ICE. In previous years we have shared space with our hardware suppliers, now we have graduated to our own stand. We designed the stand in-house and received so many compliments about it that we might need to give our marketing team a raise to prevent them being poached by rival operators. Having our own stand with a long list of blue-chip clients establishes us as a major b2b supplier in sports betting with customers now coming directly to us rather than having to knock on doors as a start-up.