“The show was the ideal opportunity to showcase the many new Evolution Live Casino products launched over the past year, and to catch up with existing and prospective licensees,” said Helen Hedgeland, Managing Director Evolution UK, in an interview with CasinoOnlineRating.com. She spoke about her company’s experiences at ICE Totally Gaming,  new products they presented and her company’s future plans.

Was this year’s ICE Totally Gaming show successful for your company?

Yes, most definitely! The show was the ideal opportunity to showcase the many new Evolution Live Casino products launched over the past year, and to catch up with existing and prospective licensees.

Alongside our new products, which we talk about below, we focused on Business Intelligence, an increasingly important area for operators. In particular, we highlighted the ways in which our growing BI team can work hand in hand with licensees to derive maximum value from the wealth of player and game data available from our systems. This data is being used in ever-more sophisticated ways to drive our licensees’ acquisition and retention strategies. As multi-channel play becomes the norm in Live Casino, it becomes increasingly important to understand players’ playing patterns, preferences and behaviours.

However, the highlight of our few days at ICE 2014 was the signing of our agreement with Danske Licens Spil to launch a unique new online Live Casino for Denmark’s liberalised gaming market.

Our new service for this state-owned national lottery and gambling operator will include dedicated Live Casino tables hosted at our new Malta studios. These tables will be devoted exclusively to the Danish operator and the casino environment will feature Danske Licens Spil design, décor and branding throughout.

Uniquely for the Danish market, the dealers will be native speaking Danes. The Danske Licens Spil service will also include a comprehensive range of core live tables hosted at our studios in Latvia.

Why is it important for your company to exhibit at ICE Totally Gaming?

At ICE you get a very high quality audience, all together under the one roof. It’s a great opportunity to catch up with existing licensees and to meet new potential partners. At the same time, we can have all the different departments of the Evolution team from the multiple offices on hand to meet with clients.

It’s a key date in the international gaming calendar – a special time and place where we can demonstrate all our new products, talk about forthcoming developments, and make and finalise deals. It’s both an international shop window and an industry convention.

What can you tell us about the products you presented during the show?

We presented our extended Mobile Live Casino offering, which provides easy access to our live games on iPhone, iPad and an ever-growing number of the best-selling Android smartphones and tablets. Visitors to our stand saw not only the breadth of access devices but also the table choice we offer players on Mobile. That’s because when we make a game available on Mobile we make every single table for that game available on Mobile, not just one or two tables. 

We also used ICE to officially launch Live Three Card Poker, which we’ve created in partnership with SHFL entertainment, Inc.  Now, just over a month on from ICE, we have been assessing the first results from licensees that have already introduced our Live Casino variant of this classic game. These operators are seeing a very healthy increase in wagering amongst their Live Dealer player base as a direct result of Live Three Card Poker, plus very strong average bet values. On top of that, we are enhancing the new game still further by adding a second side bet – the 6 Card Bonus. So, Live Three Card Poker is certainly living up to its billing as “the most popular casino specialty table game of all time.”

Our multi-camera Immersive Roulette, the world’s most advanced online Live Roulette game, was also on show at ICE, as was our new Live Blackjack with Perfect Pairs and 21+3 side bets, and our new Multi-Game Play functionality.

Multi-Game Play enables up to four live games to be played simultaneously in a single auto-configuring window. At the same time operators can use this functionality to introduce focused attractions such as ‘Quattro Roulette’ or ‘Quattro Blackjack’. Again, we have seen very positive results achieved by Evolution licensees who have introduced Multi-Game Play. Players who have tried Multi-Game Play are wagering twice as much as they did before they used it. In particular, there has been rapid adoption of Multi-Game Play amongst VIP players, a player group that is particularly keen on multi-tasking, multi-betting play.

What are your predictions for the online gaming industry in 2014?

Above all, the continuing rise of mobile. Today, operators must fit in with players’ ‘on-the-go’ lifestyles, which means delivering a great and consistent customer experience across multiple channels and devices. That’s as relevant to land-based casino operators as it is to online operators.

Accordingly, the next few months will see the continuing enhancement of our Mobile Live Casino offering. This will include roll-out to additional mobile devices and also additional games rolled out to iPhone and other smartphones.

What are your business strategies for the upcoming months?

The development and growth of both our Latvia and Malta studios is high on the agenda for 2014. Each of our two central studios has its particular focus areas. Malta is the new home to our native speaking dealer tables, while Latvia is home to our core tables and also our dedicated tables – the exclusive, branded tables we operate on behalf of specific licensees. The opening of the new, second studio is very much a strategic move designed to allow increased specialisation and to meet growing demand.

Right now, and in the next couple of months, there is a strong focus on wrapped Apps. We can wrap our Mobile Live Casino offering as part of a licensee’s App – quickly and cost-effectively. With the FIFA World Cup 2014 fast approaching, a number of licensees are keen to do this ahead of the big kick-off on June 12. Gaming operators want to be sure that the football action in Brazil doesn’t distract customers too much! The obvious twin strategy, therefore, is:

1.    To ensure that the operator’s gaming offering complements the action and the flow of news from Brazil; and to ensure that interest in the World Cup is harnessed to maximise all cross-selling opportunities.

2.    A wrapped Live Casino App can be a key ingredient of that strategy with cross-selling and promotional opportunities positioned in high-traffic areas such as sports betting pages.

As part of that same strategy, we are already in discussions with licensees about how they can run themed live promotions at their dedicated tables to tie in with World Cup games.

Moving up the map from South America, we will continue to look at tailoring our world-class Live Casino offering for the ‘new’ North American market. Already, we are the first and, to date, the only Live Casino provider to gain Preliminary Waiver approval for New Jersey.

In more general terms, we will continue to consolidate and grow our established markets. And, as always, we will be alive to every opportunity in new, changing and re-regulating markets such as the Netherlands, Greece and other opening markets.

In parallel, we will continue to enhance our core product offering, with enhancements to existing products and the development of all-new solutions.

Finally, Live Casino from land-based casinos is, I believe, a strategy that has come of age. We have championed this area for the last couple of years, and now the market is ready as operators look to better integrate land-based and online operations.

In the next quarter we will begin streaming from the in-venue Live Casino studio we are creating for Casinó Campione d'Italia, one of Europe’s largest and most stunning land-based venues. Of course, there is no legal requirement in Italy for an online casino to stream from a land-based venue in that country. Instead, Casinó Campione has recognised that the online and offline worlds can work together in harmony, and that an in-venue Live Casino is the ideal way to reach a much wider audience and to promote the attractions of their core business, the land-based venue. I believe more land-based venues will follow their lead because it makes perfect sense in a multi-channel world.

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“We were simply overwhelmed by the superlative feedback from customers, competitors, organisers and industry aficionados alike,” said Pedro De Matos, General Manager of Aristocrat, in an interview with CasinoOnlineRating.com. Together with Donal Maguire, Sales & Marketing Director – Europe, and Mike Alexander, Sales & Marketing Director – RSA, he spoke about his company’s experiences at ICE Totally Gaming, new products they presented and his company’s future plans.

What was your overall take on the ICE Totally Gaming show? Was it positive?

Attending the 2014 edition of ICE Totally Gaming show has been truly rewarding on all levels.
We must say that we met a very large number of highly qualified operators and had the chance to chat and share opinions with the most important decision makers of the online gaming field.
Above all this, we agreed many important business partnerships that are going to be highly profitable. 

Which are your biggest markets?

World Match directs the attention especially to the Mediterranean countries and in particular to the Italian and Spanish regulated markets.

What other markets are you planning to conquer?

We are now interested in the Asian and American markets.

What in your opinion is the future of the iGaming industry?

I believe that individual regulated markets and specific licenses for each single country have now got the better of cross-country licenses. This represents a great constraint for marketing activities of those operators who work across multiple markets.

Beside this, the protectionist policy put into practice by many governments actually gives access to the gaming business only to the large operators. Based on our experience we know that the cancellation of cross-country .com licenses means feeding the illegal market, that operates without any license and without any tracking of the financial transactions by the lending institutions. The alignment of the regulations at least of European countries would certainly be of great help to the development of the market.

What are your plans for 2014?

We planned to strengthen our penetration into Italian and Spanish markets and to enrich the offer of mobile games with more Slot Machines, Video Poker games, Roulettes and Table Games.

Will certainly keep an eye also on the American markets from which we expect new and attractive business opportunities.

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“Visitors were really surprised by the quality of our games, especially how smooth they run compared to other mobile games,” said Jerzy Kolodziej, Wazdan's Customer Relations Manager, in an interview with CasinoOnlineRating.com. He spoke about his company’s experiences at ICE Totally Gaming,  new products they presented and his company’s future plans.

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“It was clear that our company had once again provided the global gaming industry with a fascinating range of new products and solutions,” said Max Lindenberg, Novomatic’s Director of Marketing, in an interview with CasinoOnlineRating.com. He spoke about his company’s experiences at ICE Totally Gaming, new products they presented and the feedback Novomatic received from visitors.

Was this year’s ICE totally Gaming show successful for your company?

Novomatic set the standard at ICE Totally Gaming, with a huge array of innovative products and solutions including more than 50 new game themes plus new cabinets, new jackpots and major technical solutions. In so doing, our company recorded a hugely successful show presentation.


Novomatic was the show’s largest exhibitor with a massive 4,500 sqm of booth space. Was such  huge space necessary?

That huge space was, of course, necessary, as we brought a total of 13 NOVOMATIC subsidiary companies to London. The Astra Gaming Group (Astra Games, Bell-Fruit Games, Empire Games, Gamestec and Mazooma Interactive Games) welcomed visitors at the entrance, then Admiral Sportwetten, JVH exploitatie, Eurocoin gaming, Octavian and Novomatic Gaming Spain stood shoulder to shoulder alongside a dedicated Online gaming area that featured Greentube, iGaming2Go and the latest member of the Novomatic family, Betware with its online lottery solutions. The main booth section featured the full range of gaming innovations from Austrian Gaming Industries GmbH (AGI), including an extended Roulette area, new cabinet presentations as well as jackpots, games and casino management and cash handling systems. One particularly exciting display was the first ‘live’ showing of NBS, the Novomatic Biometric Systems™ which facilitates a modern approach to contemporary demands in and beyond the gaming industry. At ICE, the NOVOMATIC Biometric Systems™ consisted of a modified fingerprint scanner, a local server and, in order to link multiple sites, a central server. Significantly, all existing NOVOMATIC products are already ‘NBS ready’, meaning that they can be easily and quickly upgraded and networked. What was science fiction just a few years ago will be seen as ‘science now’ during ICE.

What can you tell us about new cabinets you exhibited during the show?

To prove that it is possible to succeed beyond success we presented the NOVOSTAR® V.I.P. The latest evolution of the world-beating NOVOSTAR® slant top cabinet is now designed into the V.I.P. configuration to bring the biggest slot gaming attraction onto the gaming floor. Retaining the unique ‘flip screen’ feature of the original NOVOSTAR®, this V.I.P. cabinet is further upgraded by a giant 46” upper screen positioned at the perfect ergonomic distance for supreme game play. The featured Crown V.I.P. chair with integrated sound system completes the thrilling gaming experience of this unique cabinet innovation. On the basis of customer reactions at ICE, the NOVOSTAR® V.I.P. is now ready to take on the mantle of its predecessor and become a global ‘must have’ addition to any gaming operation.

Did you present any new games?

Games were right at the forefront of the Novomatic ICE presentation. We presented new additions to the NOVO LINE™ and Coolfire™ II game compendium ranges, the completely new Superia Games™ game mixes as well as a plethora of individual game titles. More than 50 new games titles (a new record for Novomatic) were presented at the London show either as single games or in sophisticated multi-game mixes. Among them were dedicated ‘Themed Slots’ that are an ideal fit to create themed jackpot banks with the Marilyn Jackpot, the Elvis-themed Real King Jackpot or brand new the Ancient Egypt-style KINGDOM OF RA™ Jackpot. Also the new hybrid jackpot JEWELS FACTORY™ celebrated its premiere in London – pioneering the first time ever combination of a Community Jackpot and Mystery Jackpot …all in one product.

How did ICE visitors respond to your tailor-made solutions?

It was clear that our company had once again provided the global gaming industry with a fascinating range of new products and solutions. Those novelties served to attract, interest and inspire the literally thousands of ICE visitors that descended on the Novomatic booth during the whole three days of the world’s greatest gaming expo.

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“We always have a fantastic time meeting clients and showcasing our material at ICE, and the 2014 exhibition was no exception,” said Luci Apostol, Sales Manager of iSoftBet, in an interview with CasinoOnlineRating.com. She spoke about her company’s experiences at ICE Totally Gaming,  new products they presented and her company’s future plans.

Did ICE Totally Gaming meet your expectations?

Absolutely. We always have a fantastic time meeting clients and showcasing our material at ICE, and the 2014 exhibition was no exception.

It proved to be a massive opportunity for us to build on our relationships with existing customers as well as to meet new ones. It also gave some of our operators the chance to meet our product team, and from there we’ve been able to take on their ideas and work with them to tailor our offering to their players’ needs.

This kind of flexible approach to business is not something that a lot of software suppliers offer their customers, and this approach is certainly something we’ll be looking to maintain as our customer base increases.

What products did you exhibit during the show?

At ICE this year we were very keen to show off some of our latest mobile content. We’ve had a few games in development over the past few months and we were thrilled to have them ready for the exhibition.
Some of our latest and most innovative additions include Ambiance and Happy Birds. The first is a mesmerising musical ride across the reels, and Happy Birds is a fun-filled slot adventure with some great characters and vibrant animated effects.
Some of our customers were also able to gain a sneak preview of our hotly-anticipated branded slot based on the TV series 24 , and we were really pleased with the feedback we received on the quality this and our many other games.

What are the main markets for your company at present?

We mainly operate in European markets including Belgium, Spain and Italy, where currently have 80 games certified. We’re in the process of certifying our mobile slots for the Italian markets, and those should all be available to those customers in the near future.

We’re also targeting UK operators thanks to our newly-acquired Alderney licence while simultaneously working to secure our UK licence to give us that vital boost in UK markets.


What markets do you want to target in the future?

The accreditation of our Alderney licence has given us the opportunity to start working with some great Danish operators. We’re currently in talks with a number of potential customers and hoping to secure some partnership deals over the coming months.

Looking further ahead, we’re keeping a keen eye on the US market now that New Jersey has opened up and we’ll be looking to take our offering across the pond as soon as the opportunity arises.

What are your plans for 2014?

We made big plans for 2014 and we’re already working hard to meet our current objectives. First of all we’re diving headlong into the smartphone revolution by creating brand new mobile games as well as adapting our existing content for the mobile market. This will include both our original content and our branded games, including the recently-signed 24 slot; which will be available both in Flash and on mobile in the summer.

Aside from our expansive plans for game development, our newly-acquired Alderney Licence means that we’ve got a lot of work to do to make sure that all our games are fully certified in this jurisdiction. What’s more, we’ll soon be able to bolster our presence in the UK by obtaining a full UK gaming licence. Were also working on integrations with several renowned platform providers to help boost our presence in regulated markets.

Since the ICE exhibition there’s been a huge amount of buzz surrounding our latest releases, and we’re all working hard to ensure that 2014 proves to be another fantastic year for iSoftBet.

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“Attending the 2014 edition of ICE Totally Gaming show has been truly rewarding on all levels,” said Andrea Boratto, Executive Director of World Match, in an interview with CasinoOnlineRating.com. He  spoke about his company’s experiences at ICE Totally Gaming,  new products they presented and his company’s future plans.

What was your overall take on the ICE Totally Gaming show? Was it positive?

Attending the 2014 edition of ICE Totally Gaming show has been truly rewarding on all levels.

We must say that we met a very large number of highly qualified operators and had the chance to chat and share opinions with the most important decision makers of the online gaming field.

Above all this, we agreed many important business partnerships that are going to be highly profitable.  


Which are your biggest markets?

World Match directs the attention especially to the Mediterranean countries and in particular to the Italian and Spanish regulated markets.


What other markets are you planning to conquer?

We are now interested in the Asian and American markets.


What in your opinion is the future of the iGaming industry?

I believe that individual regulated markets and specific licenses for each single country have now got the better of cross-country licenses. This represents a great constraint for marketing activities of those operators who work across multiple markets.

Beside this, the protectionist policy put into practice by many governments actually gives access to the gaming business only to the large operators. Based on our experience we know that the cancellation of cross-country .com licenses means feeding the illegal market, that operates without any license and without any tracking of the financial transactions by the lending institutions. The alignment of the regulations at least of European countries would certainly be of great help to the development of the market.


What are your plans for 2014?

We planned to strengthen our penetration into Italian and Spanish markets and to enrich the offer of mobile games with more Slot Machines, Video Poker games, Roulettes and Table Games.

Will certainly keep an eye also on the American markets from which we expect new and attractive business opportunities.

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