GIGSE Day One
Published: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
GIGSE DAY ONE
With late on-site registrations still pouring in this (Tuesday) morning the 8th
Global Gaming Summit and Expo at the Palais des Congres in Montreal had already
set a new record of upwards of 1600 delegates, with a full program stretching
ahead for the next three days, and exhibitor numbers up from 92 in 2005 to 130
this year.
Sue Schneider of organisers River City group announced the figures in her introduction
to the keynote speaker at the conference, the noted author and legal academic
from Stanford Law School, Professor Lawrence Lessig.
A masterpiece of logic, the Professor's address covered key events in the development
of the Internet since the early efforts of Tim Berners Lee in 1992 to create a
privacy prioritised medium, skillfully integrating this with later developments
in cookies and IP mapping, important "sovereignty" legal decisions and
leading into the advanced research into personal ID developments taking place
today.
In an absorbing exposition, Lessig used these milestones to illustrate the title
of his address: "How Regulation Will Happen - The Leviathan Is Coming"
arguing that ID-dependent regulation was probable within the next five years and
explaining how Law, Custom and Norms, the Market and the Architecture of the Internet
all influenced it's future development and the question of regulation in a world
troubled by global terrorism and criminal or anti-social activites such as spam,
virus infection and phishing.
Microsoft and others are currently developing ID options which allow the Internet
user to remain generally anonymous to the world, but require that he or she register
and prove certain aspects of identity for reference should the need arise.
Professor Lessig made the point that ID of this nature renders the Internet regulatable
and was a trade-off of some Web freedom in return for a safer and more trouble-free
environment where countries could well develop treaties regarding the manner in
which their citizens were treated vis-a-vis issues that were legal in one country
but not necessarily in another.
Examining the case for online gambling, the Professor made the point that it may
be a mistake to base future success using the offshore argument in the US situation.
Developments may make the viability of this approach questionable in the years
ahead, and the industry would be well advised to recognise the growing importance
of ID and start working on more proactive options more in keeping with the way
in which the Internet was developing.
Net neutrality was not incompatible with an additional ID layer on the Internet,
where pseudonyms could for example be used which nevertheless had traceability
without too deeply infringing privacy.
A measure of the intense interest in the Professor's theories was the very active
question time, followed by many delegates crowding around the academician to hear
more of his views.
After a brief break for refreshments Paul Lauzon of the IPSOS Research
group explained the importance of professional market research and its capabilities
in an industry where product-driven marketing had tended to dominate. As the competition
grows, he said, there was a need for marketing to become more consumer-driven.
Valuable advice was given on when it was most appropriate to conduct various strategic
and tactical forms of research project and the wide range of possibilities.
In a parallel session entitled "State of the Industry - an Overview of
the Market", Warwick Bartlett of Global Betting and Gaming
Consultants UK looked at statistics conveying the magnitude of the industrys
growth in all sectors in recent times and gave fascinating insights into regional
sectors and the pros and cons of each.
The significant potential of cross-marketing through convergence of company interests
and mergers was examined, as were the dangers of a perception that the sector
was volatile in a stock exchange sense.
It was important for self interest and for the industry that companies worked
harder on building trust and respect with shareholders, governments and regulators,
he said bemoaning the lack of an effective body that could speak authoritatively
for the industry and create a better perception of transparency and professionalism.
"Investors need more information than an annual report," he said. "The
industry needs to talk with one voice, and commercial rivalries need to be put
aside in the interests of providing better consolidated information that creates
an improved perception of the business. We need to interact with our various audiences
more than we do and in such a way as to combine our strengths. "
Citing what he sees as industry negatives, Bartlett said that there was a lack
of cohesion with companies fighting seperate issues; there was a lack of positive
PR to combat negative perceptions of gambling; lobbying was insufficient and not
well coordinated and measures were underfunded.
"We need to remember that fighting individual legal battles is not necessarily
effective in changing the way things are," he said. " Laws are changed
by creating a need for change among the people - the electorate, who influence
the politicians who change the law.
"The online gambling genie is out of the bottle and has many positives: It
is now an industry of financial consequence; it creates employment and enables
the government to tax and spend; it is a widely accepted pastime and governments
should not criminalise what is really ordinary behaviour - most citizens want
legalisation and not prohibition."
On the Marketing front, Debbee Silverman of Gone Gambling chaired
a diverse panel comprising Bryan Bailey of Casinomeister, Michael Caselli of iGaming
Business, Dave Hallonqvist from Spotted Dog Media, Micki Oster from the Trident
Group and David Wang of World Poker Tour.
With such a widely experienced group the examination of i-gaming marketing concepts
attracted a large audience for the following conclusions:
In the USA marketing has become more restrictive thanks to the efforts of the
Department of Justice, necessitating the use of different and smarter techniques.
Performance-based returns were nowhere near as enticing as they were in the halcyon
days of online marketing.
The marketing space was now crowded, making life more difficult and more expensive
for the smaller companies.
PR opportunities are not being full exploited and bear review by most companies.
Mainstream media, and especially TV had appeal but was expensive and harder to
track. This was especially so when the importance of sustained activity was recognised.
In this market it was important to develop both online and offline strategies
for maximum penetration. Frequent Internet users tended to mentally screen out
adverts that did not interest them immediately. One interesting observation was
that players recruited offline tend to develop into better investments in terms
of lifetime expected value and loyalty.
Branding was critically important and had to be sustained, and customer care creating
trust and reputation was a key factor for success.
Looking ahead, panelists felt that responsible gaming measures were increasingly
important. In the future it would be necessary to develop more closely targeted
marketing with carefully defined demographics. Cross-marketing through collaborative
agreements and ventures or mergers would be a growing feature. There will be a
move away from "conditional" bonusing in favour of stronger and more
direct offers and loyalty rewarding tactics, perhaps even following land casino
strategies.
It is likely that in the years ahead major legislative changes are possible in
the USA, opening the way to very large, well established land brands entering
the market with massive marketing experience, reputations and budgets thus increasing
the competitive levels.
Technology developments aimed at screening out advertising on TV will call for
the marketing elements to be mainly carried more subtly in the program content.
It's impossible to get around to all of the interteresting parallel sessions at
GIGSE, so we'll simply mention those here. Susan Breen of Mishcon de
Reya and Daniel Bruno of GMP Securities gave insights into the
complexities of a subject assumning ever greater importance in online gambling
- Mergers and Acquisitions.
Veteran freelance journo Fred Faust and Advantis manager Cyrus
Mavalwala gave a pressure course on PR in their management oriented
"Public Relations - Addressing a Neglected Need."
The efficient performance of Due Diligence from both a business and IT perspective
were examined by Peter Chadha and John Barker of BDO Stay Hayward
in the UK, and 32 Red's Pat Harrison, Will Griffiths of Bet On Sports
and Joe Brennan from Industrial Strength gave tips on how to
really get the brand out there and treat customers right with some back-to-basics
advice.
After a very full program with solid information and content, delegates will be
letting their hair down tonight at the opening cocktail party sponsored by those
friendly and efficient Swedes at Ongame Poker Network. When that function
ends at 9pm, delegates will disperse to a variety of dinner engagements as the
networking machine swings into high gear - always a great advantage at GIGSE!
