EGR Snapshot: first Gambling Affiliates Union programme endorsement; Intralot Italy; market focus Italy; Bingo.com... 11/11/2009

AFFSTORM HAS BECOME the first affiliate programme to be endorsed by the new Gambling Affiliates Union (GAU) trade group for egaming affiliates. 

Greece's Intralot has said it will enter Italy's video-lottery market through a joint venture with Cogetech. The world's second-largest lottery systems provider will have a 51 percent stake in the venture. Intralot, which in May launched egaming arm Intralot Interactive, already offers online poker, sports and horse betting in Italy, and will install the largest part of the video lotto machines at its current network of betting shops in Italy.

Bingo.com posted a net loss of US$390,000 (£234,000) for the third quarter of 2009, an increase on the loss of US$244,000 reported for the equivalent quarter last year. The business also reported an 8% year-on-year fall in total revenue to US$1.44m (£846,000) for the three months to the end of September 2009, from US$1.56m last year. Chief executive Tarnie Williams blamed the contraction of individual player values due to the economic downturn and an increase in similar product offerings in the space. 

Market data focus: Italy. The Italian gambling market is huge. This year it is expected that regulated activities will generate just under €18.7bn in 2009, making it by far the largest European egaming and betting market. Italy took the mantel of Europe’s largest market and the world’s third-largest market from the UK as far back as 2006. The value of the latter’s domestically regulated market is expected to be €10.4bn during the current year, as more internet activity moves offshore. 

Viewpoint: affiliates need to move out to move on. As the egaming industry experiences consolidation, the challenge for us all is to find opportunities to attract new players and retain current ones, says Gaming Media Group's head of affiliates, Mary Griffin. The key to this is to be able to provide the player with increasing gaming choices ranging from traditional offerings to the newly expanding area of soft gaming. 

GB Group chief executive Richard Law will be speaking at EGR Live on 30^th November about managing customer identity across all areas of your operation. Awareness of ‘digital identity’ is adding to the complexity of knowing exactly who you are dealing with but good identity management can actually enhance business valuation – register for the presentation to find out more.

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Posted: 11/11/2009