Gambit Public Forum
on Skill Gaming report
Gambit had an opportunity to welcome close to 70 attendees from
across many industries on the evening of 26th September. They all
converged at the Cass Business School (some flew in just for this
event!) where we had assembled a fantastic panel of expert to share
with the audience their experiences and challenges of establishing
and running this new categories of multi-channel (online, iTV, mobile)
pay-to-play gaming.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, two of the skill gaming operators
could not join us for the evening, but Anton Kaszubowski
from Fun Technologies Plc. despite suffering a bit of a cold,
still managed to present to the esteemed audience with a very in-depth
and insightful presentation about the skill gaming category which
they are one of the handful of operator pioneering. He also covered
the opportunities it brings, the target audience, and how brands
or media owners could use skill gaming as an acquisition or loyalty
tool. You can download his
presentation here, or listen to the MP3
recording of the proceedings here. (Like Stelios from Easy Group,
Anton is also a MSc alumni from Cass Business School.)
We then had Nick Kennet from Edgar Dunn & Co,
who presented key aspects of best practice payment and player management
and what are the risks involved etc. His presentation
could be downloaded here. (Nick is a MBA alumni from Cass Business
School.)
Finally, we had Ian Green from 192.com business services
(our sponsor of the evening), who highlighted the trends in
the market, and whether/how gaming operators used age/ID verification
and their best practise. He also gave a highlight of the latest
development of the market and what 192.com learnt and what they
specifically brings to the industry. His presentation
can be downloaded here.
The evening was expertly chaired by Paul Bellringer OBE,
from Responsible Gambling Solutions, despite having some
technical difficulties initially, Paul managed to encourage and
facilitate the networking by introducing audience to each other
and helped managed the expectation of the presenters.
Feedback on the evening so far had been great, we aim to collate
people's feedback and post it on this website in the near future.
Gambit's team would like to thank all of those that participated
and we hope to welcome you in the near future to our up coming events.
Below is a brief summary of the presentations and discussions
of the evening (focusing on the subject matter of Skill Gaming),
reported by Gareth
Wong:
Not being a journalist, I will do my best to 'report' this event.
I aim to get some 'professional' journalist from Cass or City University
to help us to cover our future events. For this instance however,
I have to tell it how it is.
The reason why I put together this event on Skill Gaming is because
it is billed to be the next big gaming gambling category. In fact,
since beginning of 2005, we can all observe that the acquisition
cost in most market are sky rocking. Some may argue that the market
is maturing, however, I would argue that its maturing mainly within
the limited pool of early adopters (who are happy to transact commerce
via interactive channels). Therefore, its more likely that its partly
due to due to the listings and consolidations within our gaming
gambling market where brands are under pressure to invest hugely
on above the line and through the line marketing (could it be to
ensure & maintain brand presence in front of the investment
community before floating?).
What ever the reasons, to maintain the revenue growth, this means
that its even more urgent for existing and established gaming gambling
operators to reach and target non-gaming populations, and hope to
'educate' them and some how hold their hands/assist them to 'move
up' the ladder of gaming. Namely, moving from casual gaming towards
the gaming/ gambling category (Anton's presentation had a fantastic
triangle diagram that illustrate that: life time value of users
from US$5 to US$100). In such a competitive market, it is also very
important for the up and coming gaming operators to target and nurture
the same target audience.
It also goes without saying that the media/TV/entertainment brand
owners, or ISPs/Telecom providers are as ever under more pressure
in 'monetising' their user base, this is in fact a phenomenon since
the dot.com/TMT bubble burst back in 1999/2000. Since beginning
of 2005, even likes of Telegraphs newspager has on their website
'soft gambling' (outsourced instant scratch card type gambling products).
This means that the market pressure is such that even likes of eBay,
Disney or Virgin will need to follow suit and indeed somehow catch-up!
It is on this basis that Anton provided an excellent view of the
skill gaming market, although he highlighted that generic skill
gaming content had been the norm in the market, the basis of competition
is on how to leverage brands (exclusively for an audience or branded
games) or multi-channel gaming (via new channels of interactive
TV or mobile) or indeed via new categories of competitions (e.g.
tournaments similar to those common in the poker world, or indeed
with big prizes, like Fun Technologies' new US$1million jackpot
"Skill Games World Championship").
The Skill Gaming category is such that it is not classified as
gaming gambling and its legal in all jurisdictions, which means
that the payment code used for paying this type of gaming services
is not the same for gambling category, hence Paypal and other processing
banks would allow payment for this type of activities in all markets,
especially the US. Plus the typical games on offer are based on
casual games or branded categories that consumers are already familiar
with (or have a loyal following, or being promoted by the TV programs
as call to action), adding the peer to peer nature, the use of Skill
Gaming as acquisition and or loyalty tool is a compelling one. This
all means that Skill Gaming can be used to target the mass market
with much cheaper acquisition cost compare to typical high cost
of acquisition of gambling customers (as already mentioned).
Nick then highlighted the challenges of gaming gambling operators
in managing the multitude of payment processors, the challenges
of charge backs which may exhibit relationships with where the customers
are acquired from etc. The gaming operators' challenges can be managed
by adopting industry best practice of analysing the trends and finding
coorelations between charge backs and the user life-cycle, locations
or user's playing habit.
Ian then explained how important age and ID verification (KYC)
are in this industry, particularly due to the enactment of the Gambling
Act in UK and when it becomes full law in 2006, which means that
everyone is under pressure to put in place their technology systems
and business processes. Per transaction cost may impact on the operating
cost, but the responsibility cannot be shrugged. Challenge of the
very nature of remote gaming gambling is such that the possibility
and complexity of ID and age verification is made worse by sometimes
lack of availability of accurate data from trusted sources.
The evening was closed by an interesting and informative Q&A
sessions and then wine & nibbles were served.
The Last Public Gambit
Event focusing on 
Skill Gaming
26th September 2005
The Evening was a fantastic success, we had close to 70 people
attended, with some flew in specifically from Ireland and Spain.
Listen
to the evening's proceedings here.
Gambit assembled an excellent panel of speakers including:
The evening was chaired by
(We had over 110+ signup and close to 70 people arrived for
this great event, from companies like Betfair, Littlewoods BetDirect,
Gamesys, GB Group, DRKW, Nomura, TwoWayTV, Barclays, Victoria Real,
 Inspired
Broadcast, London Seed capital, Screen Digest, FutureNet, City A.M.,
Ariande Capital, Victoria Capital, NHTCU, BSkyB, Heidrick &
Struggles, Korn/Ferry, PriceJamieson, Pentasia, Arqiva Communications,
Ongame, PacketExchange, Lyceum Media, iGaming Business, Worldonline
Gambling Law report, KLNG, Wanadoo Plc, Reuters, Hymans Robertson,
Marmot Technologies, RBS, Globix, NG Bars, St. Minver, GIG, mForMobile,
ATE etc.)
Thank you for those people that attended and contributed during
the evening. We all hope to welcome you again very soon.
The evening is co-sponsored by 192.com Business Services
& co-sponsored & hosted by  .
(Information about 192.com Business Services
192.com Business Services is the identity authentication specialist
providing business solutions to companies that need to verify ages
or identities for commercial, social responsibility or compliance
purposes)
* Contact Gareth Wong email
him regarding future events or to get the event report.
Upcoming Gambit Events
Previous
Events
Gambit will become the forum for the converging industry to
meet, network and exchange ideas on key issues that affect the present
and future of this important industry.
Within  ,
by June 2005, there are over 1,400 Casino and Gaming professional
already. It is already a key virtual network where one could meet
businesses' owners and directors.
Cass MBA Alumni please note (since
July 2004 you can join other MBA Alumni on LinkedIn, & network
with senior executives world-wide, by Aug 05. we have 200+
MBA Alumni)
Cass Alumni who are
users, you can join the group
within LinkedIn. For those that are already registered as alumni
on Cass' database, you would have already received an invite, if
not, please email me
for your personal invite (please specify when you graduated from
your Cass MBA course). Alternatively, you could also send me a request
via my profile
on LinkedIn.
For the loyal Cass Business School Alumni,
you can now show your support by purchasing Cass
Merchandise here (from the business school directly).
EMBA Club (for EMBA alumni):
We have started organising exclusive events for Cass
MBA Alumni. The first event has taken place 20th January 2005,
we had close to 30 people turned up, email
us for the photo links. Our 2nd event was on the 17th Feburary,
with over 47 ppl registered,
We are planning the next few EMBA Club
only social evening this year
in exclusive private members club, hope to see you there!
This site is organised by Gareth
Wong, you can email
him to discuss any aspects relating to this site.
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