"I'm not sure whether it's luck or good timing on the organiser's part," said Evolution Gaming's head of marketing Helen Hedgeland on EiG being held in Italy this year.
Attending the show for the first time, Hedgeland told iNTERGAMINGi in Milan that the exhibition felt small "especially compared to land-based shows such as G2E and ICE" - she originates from the land-based sector - but added that everyone seemed positive about the event.
Live gaming company Evolution entered the Italian market last month and will be launching additional sites over the next weeks. The company’s commitment to the Italian market, which Hedgeland believes will become its biggest market, has seen it develop Venezia Roulette, a premier-class online roulette room with native speaking Italian dealers, headhunted from the land-based casinos.
Localisation is important to Evolution, as this allows licensees to differentiate and to attract and retain loyal players - something that was endorsed by a focus group a few weeks ago. "As well as congratulating players on a win, frequently our native speaking English male dealers on London Roulette will chat with players about the latest football scores or results in the latest sporting events."
In addition to the native-speaking English, Italian and Greek dealers, Hedgeland also revealed that Evolution is currently looking at recruiting native speaking dealers from other specified European countries for their licensees.
Now seen as an add-on to a number of land-based casinos, Hedgeland revealed that Evolution is talking to a number of casinos at the moment. "Casinos can be intimidating - we discovered this in our focus group. Live gaming is a good way of overcoming this and can be a two-way flow of players, extending player value."
Evolution saw its mini live roulette product go live last week. "It’s linked to our live roulette but in a scaled-down game window measuring 200x200 pixels and with a simplified interface. There are less buttons, you can magnify the table as you hover across, but the key benefit is that you can offer mini live roulette from sportsbook or other sectors of the licencee’s website, outside of the live casino lobby, allowing players to play different games in parallel and as a way of introducing new players to the thrill of Live Casino." Hedgeland continued: "Sports betting is perfect for mobile and mini live games will also work well on phones.
With a huge demand for mobile - "mainly among UK licensees" - Evolution will be looking into its mobile offering next year. "That’s our intention," said Hedgeland.
Before the end of the year, the company is launching the industry’s first live slots game. "It’s an RNG base game, with all eligible players qualifying for the live bonus round, which are hosted by a live mermaid," said Hedgeland.
