Betfred mobile poker Q&A
Ben Clark, poker manager at Betfred, talks about the launch of mobile poker and how to target the game for the mobile audience
There is a huge anticipation for the poker product, based on âpokerâ being one of the top searched items on our mobile portalâs search engine. One of the key advantages between us, as a sportsbook operator, and the major poker-orientated companies is that upon mobile launch we have an existing mobile portal with a whole suite of products available on that platform. This allows us to immediately promote mobile poker to the tens of thousands of mobile sports, casino and bingo players. Whilst launching mobile poker for the poker-orientated companies would have had a more cannibalistic impact, driving poker players from web to mobile. Therefore, whilst it would have been beneficial to launch mobile poker at the same time as these companies, I believe we will still see strong results upon launch.
Speed Poker is great for recreational players. When we think recreational players, we think short, sharp bursts of play with commonly affordable amounts of money, and Speed Poker offers just that. The only thing I would add for it to tie in with the recreational player even more would be a few jackpot-orientated features. The mobile platform in general does offer a more recreational option for poker players; there is no bum-hunting, no HUDs and no 16-tabling, just a quick-seat mechanism allowing for randomised opponents.
The most important thing is that the player has fun. If the player has fun and has a good experience with the product, they are much more likely to return. However the connection between losing money fast and having a bad experience is obvious so we are obliged to take steps to protect the less accomplished players from these games and push them onto much better value-to-time-ratio games. Typically at the moment, mobile players are worth less than web players, but the gap here is predicted to close as more and more of the features available on web will be available on mobile and tablet devices. A lot of the features on web such as segmented banners and a much wider choices of promotional tools allow for much better retention, which in turn has a positive effect on revenue per player.
Mobile and particularly tablet will be hugely important parts of the overall poker strategy. Tablets are predicted to overtake laptops in their popularity and purchase, and this will have a negative impact on the desktop poker client as more and more of the exclusive features, and more, new and advanced features, are developed onto the tablet product. In terms of our mobile strategy, we intend to push a lot of our resources onto the platform to try and breed success. One of the key advantages is that we already have a very busy mobile platform, with thousands of weekly players existing on the other products available. We will be working closely with Playtech to provide consumer-generated feedback to help drive the product roadmap. We believe this to be one of the key bridges between software developer and customer, providing user feedback and building features around what they want, as opposed to what we think they want.
For now, the desktop games have a lot more capability. There are more features for players and operators. However, as has happened with the music industry and the social media industry, and what will happen with many other industries, the wait will not be long until we see desktop as a side channel to mobile.