Suppliers react to EGR B2B award wins
After the industry's biggest providers gathered in London on Wednesday night, here's what the winners had to say
The winners at Wednesday night’s EGR B2B Awards have spoken of their pride at being recognised at the industry’s foremost awards ceremony.
Held at The Pavilion at the Tower of London, the glittering event was attended by more than 400 industry professionals from the world’s biggest egaming firms and hosted by Live at the Apollo comedian Simon Evans.
NYX Gaming CEO Matt Davey said he was “delighted” to pick up the prestigious Platform of the Year gong, while the firm’s newly acquired OpenBet platform also won Sports Betting Supplier.
“The NYX Gaming Group acquisition of OpenBet was designed to ensure that our customers have access to the very best platforms and content across all verticals, and to be acknowledged in this way by the industry is confirmation that we are doing exactly that,” said Davey.
OpenBet CEO Jeremy Thompson-Hill added: “OpenBet has long established itself as the leading supplier of sports betting and platform solutions and there is no higher praise than to be recognised as such by our peers.
“We are already seeing the huge benefits which come from being part of the NYX family and we look forward to continue building upon this success.”
Swedish gaming supplier NetEnt was another star of the evening after winning three awards, including Innovation in Mobile, RNG Casino Supplier and Innovation in Slot Provision.
“Every year NetEnt aims to go even better than the last, designing better games with even more innovative features, and ensuring we stay at the leading edge of the industry,” said NetEnt CEO Per Eriksson. “It’s fantastic to receive outside recognition that all our hard work is paying off.”
SBTech CEO Richard Carter said the award for In-Play Betting Software capped a phenomenal year for his company.
“Over the past 12 months we have acquired numerous major operators, powering some of the most successful online gaming brands,” said Carter. “The in-play betting element is the icing on the cake of our Sportsbook offering and we are delighted to be recognised as the best supplier of Sportsbetting software and services to the global online gaming market.”
While Playtech picked up three awards, its recently acquired slots provider Quickspin beat the parent company to the punch in the Innovation in RNG Casino Software category.
“We’ve had a very hectic few days, but this is the icing on the cake for us,” said Quickspin co-founder Mats Westerlund. “I’d like to dedicate it to the fantastic team at Quickspin whose hard work and tremendous enthusiasm has made all this possible.”
Cherry-owned supplier Yggdrasil Gaming said it was a “dream” to earn the honour for Slot Provider of the Year, after triumphing over highly regarded rivals including IGT, Playtech and Microgaming.
“This really is a huge award for us to win – you just have to look at the other nominees to see what an important category it is,” Fredrik Elmqvist, CEO at Yggdrasil Gaming, said.
“I’d like to thank everyone who has worked so hard to make this possible. We’ve got an absolutely brilliant team and this award will only spur us on to work even harder to create the very best products for our customers.”
Inspired picked up the Virtual Sports Supplier of the Year, after signing up new operators in New Jersey and Italy in recent months.
Steve Rogers, CCO of digital games at Inspired, said the recognition was a testament to the firm’s heavy investment in a growth sector for egaming.
“This award is a fantastic achievement for Inspired, and it’s gratifying to see that the hard work which the team have continued to put in to innovate and develop the best Virtual betting products in the world has been recognised by the judging panel,” Rogers added.
Income Access continued its reign in the Affiliate Software category, winning the award for the fourth consecutive year, but the firm pledged not to rest on its laurels.
“Our growth as a company has been driven by the development of our software, so it’s incredibly validating for the whole Income Access team to once again win a prestigious award that recognises everyone’s hard work,” said Nicky Senyard, founder and CEO of Income Access.
“Enhancing acquisition across all marketing channels and devices, our platform will continue to evolve to meet the changing needs of iGaming operators in 2016 and beyond.”
However even Income Acess can’t match the single category dominance of Evolution Gaming which won its seventh consecutive Live Casino Supplier of the Year award.
Evolution’s chief commercial officer Sebastian Johannisson said: “We work very hard indeed to achieve sustainable commercial advantage for our licensees. We know that the results we have achieved for our licensees ??? and the innovations we have introduced on their behalf ??? have been major factors in us winning this award in every single year since the awards were established.”
Meanwhile, the AIM-listed payments firm SafeCharge said its two awards demonstrated its importance within the gaming ecosystem.
SafeCharge COO Yuval Ziv added: “We are continuously advancing our payments and fraud prevention technologies, enabling online gaming merchants to securely optimise player’s experience during the deposit and withdrawal journey while strictly complying with applicable regulations and minimising the acceptance of fraudulent transactions.”
Finally, Swedish software firm EveryMatrix won the White Label Partner of the Year award for the second year in a row and third time overall.
“This major award comes as a recognition of our company’s efforts to create better solutions for the gaming industry and our constant work to support our clients with high-quality products necessary for building successful gaming websites,” Ebbe Groes, CEO of EveryMatrix, said.