By 
It’s been too long.
Blogging about the business of internet gaming / marketing / gambling has just felt like extra work – and god knows, I’ve got enough real work to be going on with.
What’s happening on the day-to-day business of online gaming front for me?
I’m overseeing 2 x casinos, 2 x poker rooms, 3 sets of fixed odds games, our overall Partner function as well as heading up our Business Development function. It means that my time gets split between current egaming partnerships, what may be future ones, general business development – and managing a team of people.
I’m going to have to get my sh*t together and get down some thoughts on the business of online gaming and in particular, what are the industry trends and my thoughts on them.
Social Media – Macro Trends:
* Social media will still not be monetised properly this year by brands.
* Advertising on Facebook will get more expensive but click through rates will drop, and marketers will still spend shed-loads of money there, for little or no return
* Overall email engagement will continue to drop for brands looking to engage customers through that channel. There’s too much email clutter, and social networks are cutting out the commercials by allowing P2P communication.
* Twitter will block a bunch of aggregators that are currently piggy-backing their content, put them out of business, and try to work out their own business model (it’s got to be sponsored tweets + brand pages at a premium).
Gaming Industry – Macro Trends:
* B2B infrastructure deals between operators (who are now taking on the role of platform partners) – what’s going to be successful?
* Growth in regulated markets – what markets are going to open and how tough will they be to enter?
* Poker revenues falling off a cliff (for multi-platform operators) – why? Is it terminal?
* Super affiliates becoming Operators (particularly Poker & Bingo) – do they have a future?
* Live Betting is THE growth area for Sportsbooks – what sports and where’s the incremental revenue?
* The growth of financial betting platforms – do they have a future with multi-platform operators?
One final thing. I’d be amazed if online poker doesn’t get legalised on a state by state basis within the next two years. That’s a bonanza for online marketers in the US. Gird your loins…
betonliamcasey 