Mobile & iTV gaming – the current picture

7 Nov. 2007

Above picture, panel on the evening: (right to left), Alex Taylor, CEO/Founder of Jalipo, Marcel Puyke, CEO of Cellectivity, Richard Flint, Head of Gaming & Betting, BSkyB, Gareth Wong, Founder of Gambit and GamBond®. Also Charles Palmer, Co-founder of MFuse (missing from photo).

For its final event of 2007 The Gambit e-gaming forum returned to the topic of mobile and iTV gaming development. Market research firms continue to make strong forecasts for the growth of these two sectors but, in the eighteen months since The Gambit first looked at them, what progress has been made in mobile and iTV gaming and what does the short-term future hold?

The panel assembled to tackle these questions comprised: Richard Flint (Skybet),Alex Taylor (Jalipo), Marcel Puyk (Cellectivity), and Charles Palmer (Mfuse).

Proceedings began with a short case study given by Skybet’s Richard Flint on the Sky Poker product. Richard’s main point was that interactive television has to be about more than just the ‘red-button’. This was what Sky had tried to achieve with its poker product by combining online players, iTV players, and live studio guest players. Indeed, he said that much of Sky Poker’s appeal came from people’s desire simply to hear their name read out on television!

Alex Taylor, founder of Jalipo, moved the discussion on to the area of IPTV and introduced his company which seeks to derive revenues by exploiting high-value content using a web 2.0 video platform. Jalipo has developed its own micro-currency, ‘J:Credits’, which allows users to pay by the minute for the content they watch. Alex argued that the Internet offers a more compelling experience than traditional television viewing.

Many online sportsbooks already offer the chance to watch horseracing live on their websites (if a minimum bet is staked on the event), whilst a few have also expanded the service to show other sporting events such as tennis and football matches. The ability to broadcast live sports and entertainment content through an online sportsbook is an obvious attraction for e-gaming operators trying to keep punters on their site.

But one difficulty that still hampers developing the full potential of this field is that of territory restrictions on the content. For example, Scotland’s Euro 2008 qualifier against Italy cannot be viewed by Jalipo’s users in the UK, Italy, or Ireland (amongst other places) because of local rights restrictions.

The distribution of content was a theme that Cellectivity’s Marcel Puyk continued in relation to the development of mobile gambling products. He explained the specific problems in the m-gaming sector linked to the large number of different handsets, the multiple operating systems, and the guarantee of network performance.

Content in the mobile market is still dominated by the mobile operators and their limited understanding of gambling combined with a nervousness about promoting gambling services has not helped the growth of m-gaming.

Having said that, Cellectivity has signed up 30,000 users for its sportbook product (and claims a respectable average bet size of 16 pounds), whilst on the casino side, it has almost 10,000 registered users.

Marcel stressed that the user experience in online gaming versus mobile gaming is very different and operators have to have a separate, mobile-centric product. It is no good simply trying to squeeze your online offering onto a mobile.

This view was supported by Charles Palmer (Commercial Director, Mfuse) who lamented the fact that m-gaming often plays second fiddle to online products. He argued that i-gaming companies needed a dedicated mobile betting manager rather than just treating it as a sideline role of the online sportsbook manager.

The meeting then opened up to a wide-ranging discussion between audience and panel. Some of the topics covered:

* Cumbersome age-verification processes for gambling services on mobile phones
* The enduring issue of billing for services and a look at the lengths that DoCoMo has gone to in Japan to try and solve the problem
* The need to support an ever-growing number of handsets
* The convergence of mobile and iTV technologies and whether different methods of gambling will always attract different types of gamblers

November’s event provided a lively close to another busy year for The Gambit. 2007 has seen The Gambit continue is role as a key forum for debate in the e-gaming industry, hosting six meetings, with subjects ranging from innovation and new markets through to financing projects and sponsorship.

Richard Flint, Director of betting & gaming, SKYBET, BSkyB

- Interactive TV means two things (a) the customer experience of interacting with live, studio based video entertainment; and (b) the use of a set top box and telephone return path as a means of interacting (similar to the internet)

- Both can be profitable - Premium rate telephony was generating £50m+ pa in category (a) Sky Vegas games generate £15m + in Gross Win per annum in category (b)

- Sky Poker merges the two, and was developed out of the Sky's learnings from Sky Vegas Live. However it is more category (a) proposition than category (b); we expect (and are finding) most players to be playing on the internet. Sky Poker is now the 4th biggest network in the UK and should generate £10m+ in Rake in its first year

- Bingo is next - Sky wont be doing a channel like Gala Bingo - how could it work?

- Looking further ahead, the technologies will merge and truly interactive, two way communication will be possible either on TV or via the internet (the distinctions will disappear)

Charles Palmer, Co-founder, Mfuse

Marcel Puyk, CEO, Cellectivity, talking about mobile operator portal trends, on and offline marketing campaign and data findings

Alex Taylor, CEO Founder, Jalipo, talking about how to monetise online content streaming and future transactional/interactive IPTV models.

Email us if you have any suggestions of very senior speakers, proposing to sponsor, or indeed want to be kept informed about future Gambit event.

Further Networking after the event:

The evening's exclusive category sponsor:

hosted by:

Gambit-Special Event media partners were:

promotional partner:

Email us if you have any suggestions of very senior speakers, proposing to sponsor, or indeed want to be kept informed about future Gambit event.

Speaker Profiles:

Richard Flint is Sky’s Managing Director of Betting and Gaming, and his main responsibility is for the Sky Bet business, including the Sky Vegas TV channel and Sky Poker. Sky Poker allows players to compete in live, televised tournaments against studio based celebrities via their red button or www.skypoker.com.

Richard has been at Sky for 6 years, joining from flutter.com (which subsequently became part of Betfair). Richard was Chairman of the Interactive Gambling, Gaming and Betting Association and led the organisation to merge with ARGO to form the Remote Gambling Association. He was a Management Consultant with McKinsey and Co and is a graduate of Oxford and Harvard Universities. He also tries to support Arsenal FC from his current home in Yorkshire.

Marcel is the CEO for Cellectivity, a leading UK mobile e-commerce technology and service provider specialising in mobile betting and gambling applications. Cellectivity’s prime product Bet2Go is the leading mobile odds comparison and sportsbetting application in the UK. The company also develops and hosts connected mobile applications on behalf of large online gambling operators such as Partygaming, which launched its first suite of mobile casino games in December 2006, and 888.com, a deal which was signed in February 2007. Finally, Cellectivity manages the mobile gaming and gambling portals on behalf of two of the five UK mobile operators and a number of other mobile portals. Taken together this makes Cellectivity the undisputed leader in its field in the UK. He has a passion for providing a great user experience and believes that mobile will be the next frontier to conquer for the online gambling operators.

Marcel has worked extensively with early stage and fast-growing enterprises, particularly in the area of technology and media. Marcel previously held Board level roles at Vizuri, a fast-growing UK IT risk management services provider, at the BBC in a now no longer existing IP commercialisation subsidiary and at GorillaPark, one of the early leaders in the European incubator market, and which invested in early stage technology and media companies across Europe. During his time at GorillaPark he worked extensively, and sat on the Board of, two British companies who are now leaders in their field: Vibrant Media (contextual internet advertising) and Mobile Commerce (location based mobile services).

This site is organised by Gareth Wong, you can email him to discuss any aspects relating to this site.