Between 2012 and 2017, Europe saw a boom in online casino innovation, with unique branding, deep reward systems, and enhanced player experiences. However, the wave of regulation in 2017 shifted the focus to compliance and survival, stifling creativity and gamification. 

In this session, Pierre Lindh Managing Director of NEXT.io, discusses the golden era of online casinos and the regulatory shifts. Simon Lidzén, co-founder of Fast Track, and Kim Hultman, founder of CasinoGrounds, share their insights on how to bring back innovative player experiences.

From SoloAzar, we share highlights of the perspectives offered by the speakers, aimed to revive the excitement and engagement in online casinos. Here, they focus on the process on how regulations changed the casino experience.

Pierre Lindh: How do we bring back the fun to the player experience? Simon, on your side. What has changed in focus and why is this?

Simon Lidzén: I can give you my perspective on things. When I'm looking back at around 2012, I think one very impactful thing that I came across. Everyone started realising that I need to stand out and I need to be quite interesting in the market in order to attract players. A lot of operators started going down that route.

A lot of us had entrepreneurs that came maybe from Scandinavia or something like that, set up shop in Malta, and they had one central team to service a global market. This type of setup and constellation of a team, it lended itself well when you had one product and one offering. You could have it translated in different languages and you could have it working like that, but you still had a one focus as a business.

You could really touch and clearly say, ‘This is who we are and what we do and how we're going to stand out and be different. During the wave, after 2012 and going forward, there was a lot of introduction of new concepts of casinos’. Some of them being niche towards certain audiences that they said, ‘Okay, I want to go after a certain community, like a rock community.’ I want to go after someone else. Some of them wanted to focus more on the video game element and go into more the gamification aspects. I started writing down a list for myself and I could list 20 different casinos that were just doing that. And there was just in a heartbeat, I could mention so many of them trying to innovate in this space.

And to do that, you have a central team, you're marketing towards a global market. Most of them had a focus on UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, and Netherlands at the time. I think that was quite prominent. Then there was this wave of regulation that came past. I think in the beginning, everyone was like: ‘Yeah, this has taken up a lot of resource internally for us to be able to cope with the changes’ to, for example, live up to the regulatory aspects of the UK. What they did was to introduce regulation piece by piece. There was already its own license back then, but then they kept introducing new layers of that. You started having to pull back on the fun part of the experience because many of the restrictions that had to do with what type of content could you show to someone that was logged out, because you don't know if that person is over 18. You couldn't mark, for example, a cartoonish figure in the marketing. You couldn't display any games that could attract the wrong person. Then you had limits and a lot of things that you imposed on the player, of course.

 You had to have a deeper sense of player controls and the limits and all of these different things that you started adding and piece by piece in the UK. Then obviously, there was Denmark before that a little bit, but they tighten up the regulation further down the line. Then you had Sweden, and then you had so many things that were happening. Suddenly, you end up as a company which was wired with the thrill of fun and excitement, thinking how they can elevate the experience. Then what happens is they stop breaking up the product into different pieces. Now you have a UK product, you have a Swedish product, you have maybe a Norway, Finland, and Germany, and Netherlands product, and suddenly you have... It's chopped up. Suddenly, this model of operating a central team doesn't work anymore, and you've suffocated a lot of creativity in the company. I think a lot of businesses have actually lost a lot of people in the process of doing that as well because the identity of the business and why they there for the fair place that's changed.

Peter: Now we have a lot of new amazing people, obviously, in these companies that have translated what they look like. That doesn't mean that it's bad in any way, in terms of the new experiences that has come up, they've come better for some, and in other cases, not maybe. But I think we certainly have lost a little bit of fun in the element. That's something that I think, especially from a player perspective.

Kim Hultmann: I know, but from a player perspective, I feel like the casinos back in the days were a lot more playful. As a player, it was really good because there were a lot of new casinos, and you could jump around a little bit and claim a lot of rewards. But in the end of the day, you would stay at someone that was really good.

From a player perspective, I feel there was a lot more value before, whilst now with all the regulations, it's tightened up a lot. The reason I moved to Malta is because as a streamer, we always-Patchable. Yeah, no, Patchevil. That's the real reason, but the official reason is that Sweden wouldn't give deposit bonuses. As a real money casino streamer, you need deposit bonuses to stay afloat. I feel it was better before, but you get that when you regulate it too much, and it comes to that point where the casinos are just afraid.

Peter; I don't think this is about that we want to focus the entire session on regulation, but it is a good point because this is what has shaped all of these things. You can't be surprised by maybe it's gone a little bit too far when, for example, they are closing the last land-based casiino in Sweden now. Not even a government-owned casino with monopoly in the market would be able to make that work.

So Simon, reward systems, gamification, does these types of unique brand experiences, do they really work?

Simon: 100%. Without a question. I've seen it so many times over that any player that is engaged.