Specialist
Former Director at NetEnt AB
Agenda
- Key drivers of customers signing up for Evolution's (STO: EVO) live casino product
- Barriers to competitors replicating Evolution’s market position
- Outlook for ex-US B2B software providers penetrating and building scale in the US
- US competitive landscape, including outlook
Questions
1.
What is the uniqueness of Evolution Gaming and why is it difficult to replicate? Evolution moved over to NetEnt to help build out its live gaming solution. How difficult is it for a rival to replicate what Evolution has done in live gaming?
2.
Was NetEnt even close to matching Evolution’s live gaming offering?
3.
Why is the infrastructure for live gaming so different to slots or other areas of online gaming? Why is it more difficult to build out?
4.
How many more years could it have taken for NetEnt to create a comparable offering to Evolution? Do you think it would never have been able to?
5.
Would you say the infrastructure component is the costliest and hardest to build out and compete with?
6.
Who do you think is potentially coming close to Evolution in live gaming? It seems Pragmatic Play and Playtech are coming closest by essentially copying Evolution’s content.
7.
Do you think Pragmatic and Playtech will have the same issues as NetEnt with infrastructure and operations? Do you think Playtech is better-positioned than NetEnt to build out the live piece, given its scale?
8.
Do you think Pragmantic and Playtech could come to market with new live gaming products differentiated from what Evolution has?
9.
Do you still think Evolution has a sustainable competitive advantage in live gaming for the next couple of years or do you think it could be under threat if Playtech or Pragmatic launch new games in the next year or so?
10.
Are there any geographies or countries where players such as Pragmatic and Playtech have been more aggressive? Are there any regions where market share declines seem more likely?
11.
What do you think will happen to NetEnt’s live gaming customers? Are they likely to shift across to Evolution or shop around?
12.
How many customers did NetEnt Live have by the time it was acquired?
13.
Could you give an overview of the US competitive landscape for live gaming solutions?
14.
Is there anything notably different about the way a US operator might think about onboarding a player such as Evolution relative to a European-based operator? What do they care about, what metrics do they track and how can a player such as Evolution align with that?
15.
Do you think there are any major threats to players such as Evolution from US-based players who will have relationships with land-based operators, such as Scientific Games? Do you think they could pose a threat in the future?
16.
What do you think about Playtech’s IMS [integrated management solution] platform and back end offerings? Do you think the IMS platform offer could enable it to beat Evolution in US deals? Does the back end supersede content as a primary decision factor?
17.
Do you think Evolution has the right assets to execute and gain market share in the US in both live and slots?
18.
Do you think US operators will be able to build live gaming software themselves?
19.
What are the barriers to land-based casinos building out live gaming software themselves? Are the barriers lower than just going back NetEnt?
20.
From previous conversations it seemed the costs and complexity for operators to build out this software themselves would be too great. Would you say these barriers aren’t as high as they could be or as some people think?
21.
Is the threat primarily from tier 1 players, or could any land-based operator potentially build out their own software?
22.
I’ve often heard the pricing in the US is more attractive than in Europe for Evolution. What proportion of gross gaming revenue could Evolution capture in the US and how sustainable do you think that would be?
23.
In Europe it seems fixed costs are smaller but it seems that in the US, for Evolution certainly, the fixed fees will likely be a greater proportion of revenue given, as you’ve mentioned, the greater costs associated with building out the studios and that scaling-up process. Would you agree with that?
24.
Do you have any concluding thoughts or key takeaways about how Evolution is positioned in the US? What is your outlook for the company over the next couple of years?
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