GIQ US SPECIAL 2017 GOLDEN NUGGET
Winter wants to have the best product offering in New Jersey, supported by effective marketing that guarantees a return on investment. This is evident from his first moves upon taking the Golden Nugget job. “The first two calls I made when I joined Landry’s were for [former Betclic Everest colleagues] Warren Steven and Julie Aeschbacher,” he says. Steven, formerly the French operator’s gaming director, now serves as Landry’s product director for online gaming, while Aeschbacher was poached from Betsafe to become head of CRM and operations. “I needed iGaming professionals and you didn’t have many of them in the US since it was a nascent industry. More importantly, I needed doers with an entrepreneurial spirit, prepared to take a risk and who had the experience to deliver in a short time-frame. I was very fortunate to have both of them ready to take on such a challenge.” Aeschbacher has since moved back to Malta – “She is thriving in her new job [with Gaming Innovation Group’s Betspin brand]” – while Steven remains. Both product and marketing have played a role in Golden Nugget’s success. Marketing helped its initial emergence, and product is now taking over as a key driver. “US players tend to be more loyal if they’re happy with the service you provide,” Winter says. Golden Nugget’s slightly delayed launch proved to be a boon in marketing the brand. The offering was delayed in order to integrate four games providers and six payment methods – more than any other provider – in order to make sure everything worked. At the time Winter was adamant that it was a case of “being the best, not the first”. Four years on, he admits that behind the scenes things were less relaxed about the delay. But with hindsight, he says, things worked out surprisingly well. “The late start was a bad thing in that we let other operators acquire very valuable players but this was a blessing in disguise, as we only started to
“The late start was a bad thing in that we let other operators acquire very valuable players but this was a blessing in disguise, as we only spent advertising dollars when the product was in good shape” Thomas Winter, Golden Nugget 34
spend advertising dollars when the product was in good shape,” he says. This limited the impact of geolocation and payment processing issues that plagued the market in its early days, but also helped make marketing more effective. Its advertising could stand alone and benefit from media coverage by itself, rather than being drowned out in the wave of announcements that greeted the opening of the market. Since then, he says, Golden Nugget has invested solidly in marketing, spending less heavily than most competitors in the early days, but not reducing spend in the following years. While marketing has supported its growth, it’s easy to read between the lines and see that product is Winter’s ultimate focus. “At the end of the day, what we do is sell games,” he says. “Patrons come to us to play games – it’s as simple as that.” The fact that Golden Nugget’s initial launch in New Jersey was delayed may suggest Winter is relatively cautious in running the business. But when it comes to product, he is willing to take a risk. This led to Golden Nugget switching platforms two years after launch, migrating from the Bally platform to NYX Gaming Group’s Open Platform System (OPS). This is not something a risk-averse executive would do, and he readily admits it could have gone wrong. “Usually platform migrations are synonymous with a loss of players, but this is mostly true if your core product loses some key features, as is often the case in poker or sports betting,” Winter says. “We were able to keep all our casino games, and add new ones from NYX and NetEnt at the same time.” He says that the original platform was “decent” and “did the basics right”, but that the NYX solution gave Golden Nugget access to multiple APIs to improve the user experience. Coupled with a bespoke front-end developed in partnership with NYX and Grand Parade, Winter argues that the offering is stronger than ever. However, he adds, it is not perfect. But then again, no company is likely to find a perfect product: “I don’t believe you’ll ever find a perfect platform, nor have I ever heard of any operator that is 100 per cent satisfied with a platform vendor. “You often have to compromise; state-of-theart platform vendors are not necessarily ready to bear the cost of operating in a highly regulated market the size of New Jersey. Vendors with a limited number of clients tend to be more agile but come at a higher cost.”
For Winter it’s a case of finding the provider that will “act as a partner when difficulties arise” – the company that has the most to lose from losing your business, and the most to gain from your success. “I think NYX and its team, from the senior management down, fits this definition.” It is then incumbent upon the operator to come up with new, quality content, presented in a slick and user-friendly interface. To be a leading operator, he believes that it is then crucial to add “things that players won’t find anywhere else.” Golden Nugget has launched a number of exclusive games, including Wild Play Super Bet, Fu Dao Le or Destiny of Athena, though