James Boran has recently joined mFortune as the company’s Affiliate Manager. When launched in 2007, mFortune was in a way an innovator within the industry as it was the first casino to offer mobile gambling options. Now, nine years later, the company operates two brands, launches new products regularly, and offers players quite attractive options.
Here is what James told us about his work at mFortune, his experience at the LAC and other affiliate conferences, and his opinion about important industry matters.
Could you, please, first introduce yourself?
My name is James Boran. I’m Affiliate Manager at mFortune and I’m working for the company since late last year. And this is the first time we are exhibiting at the London Affiliate Conference.
Can you tell us a little more about your brand?
mFortune was launched in 2007. We were the first mobile casino. We are the biggest independent mobile casino. We operate two brands – mFortune and PocketWin. mFortune is our main brand. What’s unique about us is that we operate all our software and games. We don’t have anyone else’s games on our website. All our games are only available on our website.
We mainly focus on UK mobile traffic. Our apps are available in different countries, most of Europe and most of the English-speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand.
And are you planning to launch new products anytime soon?
At the moment, mFortune and PocketWin are launching a new game every single month. We’ve just launched our brand-new bingo game on mFortune. We’ve got bingo coming to PocketWin. And we’re actually launching a third brand within the next few months as well. So, there’s a lot going on.
You’ve said this is your first time at the LAC.
Yes, this is the first time we’re exhibiting at the LAC.
Have you been at any other such conferences before?
Yes, we were in Berlin. And we’ll go to the AAC and BAC shows this year.
So, in what way events like these help your business?
I think it’s got as we obviously want to talk to new affiliates, ones we’re not working with and introduce to them our brands, what we offer, our bonuses. But it’s also good because all of our current affiliates are in one place. So instead of having to travel along countries to go and visit them, we can meet them all over two days, have some drinks with them, and discuss future deals.
You’ve said that the UK market is your main one. There were some regulatory changes introduced towards the end of 2014 and I mean the Point of Consumption tax. You are based in the UK, but did it affect your business?
It actually didn’t affect us in a bad way because we’ve always been UK-based. We’ve never operated anywhere else. So, when the Point of Consumption tax was introduced, it actually benefited us because our competitors started paying that additional duty that impacted their revenues.
And it didn’t really affect our revenues. So, we’re just put in a more level playing field. And because we don’t have to pay game duties and everything like that to game providers, it means that we have a larger portion that we could keep to ourselves and share out with our affiliates.
So, if anything, it was a positive change for us because it brought it all to a level playing field.
And our final question. Where do you see the industry in five years from now?
I think everything’s going more mobile. I think we were the first brand to realise the strength of mobile and a lot of the other brands are now belatedly getting on board. And I think that all games will be played on mobile in five years or some sort of a mobile device, whether that would be a watch, or a new tablet, or something like that.
Mobile is where the strength is going to be in five years.
