Online gambling is happening, mainly, but not exclusively, across Europe. It may be regional or national, but it is a fact, no matter whether regulators and legislators are particularly keen on that. The global gambling sector is growing rapidly and is gradually becoming more oriented towards mass market players. And with growth comes competition. Online gambling operators have been looking for ways to attract the attention of more customers and to achieve brand loyalty.
Royal Panda is a relatively new online casino brand (it was launched in 2014), but one that enjoys quite a lot of popularity among online players. What makes Royal Panda different from the immense ocean of online casinos available nowadays? Has the brand unriddled the enigma that the contemporary gambling customer is? How does it cope with the ever-changing regulatory environment? Mark Podd, CEO of Royal Panda, has talked to Casino News Daily, giving answers to these and some more important questions.
Can you, please, introduce yourself? Who are you, what are you doing, how long have you been in the online gambling industry? What did you do prior to joining the industry?
Of course. I’m Mark Podd, and I’m the CEO of Royal Panda. I’ve been in the iGaming industry for just over four years now. I started off in the affiliate sector, but joined Royal Panda as CEO a few years ago. Prior to joining the iGaming industry, I used to work as a journalist in the UK, focusing mostly on video games.
Tell us a little more about Royal Panda? When was the online casino launched? What exactly do you offer? Which are your preferred software providers? What makes your website different from all the other online casinos out there?
Royal Panda launched in March 2014 (in fact, our big second birthday promotion has just ended), and we always aim to offer players a royal good time! In terms of games, we’re currently offering games from NetEnt, Microgaming and Rabcat globally, as well as Evolution’s excellent live casino games. We also offer NYX games in the UK, and will be adding these to our global line-up of games soon.
I wouldn’t say we have preferred software providers, as we tend to focus on the quality of the individual games, rather than the company that provides them. We’re quite picky about our games, and where you have several providers offering fundamentally similar games – say, European roulette or blackjack – instead of offering all versions (as many casinos would), we’ll offer the best one or two. This in turn is supported by some great – and often, one-of-a-kind – promotions, and great customer service.
Where are you based? What are your target markets? What licenses do you have? What languages do you support?
Royal Panda is headquartered in the Malta – in the lovely town of Sliema, to be precise – and we’re licensed by both the Malta Gaming Authority and the UK Gambling Commission. Our core markets are the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic. But a few countries aside, we accept players from all over the world.
We currently support English, Dutch, German, Swedish, Czech, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, and simplified Chinese on our website. However, we are looking at adding more language versions of the Royal Panda website over the course of 2016.
Why did you choose a panda as your mascot? What is the story behind your casino’s name?
I think it’s fair to say that most people around the world love pandas anyway, and in a lot of cultures, it symbolizes fun and games. And because we want players to be treated like royalty, we struck upon the royal panda concept.
What do you think an online casino should offer in order to attract the attention of more players? And how it should treat them in order to make them come back?
I don’t think it really comes down to one particular factor, but rather a combination of them. Some of these are obvious, such as the show-stopping promotions we run regularly. And whether it’s a trip into space, a 40kg chocolate Easter egg, a car that’s been kitted out to look like a panda, or some of the other promos we’ve run, they’re really great ways of getting players’ attention.
But it’s also important to ensure players continue to feel valued long after they’ve made their first deposit. Which is why we reward our loyal players with things like free spins, our weekly $150 Bamboo Bonus, and our Loyal Panda reward scheme. And with frequent smaller promotions as well, we feel it helps players keep playing, if they know there’s always something nice for them on the horizon.
But there are other things we do as well. For instance, we hand-pick all of our customer service staff, to ensure that if our players do ever need to contact us, they’ll always be greeted by a friendly, professional and helpful person. We’ve also recently ramped up our social media presence, and have staff available on all the big online casino communities to help out players and prospective players alike.
You’ve been with Royal Panda since the very beginning. What kinds of challenges have you faced while developing the concept for the casino and after it went live? How long did it take to materialize the idea for the establishment of a gaming website?
I think when you’re starting a new venture, it’s a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You know what you want to achieve, and as you find which bits go together, the picture starts to come together – until you have your complete picture at the end of it.
And that’s what it’s been like for us with Royal Panda. Establishing our core concept and identity was a key objective early on, and we’ve been very lucky to have a core team of very gifted, creative people from the beginning who have worked tirelessly on this. If you take our panda mascot for instance, he actually took ages to develop, having been created by an amazing graphic artist.
It’s a bit hard to pinpoint the moment these concepts are born, because quite often they start out as niggling ideas lodged in the back of peoples’ minds. But suffice to say, getting to the go-live point can take years.
It is one of your main responsibilities to make sure that Royal Panda complies with both the Maltese and the British regulations for the provision of remote gambling options. Is it easy for you to cope with the ever-changing regulatory environment? What do you do to ensure that your online casino indeed follows all the necessary regulations?
Well, I’m very lucky to have a great compliance team to help with this stuff! Operating in a multi-jurisdiction environment is never easy, particularly as different regulators require you to do different things. But in saying that, it’s far from impossible.
When it comes to the actual compliance side of things, what we tend to do is look at what we’re doing already, see where we’re compliant, use that as a starting point, and modify our procedures and practices accordingly for that jurisdiction. Ensuring you’re in regular contact with the regulators helps accordingly, too. It’s a very time-consuming process, reading plenty of highly detailed, very dry documents and acts.
Once you’ve reached that point, you can then set about implementing those changes. Which basically means working closely with your department heads and ensuring procedures and processes are properly updated and implemented, training provided, and any necessary technical changes made.
But provided you stick to the letter and the spirit of the law, it’s usually not a problem.
The UK Point of Consumption tax came into effect in December 2014. How did it affect your business and the industry as a whole?
Well, being licensed in different jurisdictions, with different tax regimes, doesn’t make life easier for our finance team. But it’s one of those things you accept when you enter a market, and make provisions for accordingly. And if you know what you’re doing, you can still be successful in the UK.
Where do you see the online gambling industry in five years from now? What would change for operators and what would remain the same, in your opinion?
It’s certainly an interesting time ahead. On an industry level, we’re seeing lots of new game suppliers entering the market right now. And as those mature and hone their products, I’m sure we’ll see better games as a result.
It’ll also be interesting to see how our industry embraces emerging technology, such as virtual reality and augmented reality. We’re already seeing some interesting concepts. And as the technology becomes more affordable and (hopefully) mass market, what impact this has on player experience.
How would you describe the gambling customer of the future, or rather the gambling customer that will be visiting online casinos in 5, or 10, or 15 years from now. What do you think online casinos will have to feature then in order to be attractive enough?
I think it’s fair to say the motivation will probably be much the same – to enjoy great games. But I also suspect the manner in which they interact with the casinos themselves may be different, shaped by the technology they’re using at the time. For instance, if you’re playing roulette or blackjack, will you simply tap or click a thumbnail image or link? Or will you take a seat at a table?
