Online gambling content publisher Yggdrasil has launched its games portfolio in Hungary, after partnering with local operator CasinoWin.

CasinoWin is a well-established land-based casino brand in Hungary, and one of only 11 domestic operators permitted to offer online casino products in the country. 

The deal means CasinoWin’s customers will be able to access Yggdrasil’s proprietary portfolio of slots, along with titles from the growing YG Masters program portfolio. 

Commenting on the news Chief of Global Market Operations at Yggdrasil, Björn Krantz, said:

“We are focused on further expanding our reach in regulated markets this year and providing our thrilling content to even more players.

“Entering Hungary is a great achievement for Yggdrasil and CasinoWin is a well-known and respected brand in the market, making them a perfect partner. We are excited to introduce our content to its growing player base.”

While Managing Director at CasinoWin, Zsolt Kruppa, added:

“Yggdrasil’s content is known for its high quality and exciting game play and the slots portfolio is extremely diverse, offering something for all player types.

“We are thrilled to be the first operator in the country to offer their titles and we are sure the content will be a hit with our customers.”

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Premium iGaming hosting and domain specialist Internet Vikings has appointed Karin Thunholm as its new Chief Financial Officer.

Thunholm replaces Maria Helmersson as CFO at the Swedish company, which provides hosting services, domain name management, and data and marketing solutions to the global iGaming industry and other demanding sectors.

Welcoming Thunholm to the team, CEO of Internet Vikings, Peter Ekmark, said:

“Karin brings a sound track record of driving results and speeding up growth, and we are happy to welcome her to our team. Her impressive background in both finance and iGaming makes her a great fit for this new role.”

During her career, Thunholm has worked with both start-ups and mid-size corporations across various sectors. In 2006, she entered the iGaming industry with Maria Group, and has since also worked at Unibet/Kindred, Cherry iGaming/ComeOn!, and Casumo Group. 

Being part of executive teams and boards of directors with such successful companies has given her invaluable insights and experience in leading fast-paced, expanding businesses in heavily regulated environments. 

Regarding her new role with Internet Vikings, Thunholm herself said:

“The reason I decided to leave B2C iGaming after 14 years and move into B2B is the possibility to become part of a company in an exciting phase, with a global and broad customer base in multiple industries. 

“I believe my vast experience within finance in general and iGaming especially will contribute to the Internet Vikings’ growth and that we together will take it to new heights in the coming years. The amazing attitude and people forming part of this company is something that appeals to me and that I look forward to being part of.”

While Chairman of the Board at Internet Vikings, Jesper Kärrbrink, added:

“Karin brings over 14 years of experience in iGaming, which is extremely valuable for Internet Vikings given the focus of our marketing efforts. She will become a valuable asset driving operational rigour and lean management across the company.”

Internet Vikings started the year strong by strengthening its leadership team and preparing to receive ISO 27001 certification in the first quarter of 2021, for two product verticals – hosting services and domain portfolio management. 

Additionally, Internet Vikings plans to set up a new data centre in Singapore, which will further enhance the company’s offering across the rapidly growing Asian markets.

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Casino games and software developer Playson has launched a new game interface to supplement its growing product suite. 

Already live with more than a dozen of the supplier’s slots and promo tools, the remainder of Playson’s catalogue will be updated with the new interface later this year. 

The company says it has put the new UI through a rigorous testing process, and that it has been designed to perfectly suit single-handed mobile gaming in portrait mode. It also complements Playson’s Seamless Play tool, which allows players to switch between devices without interrupting gameplay. 

Commenting on the new UI Head of Production at Playson, Vsevolod Lapin, said:

“This is not the first re-work of our user interface, but we have taken its quality to a different level with this innovative mobile-first enhancement, ideal for portrait mode.

“The intuitive design is simple yet compelling and takes both our slot and engagement tool offerings from strength to strength.

“Catering to the full range of devices, it can be configured to meet the regulatory requirements of specific markets and is fully customisable for operator partners.”

Global gaming supplier Zitro has partnered with iGaming platform provider and content aggregator ORYX Gaming. 

The deal will see Luxembourg-based Zitro’s content made available to Slovenia-based ORYX’s network of operator partners around the world via the ORYX Hub – a platform now featuring over 10,000 casino games from more than 100 providers. 

Commenting on the news CEO of Zitro, Sebastián Salat, said:

“Accelerating the growth of our digital business is one of our main goals to further position Zitro as a leading global gaming provider. We are immensely excited about this new collaboration with ORYX Gaming, which will broaden our reach and will significantly benefit all stakeholders while giving more players access to our high-quality games that provide a fun and exciting experience.”

While Managing Director of ORYX Gaming, Matevž Mazij, added:

“ORYX Hub offers one of the most extensive portfolios of online gaming games on the market and we are always looking for fresh new content to add. With Zitro, we have found an excellent game supplier, with outstanding performance in both online and land-based markets. Zitro’s cutting-edge technology combined with the great team of people in the business creates the perfect environment for a successful alliance.”

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2021 seems once again promising from a Finnish casino player’s perspective. Predicting future events like Nostradamus is never easy. It is safe to say that VR headsets are pretty much useless when it comes to casinos. Skill based games are still somewhat marginalized compared to the games of luck such as slots. It is even more safe to say that casino entertainment is more spellbinding than ever.

The first year of the new decade was quite interesting to say the least. However, many casinos hit record numbers and the time was fruitful to players as well and it does not matter from which angle you look at it.

The past 12 months showed that there is a huge demand for casinos without registration. There are also a bunch of up-and-coming game providers that have huge potential in challenging the institutional giants.

Many of the major trends seen last year will become even more beefy this year. In Finland 2021 could turn out to be a bit more volatile. This is due to the possible changes in legislation regarding online gambling. Whatever shall happen to the transactions between Finnish banks and casino operators remain unknown at this point.

This article gives a well oriented review of what the new year will bring to the casino player’s plate. The first and most important statement being: 2021 is as pulsating as ever and never has the offering of the casinos been so gorgeous!

Casinos without registration – Strong growth

 2020 saw a very strong increase in the number of casinos without registration. Traditional casinos are not going anywhere but the reason for the popularity of Pay N Play casinos is obvious. Time is money and players do not want to wait to be entertained.

Ever since No Account Casino made faster online gaming possible in 2016 with the help of Trustly the whole concept of online gambling has changed dramatically. More and more players see the registration process too slow and this has forced the likes of Mr Green and Coolbet to change their sites.

Nothing indicates change to the triumph of casinos without registration in 2021. It is likely we will see new Pay N Play sites every month. Only a few years earlier it was normal for the withdrawals to take a day or two. This is becoming unacceptable among players during the era where a couple of minutes of extra waiting is simply too much to bear.

Live Casino – Social and Immersive

Live Casino is bigger than ever. Evolution Gaming has become the synonym for live casino thanks to its hugely popular Game Shows. NetEnt used to be a high-profile competitor but during last autumn these two companies merged as one super provider.

Immersive and highly social games such as Dream Catcher and Monopoly Live paved the way for Evolution Gaming’s popularity. The rugged year of 2020 made the social and immersive aspect of live casino games more appealing to customers as the land-based casinos were pretty much closed the whole year. Highly versatile Crazy Time of Evolution Gaming really hit the spot and became one of the most popular games last year.

Naturally, the battle for Live Casino is far from being over. Numerous competitors still launch table games and Pragmatic Play published its first Money Wheel game called Mega Wheel which is a nice alternative to Evolution Gaming’s Dream Catcher. But when investigating how much games are played there is really no competition for Evolution. It seems that many live casino fans have long ago decided who to love the most.

Crazy Time (Image credit: Evolution)

Social Casino – New era

Social media is everything and everywhere. People contribute, participate, and share content. Up till this day the so-called social casino has not been a big thing which can be seen easily from the Google search results. Things are now about to change, and the reason is CasinoBud.

The world’s first social casino tailored for Finns launched already last year. Playing slots together with friends is a refined and comprehensive version of social gaming that for example Chanz has been offering for a while. It is intriguing to see how this fresh concept will play out.

The rise of the social casino is a logical continuation for the ever-expanding concept of social media in our lives. Before CasinoBud we have seen great gamification and slot competitions which are all social by nature. The fierce competition between operators has expanded from game portfolios to wider territory. The social aspect is becoming more paramount.

The expanding popularity of live casinos is related to the social casino phenomenon. It is very interesting to see how many competitors CasinoBud will get. Also something to look for is how this trendsetter will reflect in Twitch.

Game Providers –  Competition brings best results

Naturally, we all have our favorite game provider and every opinion is as important. From the Finnish perspective Play’n Go is the most popular according to the stats. Reactoonz 2 performed well and 2021 will not take the gold medal away from Stockholm’s coolest company.

The best game provider by large last year was Nolimit City thanks to its creative game mechanics. One of the prime examples being the xWays that was presented in Punk Rocker. This game was ranked as the best slot of the year 2020 by finnish online casino review site Kasinoranking. Most famed for its Tumble saga, Relax Gaming also made it big with its successful Money Train 2.

Some of the biggest operators like Betsson have grown their exclusive games selection with their in-house slots. What is even more remarkable though is that last year was exceptional because smaller game studios emerged. 6 Wild Sharks from 4ThePlayer and Chaos Crew from Hacksaw Gaming are great examples of pure creativity and bold execution of smooth slots. Hopes are high this trend will continue this year as competition does good for the whole industry.

Reactoonz 2 (image credit: Play’n GO)

Game Mechanics and Features – Sky’s the limit

One does not need to be Sherlock to say that loads of Megaways™ games are to be expected. Numbers will be as massive as last year, but the sensation value does not meet the expectations that much anymore. This is the main reason why those game providers who create their unique mechanics have an increased chance of standing out from the crowd.

Tsunami of the Megaways™ games was vigorous, and it will not disappear. Bonus Buy Feature games became more popular than ever. What is fresh is that numerous new game mechanics were offered in slots.

Starclusters™ from Big Time Gaming, xWays™ from Nolimit City, Gigablox™ from Yggdrasil and the epic Infinity Reels™ from ReelPlay to name just a few. We can expect the unexpected from various game providers this year as there seems to be no limit for the evolution of slot games.

The modern math model of online slots feels to be going towards the more volatile. Big wins and high variance are on the rise and players crave for life changing opportunities during game play. Wazdan, OneTouch and JTG are the ones to look for if low volatile games are your cup of tea.

Hades Gigablox (image credit: Yggdrasil)

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Betsson Group has appointed LeanConvert as its lead digital optimisation and conversion agency across its international portfolio. 

The specialist London-based UX and UI agency will be reviewing the strategies for Betsson’s 20+ brands, and provide support in the form of methodologies, martech tools, and experts, with a view to improving marketing campaigns and results. 

Discussing the partnership Commercial Director of Gaming at Betsson Group, Ciara Nic Liam, said:

“2020 has been relatively challenging for most businesses, and the issues brought about by the global pandemic and reacting to them has driven a phenomenal amount of innovative thinking throughout the group and the industry as a whole.

“Partnering with LeanConvert to investigate and better our strategic processes and offering, as well as our overall customer experience through their unique technologies and expertise will not only strengthen our market position but ultimately make Betsson even more robust for the future.”

While Managing Director of LeanConvert, Tim Axon, added:

“Betsson Group really has stood out as a company that prioritises digital innovation. We’re excited to work with a team that’s constantly looking to better understand their players and thus create more meaningful and engaging experiences for them.

“Now is a crucial time for taking things a step further than digital transformation. We’re going to ramp up Betsson’s testing velocity and scale in order to build one of the most advanced personalisation setups and strategies in the gaming sector.

“Investing in personalisation is a safe bet for ROI if you’re investing properly. We’re looking forward to strengthening Betsson’s approach to experimentation and being a catalyst for exponential growth.”

Staying with Betsson, earlier this month the group inked a deal with Incentive Games, covering the supply of a suite of titles for its recently launched Betsafe brand in Kenya. 

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