Smart casual: PlayOJO on becoming the default destination for recreational players

Three years after launching PlayOJO in the UK, co-founder Ohad Narkis is insistent on not resting on his laurels. A brand-new bingo offering has been onboarded and is set to be backed by a seven-figure marketing campaign, while the operator launched the PlayUZU brand in Spain in mid-July.

The new bingo product, powered by Pragmatic Play, is set to offer more than £300,000 in guaranteed prizes each month and marks PlayOJO’s first portfolio diversification outside of casino, as it looks to secure market share in one of the most established verticals in the UK.

Speaking to EGR Intel, Narkis details how further market penetrations are on the agenda and reinforces his commitment in the face of regulatory headwinds in Spain and Sweden, and what he hopes to achieve in the future.

EGR Intel: PlayOJO recently announced the release of PlayOJO Bingo in the UK market. What was the thinking behind this move?

Ohad Narkis (ON): The main reason behind expanding into bingo was a strategy to expand our fair play ethos into bingo. Since we launched our casino in 2017, we’ve been very focused on it and that has been what the company has always done. Over the last three years, we realised the type of customer we have acquired are softer-type players.

After a lot of the research, we found our audience resonated well with bingo and about a quarter of them played bingo regularly on other sites. We felt we had a great opportunity to expand the brand to audiences we hadn’t reached before, plus give our existing players another reason to continue playing with PlayOJO and not spend their bingo wallet elsewhere. It’s both retention and acquisition.

We want to establish PlayOJO as a destination point for recreational players in the UK. We are going after a market share and aim to position ourselves against the biggest players in the market.

EGR Intel: Bingo is an extremely competitive vertical, so how do you hope to achieve cut-through, especially with this seven-figure marketing budget?

ON: It’s a mixture of different things. Marketing is important but I never believe that marketing matters in itself in the long run if you want to generate good ROI. So, you need a mix of a strong brand with a USP, which already exists with casino and we will extend that to our bingo brand.

You might find one or two of our fair play pledges within other operators, but no one on the market offers them as a package, which really strengthens our position. If we take this established, proven and successful brand and add marketing muscle behind it, I believe we have a real chance to achieve what we’d like to do.

There have been a few bingo launches in the last year or so but very few of them put their money where their mouth is with heavy investment, both in marketing and product. On the seven-figure marketing budget, I think it will help us cut through. It puts us in the top 10, if not the top five, bingo TV advertisers. We are also going to announce a partnership with a TV game show that will allow us to develop and offer branded content games, which will put us on a level as one of the biggest bingo brands in the market straight out the gate.

EGR Intel: Moving onto Spain, how has the PlayUZU launch progressed so far and why did you choose to enter the Spanish market?

ON: Our strategy is to continue expanding our global reach in regulated markets. Spain has been a market which has been sports betting-focused with a lack of casino focus. It’s a mature market so a challenger brand like PlayUZU can come in and make a case for itself.

We are launching at a very uncertain time in Spain due to upcoming regulations and restrictions around advertisements, which is particularly challenging for new brands. Despite the fact uncertain times are ahead, we believe we can still build a successful business in Spain.

Our CPAs are around half of what we expected, and active players are double what we expected. Since we went live, we have been the biggest casino advertiser on TV by far with around 35% market share and we will continue to invest heavily as long as we are allowed to do so. We’ve seen a good response from players, and it gives the feeling that we made the right decision to launch despite the regulatory headwinds.

EGR Intel: Concerns were voiced that online casino play and spend could spike during lockdown, but what did you see and how did your responsible gambling measures help during this period?

ON: We saw an increase in overall player volume, like most casinos in the industry. We recorded increases in acquisition and in retention rates, but we haven’t really seen any increasing indicators of problem gambling.

I think this is due to a number of things, including the fact the userbase that PlayOJO has is more recreational players rather than VIP. Secondly, we have a very strong focus on responsible gambling measures and signposting.

We were one of the few BGC operators not to defer marketing spend; on the contrary, we continued with our planned spend and run 100% of all our advertising towards responsible gambling. We also made it very clear to players during lockdown that they needed to be mindful of how much time and money they were spending.

EGR Intel: What’s your opinion on a potential stake limit on online slots and how it could impact the industry?

ON: I think that bet limits on slots is going to happen. As an industry, rather than trying to fight it, we should join forces with the government as part of the upcoming review of the Gambling Act to reach a decision based on evidence. I think as long as it is evidence-based, with research and surveys, and it is done with the aim of protecting players, then we will support it.

Online is very different to land-based because we know much more about the customer when they start playing and we can collect information on the customer to help protect them. Even when the industry does decide on the threshold, I think there should be some flexibility to allow players who can play at higher limits and do so responsibly to be able to continue. We should be able to offer different limits to different players based on what we know about them.

EGR Intel: Does PlayOJO’s USP of no wagering requirements, no maximum wins from bonuses and no withdrawal restrictions, have any negative responsible gambling implications in your view?

ON: I think it goes very much hand-in-hand with responsible gambling measures. We were the first casino to go ahead with the premise of no wagering requirements before the likes of regulators even started talking about it.

I truly believe, and we have seen the customer feedback, the way we conduct our business by not imposing any terms and conditions on bonuses, allowing them to withdraw money when they wish to do so, really allows customers to have full control of their money.

It is an extremely socially responsible measure and we are seeing a few operators following in our steps. We thought more would make the transition, but it comes down to their ecosystem and the risk that change would pose and a lot of them don’t want to take it. For us it was easy because we launched the brand from day one with this promise.

EGR Intel: How are the temporary deposit limits and bonus caps in Sweden introduced in July impacting operations?

ON: We were prepared for the measures in Sweden because it was announced and then delayed, so we were in a better position to deal with this. Again, the type of customer we acquire in Sweden is more recreational, only a small percentage of our customers reach the SEK5,000 (£430) maximum deposit.

Yet, it is affecting us because we are losing players to the unregulated and unlicensed market. I agree 100% that Swedish regulation is facing a real risk of deviating a lot of players from the regulated market to the non-regulated market, which is exactly the opposite of what any regulator or politician would have wanted. I’m hoping things will change in the future, but for the time being it continues to be a very challenging market to operate in.

EGR Intel: Is there a risk Swedish regulations and leakage to the black market could force you to exit the market? Are you exploring any other regulated markets?

ON: We are not going to pull out – we have no thoughts about pulling out. It is a market we may invest less in than we were planning to do, but it is not a market we’re going to give up on and we will continue to operate there.

As part of our long-term strategy, we’re looking to enter around two new regulated markets each year. In the next two years, we’re going to probably be in at least four new regulated markets in Europe and Latin America. If and when new markets become regulated in Latin America, we will also be well positioned to enter those.

EGR Intel: PlayOJO launched in 2017, but looking back how do you think it has gone and, in hindsight, would you have done anything differently?

ON: Firstly, it has been a tremendous success and more than exceeded our expectations. Any market that we have come into we have seen a phenomenal response from the players, whether that be in acquisition or retention.

What I would have done differently in hindsight, I would have probably started everything a bit earlier as it would put us in a better position in markets like Sweden before the regulation came in.
It has taken a lot of time and investment to educate customers to think differently about us. There is an inherent level of distrust in the industry and it took time to show players things can be done differently. Once those players saw the truth, they became loyal and we started to see the fruit of the investment.

EGR Intel: What are your main aims in the next 12-24 months for PlayOJO?

ON: It’s a numbers game and we need to continue to outgrow the markets. As we are mainly entering mature markets, it is about taking market share from existing competitors. In the UK, we have outgrown the growth of the industry by triple-figure percent every year, which is very encouraging.

It is not always going to be like that, and it will become more difficult, so that is one of the reasons why we launched bingo. One of our main strategic goals is to become the default destination point for recreational players in all markets that we operate in.

As a significant chunk of our revenue comes from regulated markets, we need to continue to develop internal capabilities to deal with regulatory requirements. We will continue to invest in our marketing and product development with the aim of creating a cleaner and more sustainable ecosystem in the long term.