Q&A: JPJ chairman talks Vera&John, UK regulation and 2019 priorities
Neil Goulden also reveals the expansion of JPJ’s worldwide ambitions and how refining its brand strategy will change the way the operator does business
Earlier today, JPJ Group announced a 10% year-on-year rise in 2018 revenue despite slowing growth in its JackpotJoy UK and Mandalay brands. In this exclusive interview with EGR Intel, JPJ Group executive chairman Neil Goulden addresses the downturn in growth in the group’s UK business, its plans for increased global expansion and the group’s recent disposal of its Mandalay business as it looks to develop a more focused brand strategy.
EGR Intel: How do you plan to build on the 42% growth in the Vera&John segment? Which markets are you targeting?
Neil Goulden (NG): We tend not to disclose which markets we are targeting, but what I can tell you is that two weeks ago we launched our Vera&John business in Canada in a casino-facing partnership with one of the first nation Indian tribes. It’s a very small business at present, not taking much in the way of revenues presently and we haven’t started the advertising, but that is the next market that we are targeting as we now have this business up and running in Canada.
EGR Intel: Was there one factor which affected the flat performance in the Jackpotjoy segment of the business?
NG: There are two sides to it. On the one side it’s definitely a result of enhanced responsible gambling measures that we introduced, some of which were legally required of us, some of which we did ourselves. The number of customers and depositors we have, have all grown. For example, in January of this year first-time depositors were up and we saw the biggest growth in first-time deposits in a month for seven years. The number of active customers in Jackpotjoy UK was up 3% in 2018, so the business is solid and strong.
We are the oldest and longest-established and biggest bingo business and therefore we have high numbers of VIP players who have been around for a long time. Those are the ones that have been affected by the regulation, some of them don’t like it and I expect some of them have moved to other sites. We’re not losing customers or depositors but some VIP’s don’t like the intrusion of the enhanced regulations. However, they’re going to find that when they go to another site that after a few months and building up a profile there they are going to encounter the same issues. This is what has slowed the growth in the UK, its stabilised now and the impact should annualize out in the second half of this year.
EGR Intel: In your comments you’ve referenced a more focused brand strategy in the UK. What will this entail?
NG: This is primarily related to our recent disposal of Mandalay Media to 888, which completed two weeks ago. The biggest brand in Mandalay was Costa Bingo, but we operated over 34 brands in that business. So Mandalay was very much about brand switching, heavy on bonusing – something that 888 have across their platforms, which meant it was a good acquisition for them.
For us we, don’t want to focus on a moveable brand strategy, the likes of Stride Gaming do that and we think it’s a flawed strategy. We want to focus on our five core brands of Jackpotjoy in the UK, Botemania in Spain, Starspins in the UK, Vera&John and Intercasino. Those are our going to be our five brands going forward and we want to focus our attention there.
EGR Intel: What are your overall priorities for 2019?
NG: I think our overall priorities are now that we have stabilised the changes within the UK business is to get the UK business back into growth, good growth in the second half of the year. This and the continuation of our global expansion are our priorities for 2019.