Star quality: Ex-Catena Media CEO Per Hellberg on his latest igaming venture
Hellberg opens up about his new online casino venture PlayStar Casino, set to explode onto the US market later this year as he outlines its early-stage investment plans
With many years of establishing and growing casino and betting brands in Europe, and a stint as affiliate behemoth Catena Media’s CEO in his pocket, Per Hellberg has set his sights on conquering the untapped US igaming sector with his new brand, PlayStar Casino.
Here, he offers up an insight into PlayStar Casino’s customer-focused approach which will leverage deep CRM, marketing, and affiliate knowledge to help turn consumers’ heads away from the major brands currently leading the larger igaming markets of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
Hellberg also discusses why he is looking to US investors over his old friends in Europe to drive the operator’s initial funding round. Having partnered with GiG to supply its igaming and core tech platforms, the PlayStar Casino product is slated to launch in Q4, providing it ticks all the boxes for the experienced executive team.
EGR North America (EGR NA): Having recently secured entry into New Jersey, what are your plans for PlayStar Casino in the US?
Per Hellberg (PH): What we’re building is a casino-focused brand with a sportsbook as a supplement, which is quite different compared to others in the US seeing most operators are predominantly pushing sports betting with casino as a supplement.
I think that tells you about our focus. If you’re a big daily fantasy sports operator, you’re obviously focusing your back-end tech stack and user experience on the sports betting and DFS experience.
And if you’re coming from the Las Vegas Strip, you might be coming into the online world with a casino focus, but pretty soon you will understand you also need to be very big in sports betting.
We actually see this as a big opportunity because it all depends on what kind of customer experience you can expect.
If you have a grocery store that is focused on meat, you probably won’t buy a lot of great fish there and vice versa. In our case, we believe that a customer really enjoying casino games should have a 100% casino-focused experience.
What we are building is basically a combination of product and a completely different user experience from how they sign up to the product, how they’re being treated, and what they see on the site which will be very personalized and localized.
PlayStar Casino CEO Per Hellberg
The way we do CRM will also be more focused on the consumer. The way we will present offers and promotions will be very different compared with what you typically see in the market.
In one way, we’re doing the same thing as other casino-focused operators too but we’re adding in this top layer to make the consumer the main focal point of the business.
Our aim is that no one consumer will always have the same experience, and I think that is what people need today, especially in the US where a lot of people are used to going to physical casinos which is quite different compared with Europe.
The reason for us targeting the US is also quite simple. It will be the market with the largest growth for many years to come. It’s really in the startup phase and the market penetration is not very large so far [coming into the US].
I don’t really see funding as an issue because a lot of people like to invest here. And the other thing is that in any state there is on social media but if you’re not really contributing something different, you’re most likely going to experience quite a low conversion rate.
I have run operators that were sports betting-focused before and you can cross-sell a bit, but the most valuable customers tend to be those that come into the product because they want to play casino.
Looking at acquisition costs through performance-based channels, I don’t see a big difference [between us and the DFS operators]. It depends on where in the funnel you address the customer.
Bonusing and game type search terms are quite similar, whichever operator you are. It’s how efficiently you onboard and retain and nourish customers that makes you really get your KPIs in place.
Even in Europe there has been a lot of large players for a long time, but there are interesting brands popping up all the time.
We are looking at how we should look in the future directly without any legacy [back-end]. How the data is managed, how we use digital tools to tailor-make customer journeys and talk to customers.
We have a completely different opportunity than those that have been in the market for a long time. I think it is both good and bad coming in as a new startup.
EGR NA: You have had a colorful career in gaming, so what enticed you to join PlayStar Casino and how did you sell it to the executive team you’ve brought onboard?
PH: I’ve been circling back and forth in the gaming industry. I ran Nordic Gaming Group and NordicBet back from 2008 to 2012, before we sold it to Betsson.
I moved the company down from Estonia to Malta, rebuilt the brand and had a fantastic team. The key thing at NordicBet at that time was really to have an edge. That’s always been the thing [to consider], what can you do more or differently or better than your key competitors?
I went away and started a different digital business and then I came back into the industry to head up Catena Media, which was one of these giants that needed a huge rework because they were not really in touch with the future a maximum number of brands that you will compete against while in Europe there are hundreds of casino brands.
This means customer retention is much more important.
EGR NA: How will you mitigate the challenges of not having a sports or omnichannel offering to cross-sell consumers?
PH: We will not be the largest spender on TV advertising in the US. What we’re building is a specific team that has been very successful in acquisition through digital channels, affiliates, paid advertising, and through social channels.
Today, many companies have coverage on social media but if you’re not really contributing something different, you’re most likely going to experience quite a low conversion rate.
I have run operators that were sports betting-focused before and you can cross-sell a bit, but the most valuable customers tend to be those that come into the product because they want to play casino.
Looking at acquisition costs through performance-based channels, I don’t see a big difference [between us and the DFS operators]. It depends on where in the funnel you address the customer.
Bonusing and game type search terms are quite similar, whichever operator you are. It’s how efficiently you onboard and retain and nourish customers that makes you really get your KPIs in place.
Even in Europe there has been a lot of large players for a long time, but there are interesting brands popping up all the time.
We are looking at how we should look in the future directly without any legacy [back-end]. How the data is managed, how we use digital tools to tailor-make customer journeys and talk to customers.
We have a completely different opportunity than those that have been in the market for a long time. I think it is both good and bad coming in as a new startup.
EGR NA: You have had a colorful career in gaming, so what enticed you to join Play- Star Casino and how did you sell it to the executive team you’ve brought onboard?
PH: I’ve been circling back and forth in the gaming industry. I ran Nordic Gaming Group and NordicBet back from 2008 to 2012, before we sold it to Betsson.
I moved the company down from Estonia to Malta, rebuilt the brand and had a fantastic team. The key thing at NordicBet at that time was really to have an edge.
That’s always been the thing [to consider], what can you do more or differently or better than your key competitors?
I went away and started a different digital business and then I came back into the industry to head up Catena Media, which was one of these giants that needed a huge rework because they were not really in touch with the future and they had a lot of legacy [systems].
But they had a wonderful business in the US, which they completely dominate in terms of affiliation today. The reason for joining PlayStar Casino was to start something from scratch, where it was possible to invest and take a good stake in the business.
Thirdly, the extreme focus on the US today and the willingness of the financial community to put money behind someone addressing that focus.
Those kinds of things are quite attractive for people that are sitting in businesses that have either been active in Europe for a long time, or those that have been part of the US gaming explosion but cannot have a piece of the cake in terms of ownership.
I think the attractive part in an extremely interesting market is that you know how it works and you can apply a business model to that market, but you’re building it from scratch and bringing in the key people.
That’s been a good hook for us so far to attract good people. At Catena Media, basically the entire US operation was about 50 people that were all remote workers. What we’re doing now is building a hybrid that I think is becoming quite common and we will have a couple of hubs around theworld.
Predominantly in the US, but then also one in Malta, and most likely one in Spain to have a location where people can come in to have meetings but basically you work where you feel like working and where you’re most productive.
EGR NA: You mentioned the huge opportunity for investment in the US, but in the future do you think you would consider any alternative investment approaches like merging with a SPAC or being acquired by a bigger operator?
PH: When you’re building a business, to make it valuable you must have fantastic long-term shareholder value in mind. What we’re doing now is we’re building up the business and bringing in the seed funding to make sure we have a product.
Once it launches, we can prove that our KPIs are in line with where we want to be and that is when you go in for the larger amount of marketing money.
But in order to not give away too much of your company in terms of dilution, you need to have some good KPIs and you need to show they can become reality based on market goals, etc. We’re not spending one second thinking about what to do with the company from an alternative investment point of view because we won’t have a future unless we build a good business first.
Even though we haven’t gone live yet, we have been approached already so there is a big interest. Everybody knows the market is going to explode in terms of growth and in terms of value, but there are very few things to invest in.
The interesting firms that have been brought up to extreme valuation today are already listed so you cannot put your money in at an early stage.
EGR NA: Are you finding that investor interest is coming mainly from the US or also in Europe?
PH: There is currently a shift towards ESG and sustainability in a big part of Europe among investors. So, a lot are looking away from the gambling industry. A lot of them still own shares in the big operators over there and they’re happy, but they are becoming more cautious about new investments.
Some of them still see the opportunity and are attempting to only invest in regulated markets like the US.
In the later stages of investment we’re more or less only focusing on US capital, while in the beginning we were more looking towards people we got to know that can not only come in as investors, but can also contribute their knowledge and experience.
We’re building up a base of people that together can drive this company forward at a very nice speed.
EGR NA: What is your product roadmap and plans for launch?
PH: We have decided to go with GiG’s platform because we believe it’s built well for working with customer journeys and database management that supplies you with good CRM.
On top of that platform, we’re adding the products that everybody else has and that are expected today from a good casino practice.
The other thing we’re doing is concluding the branding discussion which will then move into the way we design the front-end, which means a lot of special programming for us. We have said we’re planning to launch during Q4 and that’s still in our target.
On the other hand, we won’t launch until we’re happy. If that is Q4 2021 or Q1 2022, we’ll have to see. We have a final product in mind so we won’t push the button until we’re happy.