Nick Barr, Managing Director for Red Rake Malta, gave an interview to Revista Casino to talk about the company's consolidation in the market and its future plans.

What added value does your content offer to online casino operators?

The online casino market is becoming more difficult to gain market share with new content providers coming in to the market almost on a daily basis. This is generally most visible when one attends the main industry conferences, where we see companies exhibiting who have not been heard of or seen before. I think this is a positive, since this pushes the content providers to add new variants of value for operators and drives the evolution of the slots market. We believe Red Rake Gaming have managed to differentiate ourselves in the market through our USPs, which include some of the most engaging feature and bonus games giving players an action-packed experience, which is particularly demonstrated in our Super15Stars game. We look to create a win-win scenario for players so even if the player has a losing spin they can still benefit from that loss, this could be a contribution to the mini game feature trigger or any other variants within our games. We are focused towards the player experience and are proud to be able to furnish players with games they want to play.

In which new markets will you be able to have a presence thanks to the content agreements with Baumbet and BtoBet?

Red Rake Gaming are always looking to bolster our market reach and building on the markets we have entered. Our new agreements are great as they allow us to increase our market share in a couple of different markets. Firstly Baumbet, who are a very strong player in the Romanian market where we are seeing strong growth, and have a myriad of games that seem to resonate well with Romanian players. 
In addition, our partnership with BtoBet will assist in growing our games in various regions, one of which is the Latin American market. BtoBet have a very strong platform which drives their growth and, in turn, creates attractive opportunities for the Red Rake Gaming content. We have various synergies between our companies, and the Red Rake Gaming content helps enhance BtoBet’s casino offering when targeting the Latam region with market focused games. 

What is your opinion of the Latin American market, especially the Colombian market in which you recently enter?

The Latin American market has always been a solid market for Red Rake Gaming, and we have been active in the region for several years. We supply a wide range of slots to cater to the Latin American region including our Video Bingos which are very popular amongst players from various countries in market. The regulatory framework introduction in the Colombian market is great to see, as this provides stability for suppliers and operators entering the market and we would welcome continued regulation for other countries in the region. 
The Colombian market has been on our radar for some time as we believe there is great potential for the Red Rake Gaming content which has already been proven by our partners. We have also seen a significant increase in attention on Colombia in the past couple of months with new and existing partners focused towards building up a solid gaming portfolio for the Colombian players. I believe Colombia will prove to be an important part in various operators’ growth strategies and seems to be the go-to location for new market entries. We have a long list of partners entering the market so we have very high hopes and confident this will be an important market for Red Rake Gaming’s growth in the coming months.

Have you seen an increase in player engagement during the quarantine?

We started 2020 following a significant year of growth in 2019, so we were all poised for a good start to the year, and it did not disappoint with Q1 taking a major leap against the previous quarter. That being said, Q2 and Q3 this year have broken all previous records and I believe the current situation with COVID has contributed to these results. Players have more time at home and are more likely to play for longer periods of time, and try new games. We have certainly seen such with increased numbers both in terms of users and game rounds, as well as longer game sessions. As the global regions have already begun to ease their lockdown requirements, we have continued to maintain healthy growth figures, indicating solid player retention across the Red Rake Gaming portfolio.

Which are the company plans for the future?

Red Rake Gaming has come a long way since entering the real money casino vertical back in July 2016 and shows no sign of slowing that growth. We have seen a significant change in the regulatory landscape in this time and have been proactive in moving forward with these changes. We will continue to drive our regulated market approach which has seen Red Rake Gaming entering Belarus and Colombia this year, complementing our existing markets Romania, Italy, UK, Sweden, UK, Spain and Portugal. We are now looking across the water towards the US market, where there are some excellent opportunities for Red Rake Gaming content. We are currently active in that market in the social casino space, which has shown tremendous results and generated significant interest in the Red Rake Gaming content from a lot of the key players in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the real money vertical.