As Altenar continues to go from strength-to-strength in the online space – we caught up with Sales Manager Alejandro Cazorla to talk all things retail and the sports betting expert’s plans to bring a truly next-gen in-shop betting experience across Europe and LatAm. 

Having already launched their next-gen betting terminal with Golden Palace in Belgium, we got ready to cover all the goal posts – through retail technology, player demographics and the keys to bringing the new generation of players into betting shops.  

Talk us through Altenar’s plans for your high-tech terminal for global markets – what makes your product stand out from the crowd? 

Our solution is a terminal with a difference, developed from the ground up to represent one of the most advanced terminals available on the market. We’ve designed our retail offering to be as tech-first as possible, with a view to placing it at the forefront of the technology space.

This approach means we’re able to offer an advanced betting experience that is individual to each partner – ensuring no front-end shortcut is the same – but also the technology that ensures each product will be continuously updated and upgraded in real time with as little as one click.

Combining central back-office management, highly advanced tracking and performance tools, as well as telemetry, close to zero downtime is the priority. The goal is to create a truly next-gen betting experience that will bring new demographics into retail shops.

Localisation is another key factor, and by bringing this concept to the terminals, it is highly likely to enhance the consumer experience. The objective is to give operators the ability to deliver a personalised in-shop experience with retail technology that can truly cater to specific markets and player preferences.

Your initial success with the terminal across selected markets has seen Altenar’s terminal live with Golden Palace in Belgium – what potential for European retail estates do you see right now? 

It should be a key part of every major operator’s channel. Thanks to our resounding success across selected Belgian and LatAm retail estates, Altenar is now ready to scale its product globally across the 13 markets it is licensed in, including the UK, Malta, Spain, Colombia, Denmark and Sweden.

There is plenty of potential here, as we’ve built our product to suit the player of the future. We’ve got some unique, first-of-its-kind retail tech built into the product, which can be utilised to offer our European and LatAm retail partners something that can’t be found elsewhere. In addition, the front-end, built to offer multiple shortcuts, is sure to give operators an individual edge.

In terms of futuristic UX, and other features, how far has in-shop betting technology come in recent years? 

The new generation of player wants personalisation, easy-to-access shortcuts and a betting experience that makes it as in-line with the social experience they’re looking for as possible, and we have come incredibly far in catering to these demands.

The future of betting terminals is all about delivering a betting experience that is individual to each partner – ensuring no front-end shortcut is the same – but also the technology that ensures each product will be continuously updated and upgraded in real time with as little as one click.

Additionally, the massive changes we’re seeing in terms of the back end bring a whole new level of centralisation to operators. A robust back end enables operators to manage multiple terminals from a single back-office access and check not only financial performance or the number of bets, but also allowing them to check their application performance in general, like RAM usage, CPU usage. The level of functionality extends to keeping track of, for example, ink status and how the different components in the terminal – the way the technology is evolving is changing the way we meet the needs of the consumer.

How can the retail betting experience appeal to new demographics of players, and how key is the transactional process with terminals towards that? 

Personalisation is key to making all of this work. The modern-day customer expects a high-quality UX, the likes they are accustomed to seeing on streaming platforms and social media. For that to happen, the UX and customer experience needs to be futuristic, easily navigable and, above all, personalised to local preferences – just as they would expect for any app on their phone.

Of course, the back end is what makes that happen, and the Spanish market is a great example of how we’re going to optimise the transactional process to work perfectly for Spanish players. We know La Liga and regional teams are a serious part of the betting mix, so we’ve front loaded our bespoke Spanish UX to deliver the exact sporting markets we know players are looking to bet on the most. We are repeating this for each of the 13 key regulated markets we’re live, to ensure that each partner has their own customised experience.

Last but not least, talk us through your vision for Altenar 2022 and beyond – which markets will be key this year for Altenar’s retail team? 

LatAm and Southern Europe have a very strong retail heritage, and players really value the social element of betting in-shop over online. For this reason, I anticipate we’ll likely see the most initial activity from Altenar in Spain and our partners in LatAm.

Further north, Scandinavia and the UK are strong markets and ones that will be especially receptive to our new product, especially given how we we’ve done with our Belgian operator partners on the retail scene there. Granted, retail and in-shop betting is less popular there, but with a terminal like ours, which is the most advanced of its kind, we can truly make a difference.