Tim Heath has over ten years management experience in online gaming and is the CEO of Coingaming.io a platform provider that implements Bitcoin cryptocurrency solutions for the eGaming sector.
EEG: Tim, 2015 was a busy year for the Bitcoin industry in general, can you elaborate?
Tim Heath: Absolutely, Bitcoin had witnessed continued mainstream growth and adoption in all business verticals throughout 2015.
In fact, one of the major banks, Barclays, one of the UK’s largest retail and online banks publicly announced that they are going to allow people to make charity donations using the virtual currency by going into partnership with a ‘bitcoin exchange’. Other financial institutions are also looking at the space, Swiss bank UBS, recently opened a London-based FinTech research lab in Canary Wharf to look at the mainstream usage of Blockchain and crypto-currencies.
Even in Russia, we had deputy finance minister Alexey Moiseev who was quoted in the industry news site Coindesk stating “We feel that blockchain technology is very important in the development of various Internet-based services.”
In the EU, last summer the European Court of Justice, Europe’s highest court, ruled that exchanges of Bitcoin into fiat currency should be exempt from VAT under Article 135(1)(e) of the VAT Directive concerning transactions relating to currency, bank notes and coins used as legal tender. Is an example of another step for Bitcoin to be considered as legal tender. More banks are looking at the vertical, including the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Barclays, BBVA, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, State Street, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS are collaboratively working on plans to design a “distributed ledger” technology based on the “blockchain” technology for secure asset movement, further demonstrates the growing acceptance within the traditional fiat-based financial world.
As for predictions for 2016, digital currencies, and alternative payment solutions are increasing popular with today’s responsible digital consumers. Even in the last few days, Netflix CFO David Wells mentioned at an investor conference that they are certainly aware of Bitcoin. Furthermore, Eric Piscinci a leading consultant for Deloitte’s Technology and Banking suggested there shall be more multi-million dollar investments in next-generation platforms along with more consortiums, alliances and governance. The trend, therefore, is continued embrace by the wider financial and political institutions throughout 2016 and beyond.
EEG: How has the egaming industry responded to the growth in Bitcoin usage by players?
Tim Heath: It has been a busy year; we launched our Bitcoin sportsbook and app before the new football season last summer, which has been well received by sports bettors. From a gaming standpoint, Coingaming has now integrated games content from providers and studios such as Microgaming Quickfire, Betsoft, Ezugi, GameART, Play n Go, Booming Games, and NetEnt. For NetEnt and MGS, the games are played in Euros, we convert the Bitcoin balance at the time of the transaction. All our other games are played with Bitcoins and our platform has one of the largest arrays of casino games (750+) as well as live dealers for table and dice games.
We continue to invest in R&D, and we have a robust pipeline for 2016 as more businesses within the egaming ecosystem look to digital currencies to target customer groups for acquisition and retention marketing within their platforms. We are also focussing on further improvements to our mobile casino and sports betting app, which provides a deeper personal immersion for the player using machine learning and big data analysis.
EEG: What about affiliates, have they been responsive to marketing Bitcoin gaming brands?
Tim Heath: As digital currencies and, in particular, Bitcoin becomes more mainstream; this inevitably attracts the attention of affiliate entrepreneurs in the egambling supply chain.
The current egaming affiliate model has something of a ‘productivity lag’. By this I mean, that the affiliates’ performance related commissions for driving traffic to the gaming operators brand are often put into a corporate cycle, whereby the payments to the affiliates are in arrears.
This, of course, can affect the time the ‘payment’ hits the affiliates own fiat bank account. The resulting effect is the ‘productivity lag’. Simply put, affiliates aren’t as able to reinvest their earnings quickly back into digital marketing to attract more traffic. We all recognise that one of the Bitcoin’s advantages is near instant deposits and withdrawals for players; this also holds true for affiliates that have their commissions paid into their bitcoin wallets that can then be used in more efficient means.
Therefore through various marketing partnerships, our affiliates are able to receive their Bitcoin commissions directly to a traditional debit card, which are automatically exchanged into Euros for immediate use with that associated card. They can therefore chose to reinvest in their marketing or simply withdraw the earnings to go shopping, nights out or whatever they prefer. We have also noticed that the early-adopter affiliates that are proactive in pushing and developing bespoke marketing content for Bitcoin have seen an improvement in their Google rankings around related Bitcoin key words and phrases.
EEG: Is Bitcoin gambling here to stay or is there a real possibility it may turn out to be just another fad?
Tim Heath: Bitcoin is, without a doubt, the natural choice for today’s digitally connected Generation. Today’s connected generation wish instant gratification via the multitude of apps and on-demand services that they cannot live without and that inhabit their smartphone.
Bitcoin provides that adjunct for a truly on-demand gaming experience and gratification, such as transfers from €0.01 or €1,000,000 instantaneously, with zero or low fees. Discreet methods mean gaming players don’t have to worry about bank holidays or winnings won at the weekend taking several days to appear in the players’ fiat bank account. Furthermore, Bitcoin allows a payment from anyone, anywhere within the online egaming ecosystem and is truly a borderless fulfilment.
Therefore, Bitcoin can be regarded as the payment protocol to service this growing consumer market. If an egaming operator’s platform supports Bitcoin, it can provide the means to acquire the connected generation that is obsessed with on-demand, now services which have to include gambling entertainment services.
