The Six Ps of Igaming: 2024 Updated Asian Edition

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Three years ago, I wrote about “the Four Ps of Igaming” for Gambling Insider magazine. Recently, they published this newly updated edition in their Asia Focus 2024 --but they apply worldwide..

The 4 Ps of marketing, product, price, place, and promotion, remain immutable since Neil Borden at Harvard published them in the Fifities.

Likewise, the 4 Ps of Igaming haven’t changed in their basic truths…. but their nuances certainly have, especially in Asia.

And the list of vital “P” keywords has continued to grow. And, with each, a Prognostication.

Time to revisit them.

Product: The thinking here was “you have to have blackjack for North America, Baccarat for Asia…” etc, etc. Still true.

But now players are looking for specific GAME SUPPLIERS. Two years ago, we surveyed Filipino players, expecting at least RealTime Gaming, the dominant provider of “e-casino games” in e-cafes” across the country, to dominate. The came in second, after Play ‘N’ Go, but with 90% reporting no “known supplier preference.”

Last month, in a similar survey to a similar database of Filipino players, preferences were clear: 88% had a distinct choice: Jili games preferred by 47% followed by PG Soft at 22%. Same as in Vietnam (PG Soft led there at 39%, Jili at 35%). Don’t have Jili or at least the secretive Taiwanese masters PG Soft? Rethink your market entry. (Medusa II is one of my personal favourites and real tour de force of slots).

So operators should lead with a choice of game providers on the home page. Are there Western firms doing this?

And you better have that search bar on your casino homepage. A majority of players in every country surveyed, east and west, look for a specific game. Don’t have my game? On to the next.

Processing. “Preferred methods for depositing need to be taken into account depending on the jurisdiction. In the US, it’s all about credit cards. Canada – Interac, Thailand – bank deposits, Germany – Klarna, and India – UBO” we wrote. Still true….

But the providers themselves are all changing. And they are HIGHLY localized, from TrueWallet in Thailand, Gcash in the Philippines, Momo and ZaloPay ?(and others) in Vietnam. With ZERO cross-over between them.

Well-heeled VIPs in many markets (Japan, like many geos in the west) still cling to their Visa and Mastercards, but preferred payments for the masses are getting increasingly localised. This trend will only continue (see Pix in Brazil and Indonesia where GoPay, OVO, DANA, LinkAja, and Jenius are battling it out).

Speed of Payouts remains a vital consideration, as there is no tolerance for slow paying sites. Nor should there be.

Personalization. The industry is still lagging on this. AI-generated odds for individual sports bettors based on that individual player’s past choice and performance? It’s coming. It’s not here yet. Even “Good morning, Alex” is lacking in most comms. And that’s pretty basic.

Perennial Western CRM favourites like Optimove and the relatively most recent Fast-Track are working hard to enter the Asian market with their solutions, but their Western pricing in regions where a 10% conversion rate is not uncommon makes even that level of “preferred comms channel” personalization cost-prohibitive—you’re not going to quickly see an ROI when 80% of your players never convert. I’ve seen players convert after a YEAR of receiving comms, so it’s important to keep talking to prospective players; you just need a cost-effective platform for doing so in these conditions. Many operators in Asia don’t even bother to work on post day one conversions (if even that!). Long run: they’ll lose. Players love authentic, timely, relevant copy. My 20%+ open rates prove it, even in Thailand where one platform provider says “we don’t collect email addresses on the platform; Thais don’t read them.” Keep telling that to competitors, thanks!

Presentation. Very mixed bag in Asia. More operators are embracing live video (as the rest of the world will one day (and as predicted here in 2021)). CasinoPlus in the Philippines has one of the most unique visitors in the industry, according to Similarweb. And they focus heavily on their own live presenters and own localized games, not just streamers and Evolution’s Crazy Time. There’s a lot more to come in this space.

A few operators are figuring out that maybe all games are considered equal so it’s OK to roll out a poor game themed correctly to some holiday. It isn’t. You have 4000 games on your site, how do you decide with are worthy to be featured or otherwise touted? There’s a simple, objective, data-driven way to do this and eliminate putting clear player-clunkers in the spotlight. Keep them ON your site, sure, why not? We have infinite shelf space and that certified clunker may be someone’s favourite for whatever reason.

Performance. Sort of a no-brainer that I failed to mention previously. Your site is slow? Your prospect is GONE. Such a no-brainer in 2024… someone of course needs to tell the land-based guys this as they try to come online (also, please introduce them to the concept of CRM, strange that they don’t get it given the predominance of database marketing in that side of the industry. They will, though)!

People. Likewise, previously absent from some variations of my “Essential Ps”, it is the native-language personnel talking to players over their preferred IM channel, such as LINE in Thailand and Japan, Zalo in Vietnam, Kakao in South Korea, Viber in the Philippines, WhatsApp only in the more westernized geos like UAE (not Asia, I know) and Singapore. Like ewallets, I suspect that preferred IMs will continue to be country-specific, following the eventual all-in-one model of WeChat in China.

An interesting aside about People: only a minority of players across the globe claim to understand the concepts of volatility and RTP. Same is true for too many operators I reckon. Others, however, are including theoretical RTP on games (or some platforms put admittedly falsified “HOT” tags on games in the lobby—Karma is finishing her drink and will be with you shortly) in their lobbies. Long term, this is a good thing, as “an educated consumer is our best customer” as an American retailer used to say.

The seventh “secret” P: Plan B. Your domain in Asia will be blocked by ISPs. Hijacked by other operators. Hunted down by authorities (as I write this “Indonesia has a team of 150 specialists in Indonesia is operating around the clock, seven days a week, to locate and block online gambling platforms targeting players.”) While Japan is cracking down on “influencers” and Thailand mulls the opening of Integrated Resorts (e.g. hotels combined with casinos), regulation is coming everywhere. Hopefully as a responsible partner with operators rather than a bureaucratic force intent on destroying legitimate play, as in the UK and Germany.

Always having a Plan B is as vital as ever, for operators anywhere. And in your own life as well.

Last year, I wrote “There is no Asia.” The point being that the cultures and preferred platforms and game suppliers and payment methods of each county are as different as their countries’ languages are from each other.

That’s never been more true than today.