The CEO of Malta-based online gaming operator Kindred Group announced a “hyper-local” online casino strategy as a complement to its recent M&A activity.
Kindred CEO Henrik Tjarnstrom unveiled the strategy as Kindred went live with the Romania-facing online Vlad Cazino.
“It’s similar to what we did with Storspiller and Storspelare in Sweden and Norway respectively last year; we launched a hyper-local casino brand,” said Tjarnstrom. “For us as a group, it’s a very interesting complement to M&A where we show we can launch our own casino brands and grow them as fast as some of the offers we are seeing from an M&A perspective.”
Kindred unveiled another record quarter for revenue and profit after a strong end to Q4 2017, driven by an exceptional sports-book margin and strong underlying activity growth and a new all-time high in active customers.
Tjarnstrom also revealed the company was eyeing a number of new regulated markets during 2018, including the U.S. “One market that’s coming up and that has been talked about a lot now is the U.S., and we have been keeping an eye on that market for many years, especially since 2012, when New Jersey opened up,” he said. “So we will look at that. We also have markets like Spain, where we are not present today with a license… We are looking at the global scene and what’s coming up.”
On Kindred’s home market of Sweden, on track to re-regulate in 2019, Tjarnstrom said he had been disappointed that the competition issues around the entry of former monopolies Svenska Spel and ATG into the market had not yet been resolved despite the proposal being sent for legal review before Christmas. “The inquiry was clear on the direction forward but in the proposal it took a step to the side rather than forward,” he said.
But while eager to “avoid going into a system with a lot of conflicts from a competitive point of view.” Tjarnstrom said, “we are positive it will happen and are working with the authorities and government so it can happen and open January 1.”
Also, online casino games developer Relax Gaming limited has extended its deal with the Kindred Group to provide roulette and blackjack games to Kindred’s websites.
The company already supplies poker and bingo titles to Kindred. The Malta-based company said in a press release that its online table games utilize a proprietary random number generator engine and are now available at Kindred Group sites including 32Red.com, Unibet.co.uk and MariaCasino.co.uk.
“We want to build on our already strong partnership by delivering more cost-effective titles that will appeal to various demographics and types of casino player,” said Patrik Osteraker, chief executive officer for Relax Gaming in the release.
Established in 2010, Relax Gaming Limited said its roulette title has been designed to showcase “accurate ball movement” while its blackjack counterpart allows players to enjoy “three hands simultaneously using the same random draw mechanism.”
“We’ve enjoyed real success with Relax Gaming Limited’s products and are excited to be building on this now with further casino content,” said Fredrik Kjell, head of gaming for Kindred Group, which was previously known as Unibet Group. “Our brands pride themselves on providing a quality user experience to all casino players, which means integrating the latest titles from innovative operators such as Relax Gaming Limited.”
