Casino City's iGaming Pocket Directory - 2014 Edition

118 Sponsored by Casino City’s iGaming Pocket Directory ASIA For years, the Asian market has been the holy grail of online gaming. Vast swaths of discretionary income. Cultures with gambling roots. And tech savvy. Macau reported $45 billion in gambling revenue in 2013, easily dwarfing Las Vegas, which is expected to clock in around $6.5 billion. And unlike Vegas, the only attraction in Macau is gambling. In 2012 (2013 data was not available at press time), Singapore generated nearly $6 billion in gaming revenue. And brick-and-mortar casinos are scheduled to open in the Philippines in 2014. With that type of money being spent on gaming in Asia, and land-based gaming expanding, it’s no wonder the online gaming industry is eager to tap into the Asian market. The key challenges facing operators in the Asian market are regulatory uncertainty and payment processing. Much of the Asian market tends to be cash- based when it comes to commerce. As a result, moving money in and out of online gaming accounts is a hurdle to overcome. The regulatory uncertainty can make marketing and advertising through traditional channels tricky. That increases the importance of affiliates that can deliver Asian traffic. To a certain degree, tapping into the Asian market resembles the early days of the Internet, where operators were still figuring out how to build and market a product to a large base of potential customers with money to spend. Just as there was a first-mover advantage then, there will be first-mover advantages in Asia for operators who can figure out how to break into the market. ASIA