For experienced punters around the world, Aristocrat is one of the largest and oldest software providers in the gambling industry today. Aristocrat Leisure Limited is based in Australia with its headquarters in Sydney.
With over 60 years of experience to its name, the company has built a firm brand name, especially with slots and gaming machines. Thanks to the huge name, the company has been able to expand its base. Today, Aristocrat has offices in 320 jurisdictions globally, covering 86 countries in total, including the United States, Japan, Russia, South Africa, etc.
In the world of gambling software, only IGT has more games than Aristocrat. Aristocrat's portfolio includes both online and land casino games. The slots section of Aristocrat in the online category consists of the free slots and the play for real money types. The company's popular titles include Heart of Vegas casino app, Buffalo casino game, 5 Dragons slot, Big Red and many more.
Additionally, Aristocrat offers live solutions to operators to create virtual casinos for their clients. Currently, only a few companies in the gambling industry can stand as rivals with the country. Yet, with this impressive portfolio, the company seems to want it all. Recent news has it that they have plans to diversify their earnings even further as they enter into the world of sports betting. What are the odds, and how do we think they'll perform? Keep reading, and you'll find out!
Aristocrat Leisure Lay Eyes on Sports Betting
In a report by GGRAsia, Aristocrat has declared interest in expanding into sports betting. According to the CEO, Trevor Croker, the company has a balance sheet and the intent, which is evident from their previous acquisitions, to either build or buy into the sector. Trevor talked about the possibility of starting something in this sector during an online interview hosted by Fantini Research. Fantini Research is a trusted news provider and a consultancy firm with a high reputation in the gaming industry.
According to Trevor, Aristocrat Technologies has in recent times received lots of feedback from its customers, particularly those that use land-based casinos. From these feedbacks, the company remains positive that entering the sports betting market is the way to go from their customers' perspective. As a result, the company has eyes on the sector and is keen on seeking viable entry options into it as soon as possible.
Aristocrat Boosting Digital Presence
From the start, Aristocrat' primary business focus was to supply Aristocrat casino slot games across land casino facilities in Australia, Asia, and North America. However, when the internet was introduced, the company diversified and had its digital segment.
Ever since the company has been making giant strides in the digital space casinos and video games with the help of their Digital Businesses Plarium, Big Fish Games, and Product Madness business units. Very recently, they worked hard on the brilliant portfolio that includes the social casino games Lightning Link, Cashman, Heart of Vegas, and FaFaFa Gold Casino. They came as a cream of the crop for the year 2019.
In 2020, Aristocrat came up with a new Star Trek slot, Dragon Cash and Dragon Link game debuts, and New Buffalo Chief and Buffalo Xing game editions.
In the video game segment, experts noted the release of Undersea Solitaire Tripeaks app game and the success of the latest campaign RAID: Shadow Legends app.
As a result, the company saw its revenue increase in March 2020 by 19% in the digital divide.
According to the CEO, the move to diversify into the digital space proved to be a smart decision during the COVID19 pandemic early this year. While the company could not make money from its land casinos, the digital division stayed strong and continued to pull sales. At the time, many of those casinos had to shut down temporarily, and so, the company struggled with dwindling revenue from its land-based casino division. Even now, many of these facilities still struggle with low capacities and reduced consumer demand. However, Croker remains optimistic that the sector is a resilient one and is on its way to becoming what it was before the pandemic.
He is also confident that this pandemic would, in the end, transform the application of digital solutions in land-based casinos. He said they are working to create solutions from the digital world for their land-based users at top priority right now. From the most recent news, Aristocrat’s global land-based business announced updated brand identity and shared presentation video with no further details by now.
Introducing Aristocrat Gaming from Aristocrat Marketing APAC on Vimeo.
In the last few years, Aristocrat Technologies has been scaling its digital operations. Trevor noted that they are now a global player in social casinos and casual games markets. He also stated that they are leaders in the roleplaying games strategy arena.
Current Sports Betting Market in the US
Since 2018, the sports betting market has been doing well. In just two years after the Supreme Court of the US declared it legal, the market has collected more than 20 billion dollars in bets. As of today, more than 20 states in the US, that is, about 30% of the population have access to a regulated bet market while several others are on the way.
An updated map of the states in the US (December 2020) that already allow online sports gambling has such data:
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20 states legalized sports betting
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21 states didn’t show any of legalization activity in 2020
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6 states authorized sports betting, but have yet to launch
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4 states passed bills legalizing betting/introduced in the state legislatur
American Gaming Association’s interactive sports betting map is available on americangaming.org
The sports gambling bill's success is a signal that it would soon become legal across all US states. In general, the US's sports betting is expected to reach a size of 1.5 billion dollars by 2021. By 2023, the report by GamblingCompliance expects the market to be worth 2.74 billion dollars.
Many experts describe the speedy growth of the sports betting market as extraordinary. Not only is the market growing so fast, but it has been evolving as well. The major players in the market continue to change. Leaders like FanDuel and DraftKings continue to make their marks and are now bookmakers. With these guys still very much in the picture, are there opportunities for new entrants like Aristocrat?
Yes, even though these two stay at the top and control a lot that happens in slot gambling, Aristocrat Technologies stand a chance. To use its resources and experience to become the competition that is needed in this space.
Does the Sports Betting Market Worth it?
Yes, the sports betting market is worth it for Aristocrat, especially considering its large size. However, entry into the sports betting market will not be a walk in the park, primarily due to the challenges that abound due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But then it is possible. For any company daring to do it, there are few challenges along the way.
One of those challenges is the burden of regulation, especially for an international organization like Aristocrat. To build the right platforms, the company needs a highly skilled workforce with deep insights into consumer psychology. Unfortunately, that domain expertise and intellectual capacity required lacks most people who have visas and work permits. For a company of Aristocrat' standard, this shouldn't be a problem as they can manage the regulation and technological barriers; however, there is a unique market constraint problem. That is, their total target market is restricted by the lack of education of their prospective clients.
Finally, consumer adoption and user onboarding are very challenging due to geolocation and requirements of KYC and AML. Even with these challenges, several opportunities abound in this space. For starters, sports betting and online gaming could become vital for human connection. Experts see a possibility in achieving viable networks amongst users of different sport betting platforms, unlike in other markets where networking works based on interaction with one brand. For instance, friends would most likely use the same social media platform like Facebook or Twitter to stay connected.
On the other hand, a group of friends can stay happy without knowing where they place their bet for basketball predictions. For Aristocrat Leisure, this means, if the company can work hard enough, it can penetrate and become favorites with not so much effort.
By leveraging functionalities like competitive video gaming, peer-to-peer wagering, and social casino plays, Aristocrat stands a chance to break into this market. Also, the careful use of bonuses and loyalty schemes like it is done in airline authorities and hotels might help Aristocrat.
Sports Betting Dime Made a Research Who Bet on Sports in the US in 2019. The full research is available on sportsbettingdime.com
In the future, we expect more consolidation to take place in space. One of such big ones is the coming together of functionality and content. Today, in football prediction, NBC Sports Washington had trials where the betting type and the real game are placed on the same screen while the game runs.
The end of COVID19 is likely to usher in many licensing certificates, more customers, and better technology. That would be all thanks to the M&A fronts.
Just recently, Aristocrat Leisure in Las Vegas announced its partnership deal with Las Vegas Raiders. With this new deal, the company hopes to get signage rights around Allegiant stadiums. It would also receive naming entitlements for its Owners East Club. Finally, Aristocrat would be the lead sponsor of the raiders 50/50 raffle draw.
This deal comes as the NLF franchise moved from Oakland into Las Vegas after last season. Since they are located in Vegas, the Raider quickly moved to sign as many partnerships deal with gambling and gambling-related companies. Bet MGM is the official betting partner of the company. At the same time, their official gaming partner is MGM Resorts International.
