on the crypto
Greentube's social casino business includes B2C apps in Europe and the US, as well as a B2B solution available in the US and Australia. In particular in North America, which according to H2 Gambling Capital will represent about 71% of the GGR of social casinos in 2021, free-to-play is making a comeback.
The big names of the 2012 social casino boom
Playtika and DoubleDown Interactive, are listed or listed on US exchanges. Free-to-play sports, thanks to sports like SportCaller and SuperDraft, have finally helped establish that vertical.
“As the social casino vertical is growing on a global scale, we are now increasing our efforts to specifically grow our app portfolio in the US,” explains CEO Thomas Graf.
This will see Greentube add a new app, Diamond Cash, to its portfolio alongside GameTwist and Slotpark, while free-to-play variants of its slot titles will be made available to some of the largest US casino groups via the gaming solution. simulated GAN.
This social drive needs to be supported by cryptocurrency
"Just last year we started integrating cryptocurrencies into one of our leading social casino apps to see how players embrace this new payment method," explains Graf. "For us, this was a great opportunity to test the crypto space and we have had some important lessons."
However, it remains to be seen whether this ultimately offers cryptocurrency payouts for real money games. Graf says this test is “in the very early stages” and will be social-focused before any real-money implementation is even considered and will be subject to the most stringent compliance standards.
Cryptocurrency is also a key component of Greentube's esports push, for which it acquired Austria-based Hero in February of this year. It runs Herosphere.gg, a blockchain-based platform that allows players to create their own contests and bet on the results.
A very wide spread
The platform, which has a user base of over 300.000 players, has a proprietary token, Herocoin, as its primary form of currency. While a second blockchain-based acquisition in the space of the year suggests a particular interest in cryptocurrencies, Graf says the Hero deal was driven “first and foremost” by his interest in esports and esports betting.
“Hero gives us an advantage as they have already developed and prototyped a tournament system for e-sports that we will also use and adapt for our core business Greentube,” he explains.
“What we found particularly interesting with the Herosphere platform was their more playful approach to the subject,” he adds. “We are currently adapting and improving the platform to be able to relaunch it in an even more competitive version”.
This will again be used to provide a better understanding of eSports, for a proprietary solution that takes into account the enterprise experience in pure-play skill-based games, of which the Herosphere will play "an integral part," he says.
"Similar to the casino space, we are not only looking to create our platform, but we also want to create our own content that will give us an edge over the competition."
