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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
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Welcome to today's episode of iGaming Daily. In this episode, we'll return to our CRM focus series as we dive into the world of gamification and more specifically something called AI orchestrated gamification. And this is brought to you none other by our headline supporter of the podcast. And that's Optimove who are a, they are the leader in the CRM marketing for iGaming. And they've just partnered with some of the best gamification platforms to deliver an industry first, which we'll talk about later on. We'll also touch on Optimus' upcoming appearance at SBC Summit Lisbon, where they'll be showcasing their AI gamification capabilities at Booth D120, or D120, if you'd phrase it that way. Along with hosting CRM marketing lightning talks, two expert panels, and even participating in the SBC Football Championship. And Joining me to discuss all of this is OptiMove's newly announced Senior Director of Partnerships, Adi Dagen. Welcome to the podcast, Adi. How are you doing? Welcome to OptiMove and welcome to our gaming daily. Thank you. Thank you, James. Good to be here. Just to mention, we'll also be attending the G2E in Vegas in two weeks. So it's a busy schedule for us coming up. Busy, Sergio. Busy, Shaz. I thought it was a bit too much for me to announce all your activities. So I'll leave something for you. Yeah. No, it's just around the corner. So, so yeah, so, so thank you very much. Yeah, I just recently joined OptiMove taking on the partnership front around gaming at OptiMove. And I'm actually really excited. I mean, like really excited to be joining this. I've been in gaming for just over 20 years. I had some, some experience in, extensive experience in B2B. I worked for Playtech, I founded a couple of companies, I co-founded a couple of companies. The first one was a successful exit to Playtech and the second one was a P2C gaming platform in social gaming. So the concept of partnerships and gamification in specific is something that I'm very familiar with and have a lot of experience and have a lot to say about it. So I'm really excited to have this opportunity to share with you. No, perfect. We're excited to have you on. And like you said, you've got a vast amount of experience there and you've told us a bit about it so the audience know that side of you. But Adi, there's another side to you that we, we found out in this pre-production call that we just had before we went live. You are, and you can see it in his background, if you're watching on the video, you're a music fanatic, I'd say. Why don't you tell us a little bit something about yourself from a personal perspective? And so you're not alone. I will jump off and let you, I'll tell you something about myself as well, but you have to go first. Oh, beautiful. Okay. Um, so yeah, I, I would say I'm music, music fanatic. I mean, um, and my, my musical taste was formed and shaped, uh, by these guys right up here. I think you can see, this is why we started the conversation. So back in 93, I had the pleasure of attending Metallica's concert in Tel Aviv when I was like this big. And I think this was a life-changing experience for me because from that day on, it was just Metallica and metal from that moment on. I mean, it kind of took turns along the way, but at the end of the day, I always came back to the Foo Fighters, to Chili Peppers and Metallica. And one thing, one thing, one, I think one story that does align with what you're actually talking about is Metallica was performing here in Madrid a couple of, I don't know, a month ago or so, where they did like a tour, two nights, no repeat shows. So they promised you that they're going to do completely separate shows at each one of them. So that's a kind of a gamification challenge for you there. But the interesting thing was just before the show, like a couple of days, they sent the mass email to all the audience and they were asking a few questions like where are you coming from? How are you transiting, etc. So I went up to the page and I entered the address where I'm coming from and that I'm traveling by public transportation, etc. So they calculate the time, the duration of your trip. And based on that, they produce... Spotify playlist for you to listen throughout your commute, other ways to the show. And that's like, like the purest gamification experience you can, you can, you can have. So, so I did that. I hit play. I went to the, to the subway here and you know, it was rock on from there. That's an interesting fact. Like I love music. You can see by my cap, if you can see the video, I've got the killers on there. They're my favorite band. I've got the killer's tattoo here. which people mistake for a Bowie tattoo. There's meaning behind it. Um, but I was going to go on. My interesting fact is that I stream video games. Um, but I think I'm going to lean more towards your music thing. Um, because you mentioned the chili peppers and an interesting fact about me is that I saw James Brown live before I even knew who James Brown was. Yeah. So The Chili Peppers, I think it was 2004, I was a little boy at the time. Uh, and they were doing a UK stadium tour and they were playing at the Manchester city stadium, um, which I call the council house cause I'm a Manchester United fan, so they were playing there. Okay. I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry for you, buddy. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. I need all the, uh, the sympathy I can get, but more to more important things, United, they'll make me cry. But yeah, I started watching, we went to see the chili peppers with my mom, my dad, my brother. I remember getting that burger. It had blue ketchup on it. Blue tomato sauce. If no one knows what ketchup is, I found it weird. And then saw this guy perform and I thought he was fantastic. And never really thought anything of it because then the chili peppers on that was why I was, we were there. And it was only like, it must've been about 10 years later or something when I was really into my music, I got into the Rocky. No one explained to you at the venue who this guy is? No, no, no. My dad must've explained, but I was quite, because I was young at the time. I was like really young at the time, because I'm 30 now, so 2004, the audience, you can do the maths, because I'm not doing it. That makes me even more depressed. But yeah, didn't realise it until I was really into my music and obviously watching the Rocky films as well, because James Brown's in Rocky IV. I was like, wait a minute. I know this guy. And my dad was like, yeah, you've seen him live. And I was like, how have I seen James Brown live and not realized I've seen James Brown live? Yeah. There's my interesting fact. Yeah, there's things you end up understanding retrospectively, but it's good when we're talking about this subject. I think the reason I mentioned this Metallica thing is because gamification at the end of the day is surrounding us in every experience that we're doing. The most obvious example from real life is that everyone encounters is your stamp card that you collect stamps from your favorite coffee shop to get the 10th coffee for free. And people go berserk about it, right? People keep their stamps like this cup of coffee is worth $10,000. But the thing is, and this is what actually emphasizes that the drive behind demification is the will. to be to achieve something and to be acknowledged. I mean, I'm not sure well, you're too young, but there's a Sunfield episode about it that Elaine bought 10 subs and she's getting the 11 one for free. But she handed out the card for someone that he gave her a number. And she's doing all the efforts she can in order to get that back. And why is that it's just because she wants to get that sub she needs to get the recognition. to teach to have that like the view of the achievement that you actually did it. So, and I think this is, this is like the, this is the essence of gamification. It's the, it's the will for us to be, uh, to be getting, uh, the, the gratitude or the, uh, the acknowledgement sort is the right word, whether it's from the business that we're interacting with, or whether it's for with ourselves to be, uh, you know, acknowledged and, and for, for our achievements. So, so. It's everywhere. It's in every direction that we do. There's two things I'm happy you've just done there. One is you managed to turn the conversation back to gamification, which is the topic of what we're talking about today. And two is saying, I'm too young to know about this. The fact I'm reaching 30 years old this year, you've made me the happiest 30 year old, or soon to be 30 year old ever. So I am too young. I'm still young at heart. Congratulations. I just turned 44, man. And so, so I got to get that on you. 44? Don't look at me. Don't look at it. Thank you. Thank you. Right. We'll start giving each other compliments because we'll just go on forever. We'll stop feeding our egos a little bit. One of the things we do want to talk about, I mentioned in the intro, Optimo have just announced two new partnerships and Adi, can you just kind of explain to us what those partnerships are and kind of how important they are for certainly when it comes to gamification for Optimo moving forward? Definitely. So, so yeah, that's right. We just, we just announced our partnerships, which are actually They're only officially announced now, but this actually is something that the company has been working on for quite a while now. And this is the announcement of our strategic partnership with Captain Aach and Gammanza in our opinion, who are the best of breed when it comes to gamification and gaming. And the reason we're excited to do this announcement is because we feel that gamification is an area of expertise. I mean, we feel that OptiMove is the master in orchestration and AI orchestration when it comes to gaming for sure. And we feel that in order to provide our clients with the best solution around gamification, we need to bring the best of Reed when it comes to gamification. And our team has been working to find, at the survey, the market in order to find those partners. And at the end of the day, we decided to pick these two. This kind of, I think, demonstrates our approach as far as gamification and loyalty goes, because we will probably be making some additional announcements in the future around that. I'm fairly new here, but that's what I've been told and been working on since the few weeks that I've been here. So there's a lot of excitement here, and I think OptiMove is bringing like in any other space or any other corner in this industry, we're bringing our very professional and precise approach. Gamification is kind of, is one of those terms that has been around the industry ever since I've entered. I think it's such a call to iGaming, like gamification and iGaming go together hand in hand, but it's always ever evolving. that never stops because this industry keeps moving, it moves forward at such a fast pace that there's always something new around, around the river bend, let's just say, that people need to pick up on. And one of those things is probably AI as well, which is the buzzword at the moment, but just on gamification alone, why do you believe it's still evolving? And what do you think operators are missing due to that? And double prong question, so might be a lengthy one. What challenges do operators face in kind of integrating gamification into their platforms? with this evolution. Okay, so I think there's a lot of room for evolution and innovation, generally speaking. I think, listen, as I said, gamification has been around us since the beginning of like, human culture. We've always had the drive to show ourselves that we're getting to some kind of level and to show one another that we're doing better than one another. And I think that this concept has not yet been properly implemented when it comes to gaming. And I'll give you a few examples. I mean, there are two types, the two main, I would say, drives or incentives around gamification that I just mentioned. And it's first one is to make sure that I get my tap on my back, that I say, yeah, I just heard my badge. And that's the will. to be recognized and that the house will tell me that I'm doing great and my whatever achievements that I'm doing are being recognized. And the second one, which is probably even more is stronger, is to show you, James, that I'm doing much better than you. Such as leaderboards, tournaments, and whatnot. I think the best example, and with all due respect to all of our competitors and gaming The holy grail in gamification is Duolingo. And the world leading language learning app, they have a perfect gamification experience around what they're doing. I moved to Spain like 18 months ago, and I started learning Duolingo, working with Duolingo. But at some point I realized that I no longer care about learning Spanish, I just care about not breaking my streak. and getting recognized for my ongoing achievements. So if I would for some reason forget to do my 10 minutes lesson before I go to sleep and then remind her that their icon on your iPhone racks has changed, do I have to take? And they would remind me that you are just about to lose your streak, you're about to lose your progress. And I would just get out, I would just do anything at that moment, drop whatever I need to do in order to accomplish that. And I think that this... along with the leaderboards that they implemented is fantastic form of implementing those two main drives that I think the gaming community has not yet perfected. Mason Hickman For you, Adi, why is it the right time for AI orchestrated gamification in iGaming? And what's changed? Adi Bajdani Well, I think what has changed is, first of all, we're seeing a maturity from the market. I think that If you look back a couple of years back, you wouldn't see the gamification in gaming so strong. You would see it off-gaming, you would see it in airline companies, you would see it in any loyalty clubs, etc. You wouldn't see it as much in proper gaming. By the way, in social casino and social gaming, gamification is all over the place. But in proper gaming, it's not. And I think that the market has matured and the market has realized... that this is a great incentive for the way to increase your engagement with your customers. Five years ago, I co-founded a company that basically built a casual game, a mobile game. And I remember the days that we actually launched our first tournaments and our first leaderboards. All of the graphs went off the charts. It was just at the same moment that we introduced the players. the opportunity to show one another that they're better than one another and to give them, you know, to give them the notice and acknowledgement for the achievements is staggering. These are things that we're starting to see emerging in gaming, but not yet. And the reason I think that the perfect that it's the perfect timing and specifically for OptiMove is that, you know, we are We're the market dominant when it comes to AI orchestration. I think there's no argue about it. And I'm happy to be a part of this team. And our core engine knows how to differentiate players and to know how to approach them at the right moment. And I think that on top of that magical engine that we have, you would like to plug in a gamification arm that will execute those actions. So, and this is something we mentioned, by the way, in the last blog or one couple of blogs that was written by a wonderful team, all the Goldilocks, Goldilocks point, where it's actually kind of the sweet spot or the sweet point we want to keep the customer engaged enough to be still being intrigued, but at the same time not to be frustrated from the fact that he's competing in some kind of challenge that's way too big for him. And I think that... our technology has matured enough to be able to integrate with those solutions such as the Gmanza and Captain Up and additional ones that we will be announcing soon to do that. Mason Hickman I'm glad you mentioned the Clodoloxone article because it is interesting to read. What I want to know from you is, because this is where I was going to go to next, why do you think AI orchestrated gamification? aids operators and helps find that right balance to maximize player retention. Because there's no other way to do it. I mean, if you do, I mean, you can plug with your casino operators, sports, you can just plug in gamification solution, let's say to run tournaments or leaderboards, but you would need to find the right infrastructure that sits behind it, below it, to make sure that you have the proper matchmaking for the players that you're catering. And that matchmaking is, in essence, a micro segmentation engine, such as OptiMove. Because if you take leaderboards, for example, tournaments, you wouldn't want to compete with players that are way out of your league or under your league in whatever achievements that you're trying to compete on. And at the end of the day, what we're looking at, our gamification partner, our execution and extension arm of OptiMove AI or construction engine. segment and target players with any action, whether it's email, SMS, push, whatever. It's just the last mile, but we know how to actually segment and cater those players in the right time. And if you do that in the right time and with the right tool, you bring what we call the Godelog point. And I think this is our ability. And by the way, this is something that was already launched. with a couple of our clients and we should be making some very interesting announcements and it's in case studies soon. But it's again, it's like I mentioned before, it's very interesting to see how impactful this proper implementation of gamification that is done properly in the right timing, in the right amount, not to create too much overload on the player, but to be just at the right point. how staggering and how impactful these elements are. Perfect. We are out of time, so I'm gonna ask a round of question here, Adi. And we started this conversation aside from music talk, we started this conversation around kind of the evolution of gamification. And I think that's kind of a perfect way to kind of finish this off, but more with a look at the AI evolving within gamification. So. Adi, for you, what future trends do you foresee in AI orchestrated gamification? And how does that role of AI evolving change within the next few years? Because it's such a fast changing process with AI. It is. And, you know, this is our, I think one of the core values in OptiWolf is to keep that, that spirit of innovation, keep up with the latest technology. uh, as the core DNA of the company. And this is one of the reasons I was so excited to join the screening team. So I think we'll be seeing, um, we'll be seeing some, uh, elements of, um, a more deep implementation of AI into the gamification, uh, experience. And I'll expand again, the gamification experience is a very, it's a very, uh, old concept that we've all experienced, but the way that it's going to be a. cater the way it's going to be suited to the players is something that's going to be keep optimized. Like we're seeing AI-driven personalization campaigns, we're seeing AI-driven personalization ads for players. We're going to see the same approach, we're going to see the same trend probably going to the gamification experience that players are going to go. And I think that with keeping our eyes open as to what, how impactful AI in general is in over our life. And this is like, for those of us who didn't really yet understand how impactful this thing is, it's like the invention of electricity. And this thing is going to be impacting everything. And I think that the plugin of AI with the gamification, the AI core engine that we have in Optimal with gamification is going to be game changing. Nothing less than that. And I'll keep it vague because we're going to be making some very interesting announcements by the end of this year around this specifically. Perfect. We look forward to those announcements. Hopefully we can reveal them once they are live on iGaming Daily. What will be interesting as well is those data in the case studies from the Go to Log Zone. So once you do get them, please make sure you do send them over so we can do a little deep dive into them. That's everything we've got time for, but just a quick reminder as well. I mentioned it in the introduction, so I'll mention in the outro. OptiMove, they're going to be, they're going to be attending and exhibiting at the SBC Summit Lisbon event, which is just next week. So it's coming up thick and fast. Your booth is D120 and OptiMove, they're also going to be holding a CRM marketing lightning talks. A CRM ecosystem. They're going to be on two panel sessions, which you can find further information in the description below. And they'll be at the SBC Summit Championship and SBC Leaders Summit. So they're going to be all over SBC Summit. It's going to be fantastic. I'll see you on the football pitch. So I'll make sure you wear your shin pads, Adi. Oh, beautiful. You're going to be there. I will be there. Yeah. Perfect. For the listeners, thank you for tuning in. And this has been iGaming Daily. I've been joined by Adi Gaden, the Senior Director of Partnerships at Optimove. And I've been your host, James Ross. Thank you.