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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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They say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but in the iGaming industry it can hardly get any greener than green tubes. As the online casino segment continues to evolve and grow, the Novomatic Digital Gaming and Entertainment division has already positioned itself as one of the leading providers in the segment, that of course, has not been an easy task. It has taken a lot of work and lot of time, and today we're going to take a look behind the curtains of its success. Welcome to iGaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. Are you heading to ICE? Make sure to stop by OptiMove stand in Hall 4. I'm Fernando Nott, Media Manager for SBC and your host for today's episode of iGaming Daily with a very special host today on iGaming Daily, Marcos Antl, Director of Global Sales and Key Account Management at GreenTube. Marcos, how are you today? I'm doing very well, thank you so much and thanks for having me. Looking very much forward to the conversation. Yeah, thanks for being with us today. Of course, a lot to discuss around uh GreenTube. Of course, a very popular brand in the iGaming industry, a long-time em brand that has been working with uh online casinos for quite some time. Of course, uh parent company Novomatic has been around for even longer. It's really great to have you here to have you tell us how it's like to work at GreenTube, how GreenTube does what it does. um So let's start with a very basic question. We are starting 2026. So looking back at what 2025 has been like or was like, what key achievements has GreenTube accomplished during the last 12 months? Yeah, I have to say that 2025 was another incredible year for us. hit uh all our targets, um established some tremendous growth in various markets with various operators. But we also actually used quite some time um to go back, ah look at our strategy, look at our processes, ah and make sure we put everything in the right spot to go full throttle into the next years to come and provide the best service and products to our customers. And that was vital for the way forward. So it was a mixture between uh the daily operation, making sure that our clients are happy, but at the same time, looking into the future and see what things we have to change or maybe improve to provide an even better service going forward. We had very successful game launches. We had very successful branded game launches. So we made sure that our most successful games are not only available in the regular space, but we adapt them. for certain brands and customers in the industry, such as Starlight Checkbox Wing Today, Piggy Price's Coins of Plenty that we did for Fandel, for example, in the US, and also actually uh seasonal games like Piggy Price Jingle Checkbox, which launched end of November, and recently also in some bigger markets, little bigger markets for us like Austria last Friday, and it hits all the records, so we're very happy about that. The branded content strategy also going forward, I will come to that most probably later, was already playing a big part this year. But despite this, we tried to make sure that uh we add even more game families to our very successful game family portfolio. So we established in the past years already uh very successful game families like the Diamond Link series, the Cash Connection series, Piggy Prices. This year we launched a new one, is Firecracker Frenzy, where we introduced a new mechanic into our content portfolio. Also very successful and there more titles to come even early next year. um So on the content front and also their strategy-wise, I think we are very well prepared. We took quite some learnings from the past years on what we have to focus on and I'm very much looking forward to show uh what we learned. ah in the next years and be even better than we are already. Maybe also on the market front, important to mention we didn't just lie back and focus on the markets we were already in, but we also had new market entries that were very important for us. We entered Delaware, Pennsylvania, Moldova, Argentina, Buenos Aires province, and uh South Africa. In South Africa, we entered with our completely new technology stack. which was a tremendous success for us because after seven years of development, we put it on the ground in a completely new market with very successful games that are known in the market already from Landpist. that was very nice to see. So good year again. I'm very glad to be part of the GreenTube family because in the past years, the only thing I see is growth. So I'm happy to be part of it and I'm very much looking forward what's still to come. Yeah, I'm sure you're happy with the year, I bet working at company like Greenchew you're most likely looking forward to do an even better 2026 and that brings me to my next question which is of course the competitive side of the business you are operating in a very competitive environment I mean iGaming has a lot of companies that do I wouldn't say do what you do but do the same type of business that you do But um how do you operate or how do you um strategize in order to stand out from the competition and how do you adapt that strategy as operators demand faster integrations and broader portfolios and more and more and more every time every year they want more and of course you need to have an edge over those many other companies that are working in the segment. um Well, I think it's a mix of things, the most important thing, like it is always, especially in working in sales. um So in sales, the most important thing is listening to your customer, listening to your customer's needs. um And especially in the B2B segment that I'm working in, our customers are not the actual end customer. The end customers are the players. So we need to listen to our customer to understand their player base, what their players need. and understand what we have to provide uh for our operators to shine in front of their player portfolio. One thing is of course listening to the markets and listening to the clients that we have and the players. There we have also a little bit of an advantage because we're not only operating in B2B, but we're also having our B2C operations. So operations that are actually in contact with the players. So in-house, I can go two floors down and ask my colleagues what players prefer these days. uh Same goes of course for all the product departments and departments around. But then uh it's also to bring this information back into the company and shape a strategy around. And like you already mentioned, it's then of course, how do I get faster but also still increase the quality. And there for a company, especially our size, we're working now with 15 uh in-house game studios that are developing games for GreenTube. It's important to identify the strengths of each game studio and use them efficiently to make sure that uh you basically don't waste time and resources, but uh make use of the resources you have in the best uh possible way. This was also actually a big part last year because more and more uh studios were added to our content creation portfolio, so to say. um we had to sit down and take a step back and look like, okay, these are all the studios we have. What are the strings? How can we use them efficiently? For which market do we use which studio to create content? Because each studio has their expertise, maybe in a certain market, maybe with certain mechanics and so on and so forth. And yeah, this is something I think this is key. The more studios you have, the more you need to make sure that the processes are aligned and the communication is done in a good way. to nurture knowledge and expertise in the best possible way to then have fast content releases, localized content releases, also very important. So a big part of our strategy is going forward, not just to always do a game for the whole world, because this is the most difficult thing, but maybe focus on certain markets where we really know and have also the studio expertise, what is needed and make some games there. Use also more resources on provide more peace book game. So I mentioned some branded launches from last year doing more in that area because we also get the feedback from operators that this is something that they like to see because they have the same issues that we have how to differentiate. There are so many operators down out there. There are only a few markets where you have monopolies. The rest is highly competitive and how do they differentiate if not over your brand? going forward, we will we will try to increase. the amount of games we release on the localized and branded content front. And at the same time, ah learn from previous developments, the game families that are working, the mechanics that are working, the math models that are working, um reuse them, slightly innovate them to provide something new and find the next great hit. And the combination of these two strategies, think, um so to say, uh will will ensure another incredible year and years to come, I'm 100 % sure. And Marcos, you mentioned a lot about different markets. You already mentioned South Africa. You mentioned Delaware. And I want to get into which markets are going to be important for GreenTube in 2026. But I'm going to pull a move from TV and say, I'm going to ask this question right after this very quick commercial break. We'll be right back. And we're back with more iGaming Daily today with a special guest, Marcus Antle, Director of Global Sales and Key Account Management at GreenTube. Marcus, we were talking about markets. You mentioned your entrance to South Africa, Moldova, the province of Buenos Aires. Every time I hear Buenos Aires, feel like saying woohoo, because that's where I'm based. But of course, you have expanded in other countries like Spain or like Delo where we mentioned and multiple countries, multiple markets. multiple different jurisdictions. So can we expect to see GreenTube expanding into similar or already familiar markets, even new ones, unexplored territories? And which do you think will be the core markets for GreenTube in 2026? Yeah, well, our expansion strategy for 2026 is quite clear. On the one side, we will continue to consolidate and scale in existing markets. in our most important existing markets, to name some, Italy. There's currently a little bit of a market consolidation going on with a change of prices for online licenses, operator licenses. We will monitor that and see how we can grow there. It's very important for us. um The US uh was a big driver for us in the previous years because we added jurisdictions we didn't have before. We added operators we didn't have before. It's growth by adding new business that's always nice uh and most probably a little bit easier because it wasn't there before. But now we're present uh nearly everywhere in the US and now it's about uh growing through market penetration, providing the right game content to the right operators, branded content, like I mentioned before, and at the same time monitoring the US market in terms of maybe new uh regulations coming up. New York was in discussion many times previously, maybe Florida at one point. So we are monitoring that and looking at this. Also keeping an eye on Alberta, there are discussions there as well. I guess it will be quite close in terms of regulations to Ontario. And uh furthermore, we are looking to expand um to more operators in South Africa because we went live this year. There are still a lot of operators we're missing. um So I'm looking forward to that. And then of course, we were still missing quite a bigger market in Europe previously. So we're currently looking, it's a little bit of a sneak peek into Bulgaria for next year. I know that there quite some customers that we have in other markets or operators from Bulgaria that were waiting for us to make that step. And I can say the step is here. We're currently looking at the regulation, looking at the license applications and stuff. very much looking forward to Bulgaria as we are very successful in other markets in the area. that's more or less what we're going to do going forward. Nice. And that's pretty much uh a lot of work ahead for GreenTube, which also has a unique heritage in the land-based and noblematic ecosystem. So how are you leveraging that connection today and how much room, because of course, at the beginning of the gaming operation I bet that it was pretty natural to like translate uh what was working on the land-based segment to the iGaming one but of course the online casino industry has evolved so much so how are you leveraging the connection you have through Novavantic to the land-based ecosystem and how are you leveraging that connection and how much room is there to translate land-based classics into online successes in 2026 and beyond. Yeah, I think for us, it was vital at the very beginning. um And we are very much em appreciating that we had the opportunity to translate the very successful Novomatic titles into online versions and provide them to our operators that definitely gave us an amazing head start into certain markets and to certain operators. And it was a good basis to work from. um In previous years, ah it helped us a lot to enter in certain markets and get quite some market share right at the start. But for us, it's very important also to make the next step. What can we add to this? What are games that uh have their origin in online that we can make famous and that we can maybe bring back on the machines? um And I can tell you that this happened already. So in the last two years, we made that step. We had very successful games in On-Land that were then translated back into Land-based and launched in Land-based venues with Novomatic through Novomatic. They were very successful there as well. The Piggy Pryce series, for example, went into Novomatic venues this year and it was a huge success. um We will try to continue this path, make sure that it's not just a one-way street. it's two worlds coming together and to make the best out of it, take the right decisions which games to put where. And of course, the dream is always and will always be to have a seamless online and land-based game provision where you have simultaneous launches for operators that are maybe also having both land-based and online. And on that front, I can also say we're live right now in Luxembourg with around 600 machines. That is a server-based gaming product where the machines We received from Novomatic, but the software is coming from GreenTube. And it's the first, at least as far as I know, full 360 degree solution where we provide online, uh land-based and mobile um out of one hand, uh out of the same wallet ah and out of the same game sessions. That is a huge success. And we are looking towards further expanding that and working on that to provide operators the best service. Marcus, we near the end of the episode, we are also at the beginning of a full new year. What will your main focus be for 2026 and what can we expect from the company this year? um To summarize a little bit, it's going to be a year of strategic growth and innovation. As I said before, we took the time this year to do our learnings. um to take a step back, look at what was good, what was bad, where do we want to go, how do we want to position ourselves in the industry, how do we want to position ourselves in certain markets. From a market perspective, it's clear we're going to look further what we can do to increase our market share in the US. I forgot to mention before, Latin America is also still quite uh some room for growth for us there. entered Brazil regulated this year and also there we will go further into the direction of providing localized content. South Africa, Canada, including Alberta. So from a market size, we will be busy. And then of course, uh market entry into Bulgaria, which I'm very much looking forward to. And besides that, so business coming from expansion, market penetration, see what we can do also on the promotional front, see what we can do on the game provision front, where to provide branded games, where to provide localized content, choose or have a look at proven math models and mechanics and add this extra spark of innovation with our 15 game studios that are screaming of experience and ensure speed and scale. while to come back to the last point I mentioned, um looking what we can do on the omnichannel leadership because I think we are quite far ahead from the competition there and see how we can bring more online titles back into land-based and vice versa and maybe find another market where we can provide a full-blown 360-degree solution. Marcos, it's been great to hear from you, from what GreenTube has been doing, from what it will be doing during 2026. That's Marcos Anzol, Director of Global Sales and Key Account Management at GreenTube. Marcos, thank you very much. Thank you. That has been all for today's episode of iGaming Daily. I'm Fernando Nod. Thank you very much to Neya Macdonald for producing this episode and to our listeners out there. We'll see you in the next one. Goodbye.