In this week’s episode of iGaming Talks, Michael Bauer, the CFO/CGO of Greentube, delves into essential topics, shedding light on the company’s present standing in the market, primary objectives, and anticipated trajectory for 2024.
Michael also unveils Greentube’s latest platform, Mynt, which has already received certification in South Africa. As a leading B2B provider, Greentube has experienced significant success in recent years. In this interview, we rewind the clock to gain insight into its journey and explore its future plans in greater detail.
TheGamblest: Greentube is currently one of the fast-moving companies in iGaming, Michael, can you provide the recent achievements of the company in the market and shed light on the company’s current position within the industry?
Michael: A meta trend in the industry – namely ongoing regulation of i-gaming markets – is creating a general positive climate for our business. We strongly focus on regulated markets and therefore recent developments in Brazil, Peru and South Africa are favoring our business model. Among the suppliers that focus on regulated markets we have for sure built a very strong position over the last few years. Such achievements do not happen overnight though. They are the result of our long-term strategy to build up an organization that can create the best products and knows the different markets quite well – so big cudos to our employees from my side.
TheGamblest: Furthermore, could you share your vision for Greentube’s trajectory in 2024?
Michael: 2024 will be dominated by two key themes for us: market expansion and roll-out of our new technology stack. In addition to this we have invested into a few new product initiatives for example in the i-lottery market and the more traditional online casino space that we will bring to market this year.
TheGamblest: How is Greentube strategizing its expansion into the North American market, particularly in terms of developing locally-oriented content?
Michael: From a market perspective we plan to finally go live in Pennsylvania and Connecticut in the first half of the year. These two markets are key for us in enhancing the partnerships with our existing customers. Additionally, we of course continue to onboard new customers in all US markets and we have already gone live with Penn National brands and Caesars this year. Let’s not forget Canada as well where we are increasing our strong partnerships with the lotteries in BC and Quebec and will focus on further roll-outs in Ontario. From a games perspective we had some great launches already this year with Piggy Prices: Wand of Riches leading the ranks for us. Looking at the pipeline ahead for this year I know that our customers will get some very good games that players will love. We are now constantly bolstering our positions in the game statistic rankings as well – a fact that is testament to the quality level that our games have. Later in the year we will showcase our latest game releases at G2E in Vegas.
TheGamblest: We also know that the company has a big focus on Latin America. What specific strategies is Greentube employing to penetrate and capitalize on the burgeoning Latin American market, with a particular emphasis on Peru and Brazil?
Michael: Latam is another important growth area with the focus on the two markets that you mentioned. Our focus here is quite frankly to get our boots on the ground and employ local sales and key account management to better serve the needs of our customers. From a games perspective we are quite well placed in Peru as our parent company Novomatic has been active in the market for a long time. In other areas – specifically crash games – we are investing and will hopefully be able to bring a competitive product to market soon.
TheGamblest: Michael, Greentube has recently launched a new platform – Mynt, currently certified in South Africa. Can you briefly introduce the platform to our readers and share your plans concerning the new launch.
Michael: The Mynt platform has been developed over the last years in addition to our massive global expansion. Frankly, it has taken us more time to finish it than we expected but now we have a game delivery platform that is fully state of the art when it comes to technology and architecture. What we understand under “Mynt” is not only an RGS but a full suite of software modules that enable us to create and deliver games end-to-end. This includes an SDK for our development studios, tools for QA and certification, an operator onboarding platform and so forth. Starting the roll-out in a new market like South Africa makes it easier for us to build volume on the platform and therefore make it more attractive for studio partners. Any new markets such as Brazil will most likely be served via Mynt in the future as well. And then slowly but surely we will start migrating existing markets onto the platform. Operators will benefit from it not only from a bigger range of new games but also from additional gamification features that we are building into Mynt.
TheGamblest: How does Greentube leverage the advanced technologies of the Mynt platform to ensure high performance, scalability, and adaptability in response to the ever-evolving gaming industry landscape?
Michael: Mynt was designed from day one to operate either with on-premise machines or on the cloud and can operate on any cloud provider that meets our criteria. This ensures we can scale up resources on our platform nodes quickly. Adding new platform nodes in different geographies is a small operation in comparison with traditional platforms and Mynt also has the benefit of controlling all nodes from a single central hub meaning that operational effort related to the management of games and operators is not duplicated with every new platform node introduced. The platform is resilient to any data interruptions we could encounter between its different nodes and additionally has been implemented as a service-oriented infrastructure which in turn gives us faster time to market and the ability to quickly adapt to changing market needs.
TheGamblest: How does the launch of the new platform, Mynt, signify a significant step forward in supporting operators and suppliers within a comprehensive game ecosystem? Could you elaborate on the specific tools and features offered by Mynt that cater to the diverse needs of operators and suppliers?
Michael: Mynt offers operators a tool that greatly simplifies the integration process through step-by-step guides, sandbox features, real-time logs and automated self-checks. Operators can have as many staging setups as they need to match their internal development setup. Once live, operators benefit from a modern back-office providing a view on all gameplay activity and allowing self-service game configuration and campaigns management. Additionally, most functions provided to operators on the Mynt back-office are also made available through APIs such that an operator could integrate those functions into their own internal tools if preferred.
For suppliers, Mynt offers a modular SDK allowing games to be developed faster by maximizing component reuse. Testing the games is easy on the tool Mynt provides, requiring almost no manual platform configuration support. Suppliers can input game meta-data (such as game math) directly into the tool therefore reducing the dependency on internal operations teams during the development lifecycle. Finally, certain elements like game rules and compliance data have been kept separate from game clients, significantly reducing development and operational complexity.
TheGamblest: To sum up our interview, we are more than sure our audience will be happy to know how you spend your spare time, maybe you like mountaineering? 🙂
Michael: First and foremost I am a family man but as an Austrian I am indeed a mountain-lover as well. I spend quite some time on my mountainbike in summer or on skis in winter.
