Ultimate Gaming Exec: Steady Growth Better Than Another Poker BoomOnly 10-12 Percent Of People In States Where It's Legal Are Even Aware That Online Gaming Has Been Authorized, Todd Kobrin Says |
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Back in June, Ultimate Gaming, one of Nevada’s three operational online poker sites, announced that Todd Kobrin had been hired as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer.
Kobrin, who before that served as Vice President at 888 for its U.S. and Asia Pacific regions, has plans to build “brand awareness” for Ultimate Gaming and its Ultimate Poker software.
Ultimate Poker wants to be in the first batch of operators in California, which could legalize the activity sometime in 2015. A pair of bills were recently declared dead for 2014.
Online poker has helped brick-and-mortar poker in both Nevada and New Jersey, Kobrin said. “It can only help if it’s marketed correctly,” he said.
According to Kobrin, as little as 10 percent of the people in Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey are even aware that online gaming has been authorized. That’s part of the reason why growth has been so slow for the fledgling industry.
Joining the team at Ultimate Gaming has been a great personal development for Kobrin. He is a Nevada native. “I grew up here; I am happy to be back," he said. "I am excited to work with Ultimate and Station. I think Ultimate is in a very good position due to its start-up mentality and also having really good companies behind it like Station Casinos and the UFC. We don’t have any conflict of interests. We are 100-percent American.”
Card Player had the chance to speak with Kobrin last month to get his take on a number of industry issues, as online poker slowly finds traction in the regulated U.S. market.
Brian Pempus: Can you talk about some of the issues online poker sites are still having with payment processing?
Todd Kobrin: Regulated online gaming in the U.S. is in its infancy. We only have…about three or four percent of the [U.S.] population involved right now. Of that, our records tell us, only 10 to 12 percent are even aware that online gaming is legal. It’s still tiny, tiny numbers. Obviously when a state like New Jersey or Nevada voted to regulate online gaming, they wanted to be very safe on geo-location and payment processing. Those are the two factors that the people who are against online gaming are going to be looking at. Currently, those things are very strict…here in Nevada, and a little bit in New Jersey, we have launched the Ultimate prepaid card. So, basically it lets you use a VISA to make a payment…You are starting to see more innovative ways with payment.
BP: Can you talk about the seasonal dips for online poker? Can you talk about the challenges?
TK: During the six weeks of the WSOP, people are playing a little bit more live, and notoriously in the summer it is going to have a little bit of a dip. What I have noticed, Ultimate, as opposed to let’s say WSOP, since we were first to launch, since we have a local relationship with Stations and the UFC and whatnot, we have a pretty decent base and a good relationship with our customers on a personal level. We are going to start doing a lot more smaller live events. Obviously, our numbers slipped a bit because of the WSOP, but I am quite confident that we will start taking market share back again.
BP: How do you view online poker efforts in California?
TK: Obviously, poker has a huge and rich history in California. Due to its population size and its association with poker, California will be the biggest state in the country by far. We are very well-positioned. We have deals with various tribes. Station actually manages and runs a casino about 45 minutes north of San Francisco. When California does finally legalize, we will get a license and be one of the operators in the market. One of the huge advantages that we have, due to our relationship with UFC, it has its biggest following in California. We are already starting to build a database with a lot of California players.
BP: What do you make of that announcement that 13 tribal groups came together in consensus about some amendments? Do you think that was a really significant development? Is it looking more promising than it ever has?
TK: Yeah, that’s how I look at it. Obviously when you have a lot of various tribes in the mix it doesn’t help things, that’s why this whole process has been so slow. That was a sign that things are going in the right direction. I am quite bullish that sometime in 2015 the consumer in California will be able to play legalized online gaming.
BP: Switching over to New Jersey: Can you talk about the rakeback promotion you have going on there?
TK: We are saying that we have made some really good improvements to the software, and we’re letting you play for free, so give us a shot. What we are trying to do there, slowly but surely, obviously it’s a lot tougher because we only have one casino partner and whatnot; I think by getting the word out and letting people know that our product has improved, we are going to get market share back. Hopefully but the end of the year we can be the third biggest operator in the New Jersey market.
BP: Last year, poker had its first uptick in Nevada since 2007. Can you talk about the future of poker in general in Nevada? A lot of poker players call what happened about a decade ago the “poker boom.” Do you think we will see one of those again?
TK: Well, I don’t know if we will have the same boom that we had back then. What I would like to see is poker in general, brick-and-mortar and online, have a steady growth—rather than this huge growth and than a drop-off. I think we will continue to see that steady growth. I don’t know if we will have double-digit growth every year, but I do think we will have positive movement. What I am hoping, eventually we will be launching a mobile product. Right now, Ultimate and WSOP have only been in the local market, if you will. I think we will be able to do more fun stuff with our mobile product…and go after the 40 million plus tourists who come to the beautiful state of Nevada every year. I think there is a big opportunity to go after the tourist. Their lifetime value isn’t going to be like a local, but for a short period of time they will bring the player pool a lot higher. It will help a lot. Who comes to Las Vegas with their [laptop]?
BP: Peppermill casino recently launched online poker through a partnership with Ultimate Gaming. Can you talk about this development?
TK: Peppermill, basically, it’s a joint-marketing partnership between us and Peppermill. Peppmerill as you know, is a very active casino in northern Nevada. So, basically it’s kind of trying to emulate what we have done with Station Casinos here in the Las Vegas valley. Working with Peppermill is a similar type of thing…Obviously, when you talk about Nevada, 80 percent of your customer base is in the south. Peppermill is a very solid casino company in the north. We are quite excited about it.
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