Betable and Digital Chocolate

The mobile gaming company Digital Chocolate and Betable are to form a partnership to launch a social casino game that will give the player the option to turn it into a ‘real money’ game for gambling in the UK.

This partnership is a first step for Digital Chocolate, to transform the very competitive casual social casino games. into potential and lucrative real money gaming market. Real money gaming promises that it will revolutionize the social gaming market, as the barriers between the social casino games and gambling collapse worldwide. In the UK this is one of the first markets where it has happened.

San Francisco Company paves the way

Betable is a San Francisco based company is paving the way and its aim is to disrupt the traditional online gaming industry by making it very easy for companies to convert their ‘non-real’ money gambling games into money making gambling titles. Betable is attempting to be a one-stop-shop where gaming companies will go to, to find real money gambling market related games, for mobile devices in the UK, they also have ambitions to move into other territories as well.

Digital Chocolate, chief operating officer, Jason Loia has said that they were charging very quickly into social mobile gaming, and a part of their strategy is to go into real money gaming.

Pocket U.K. game is the new slots! It is the first combination of real money and virtual goods gambling title for Digital Chocolate. It has recently been launched for iPhones and iPads. Another title that will be coming soon from Digital Chocolate will be a real money Blackjack game on iOS.

Digital Chocolate gives thought to a legitimate company

Mr Loia said Digital Chocolate thought about the consequences of having another company that will be between them and their customers. He said that always carried risks, for instance loss of privacy, however he stated that Betable has expertise in compliance of the law, because they can check if a person who is making a request, is a legitimate person, who can legally gamble from the location where they are. It needs to be crystal clear, if someone is playing for real money, and that Betable has knowledge of how to do that. Mr Loia said that his company does not have the ability to be able to do this.

He continued, that after discussions with their lawyers it became clear that they were unable to do it themselves so they decided to form, the partnership with Betable.

The two companies have been working on this project since December when they announced it. Digital Chocolate took a social slots game that already existed, then modified it. The real money had to be a random number generator game, and it also had to comply with the laws that governed slots machines. However the social casino game can have different options to slot machines, it is able to reward players with more winnings or with gifts during the early part of the game in order to entice them to be able to keep playing. Mr Loia said their team did not need to spend lots of time at the re-creation of the foundation of the game, for it to meet regulation and the different goals.

He said that they could plug in the real money game that will be a separate game and it will sit alongside the social casino game. This gives the player an opportunity to participate in the virtual game or real money game, he said that he liked the idea of being able to attract a big audience for the social casino gaming and accepting the smaller number of people who will want to play with real money.

Betable has the right technology

Betable is the provider for the backend processes, that enables a person to bet money, on a social casino game. It is able to detect the location of the player and if that player is legally allowed to play for money. If it finds the player eligible it will ask the player if they want to play for real money. If the player accepts then the random gambling round is activated, and it will pay out coins that can be converted to real money. Betable deals with fraud prevention, handles compliance, identity checks, gambling and wagering results.

At the beginning of the year Chris Griffin, chief executive of Betable, said that they were thrilled with the results they were getting from their first customers in the UK. He also reported that the company was seeing “incredible performance” in the conversion of social gamers in to real money gamblers.

Social Casino gamers and Gamblers

He said that approximately 80% of gamblers had not spent money on a social casino game. That engagement for real money games was ten time better than for the usual social casino games. He also mentioned that the revenue for daily averages, per paying players, was ten time higher with players, using real money gaming games, in comparison to the social casino games.

Barriers to regulations have fallen away in the UK, and gaming and gambling industries in the USA are hoping the same will happen.

USA market is changing

There have been changes in some states such as New Jersey (New Jersey Approves Online), Nevada (Nevada Governor Signs Bill Legalizing Online Poker), and Delaware ( A Total of 14 Companies Apply For Delaware License ), who have authorized acceptance of real money online gambling, however, change is slow in the USA, and the UK gaming market has become a significant experimental market.

If the barriers to real money gaming came down, both sides would be winners, real money gambling companies would be able to find more people, in the large audience, of the social casino games market, which would mean higher average revenues per each playing player that pays, and is associated with the metrics of the real money online gambling.

Mr Griffin has stated that the lifetime value of one user on a social casino game may be $2, but the value of a lifetime gambler could be $1,800.

Digital Chocolate will be competing against betable’s other customers, for instance Big Fish Games. To date Betable has 10 customers on their books.

Mr. Loia said that his company has earmerked for the future, more real money gambling games, but would not give a clue which games they intend to introduce in real money terms. He also mentioned that he looks forward to creating games for betting that does not have anything to do with casino titles.