Bloomberry Resorts Corp, the parent company of Philippines casino and integrated resort brand Solaire, is targeting its online gaming arms to contribute 20% of group-wide gross gaming revenue by the end of 2027, according to the company’s President and COO, Greg Hawkins.
The aggressive target was outlined by Hawkins during the IAG Academy Summit in Manila, where he also outlined plans to start marketing the group’s premium online brand, Solaire Online, as it continues transition to Bloomberry’s proprietary igaming platform.
Solaire, which also operates a mass market-focused online site called FUNaloMAX, is one of the few IR operators in the Philippines to run its own platform as opposed to the outsourced or shared model adopted by most others.
Asked by Inside Asian Gaming how Solaire views the potential of its online platform, Hawkins said, “As a share of sort of consolidated GGR, I’d love to get it to around 20% by the end of 2027, which sets us some targets.
“It’s very exciting from my point of view. The journey has been quite a long one, so getting the technical platform of which your brand sits on, which ultimately relates to a very seamless consumer experience, is absolutely fundamental and we didn’t have that originally.
“We recognized that and went from an outsourced platform to developing our own. That’s been a successful journey,”
Asked about the separation of brands into a mass product and a premium Solaire-branded site, Hawkins explained, “We relaunched our mass product FUNaloMAX on that platform a number of months ago and that’s building a distinct database. It doesn’t have Solaire resonating in the name of that brand which has been done for deliberate reasons.
“More recently we’re transitioning our legacy online product, being Solaire Online, onto that new platform as well. And, interestingly, Solaire Online, which has been quite a solid earnings performer, has never been marketed, so we’re at a point over the next month or so where we’ll start to actively market that into the sector as well. We look at it as one with significant potential.
“So, it’s [a segment] we are operating ourselves internally. We’ve decided not to go down the path of having a GGR share or sharing a platform approach deliberately at this stage.”
On an Operators panel session held on the final day of this year’s IAG EXPO, Hann Casino Resorts Vice President of Gaming Operations, Rod Hackman, revealed that Hann was also looking to bring its platform back inhouse once it gains some traction under its current outsourced model, which utilizes PhilWeb Corp for platform support.
“We made the investment about 12 months ago to set up an online studio within Hann Casino Resort – so we’ve got all the assets and all the technology set up – but then the decision was made to partner with PhilWeb to launch in order to get our brand out there,” Hackman stated. “At the moment we are still in our infancy, so PhilWeb hosts our online product, gaining traction.
“And every month there’s an increase in GGR and the number of bettors online. At some point in time, and that’s yet to be determined, it will come back in-house. We’ve got the assets there ready to go. But it may be another six months, 12 months, or longer, then we’ll bring the product back in-house.
Hackman added that Hann has not set any 20% of GGR targets like Solaire but acknowledged, “20% of GGR would be a spectacular result, to be honest.”
Hann has since informed IAG that it has not made any concrete plans on when it might consider bringing online gaming operations in-house and as of today said it is not looking to change the current arrangement.
RelatedPosts
