Some Background info on Playtech Casinos and Slots
Playtech is a market leading slots and casino games software company, with over six hundred different games to its name at the time of writing. It was founded around the turn of the century, back in 1999. Yet in these twenty or so years, it has developed into a multinational company, with offices in seventeen different countries across the globe. It is headquartered in London and most of its offices are based in Europe, in countries such as Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Italy and Russia. It also has bases worldwide in places such as the Philippines and Australia. It currently has over 5,000 employees in total.
Not bad for a company which started out in the unfashionable European Baltic state of Estonia. And not even in the capital Tallinn either. In fact Playtech originated from the largely unknown (outside Estonia at any rate) small university city of Tartu. This may be about to change however: it currently boasts of having a 4D cinema, which certainly does sound ground breaking and definitely worthy of fame. I’d like to see how that works!
From these humble beginnings, the company has expanded by organic growth, aided by regular injections of capital investment. The first of these came in 2006, with the successful launch of the company on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM). This was followed in 2012 by the company achieving a full listing on the London Stock Exchange.
These regular infusions of investment funds enabled the company to accelerate its expansion by funding several mergers and takeovers, including the renowned Bingo software experts Virtue Fusion and rival games platform development company GTS.
They are now one of the market leaders, not only in slots and casino design, but also in enabling playtech casino sites to manage and run their sites by providing platform software (sometimes referred to in the industry jargon as “white label solutions”). They are also responsible for the design of some very successful and widely used Sportsbook software. Their platform is highly regarded within the industry and has been licenced by leading high street and online bookmaking companies such as Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and William Hill.
The company is particularly proud of its innovative Playtech ONE service, which enables players to experience a seamless service, no matter where they are, what games they play and which device they are playing on. No matter what the circumstances, each player can access the service using the same log in details, and pay using the same e-wallet. Needless to say, this is referred to by some whizzy industry jargon, which in this case is “Omni-Channel.
It is probably fair to say that the majority of the Playtech Group’s revenue comes from such “business to business” activity. In addition to its Sportsbook platform software, it is responsible for many other activities and alternative software which online casino sites use to organise and run their sites. As befits a company offering casino sitess “white label solutions”, Playtech offer to take care of just about all the functions necessary to organise a successful site.
Operators looking to set up a new casino can commission the company to look after all aspects of customer support, from signing up processes through to winnings withdrawal and everything in between. This will include organising payment services, online chat hosting, together with telephone and online support services.
Attracting new players and retaining existing ones can be contracted out to Playtech’s marketing team. They can organise promotional campaigns for drumming up new members, and bonus, incentive and loyalty schemes for players already signed up.
Finally, fraud prevention services can also be organised. These can attempt to prevent, or at least restrict, both financial issues (e.g. money laundering) and technological crime (such as identity theft, data theft, hacking and denial of service (DoS) attacks)
You can tell that these business to business operations are what really float this company’s boat by paying a visit to their website. Many of their rival gaming software companies’ sites focus on their spectacular games, with an emphasis on their colourful and imaginative graphics, innovative designers and amazing bonus features. By contrast, Playtech’s website is a relatively dull, whitewashed affair. It certainly is detailed, but not the sort of detail the typical casino player would be interested in. Instead, there is much enthusiasm about “integration into a complete cross platform offering”; “best of breed gaming products” and a “turnkey operational service pack”, which offers a comprehensive range of market leading tools and services” and so on and so on.
A Little Bit on Playtech Slots & Casino Games
Yes, yes, but what about the games, I hear you yawn… Well fortunately, the games are also good. Very good. Despite Playtech’s focus on the operational side of things, fortunately they do devote sufficient resources to design some superb slot and table games. In fact, there are already well over six hundred different titles in the company’s range, and more are being added on a regular basis.
Their designs are very distinctive, which makes them popular with players who are looking for something a bit different. The reasons for this are interesting, and result from the nature of the industry, and indeed a fundamental contradiction in the way our system of commerce actually works.
Just like in many other areas of life, commercial necessity means that retailers, sales outlets and in this case casino sites, tend to concentrate on the most popular games. This is because Casino operators all want the big name, popular favourite slots on their rosters, given that these are the games that most people want to play and therefore will make the operators the most money.
This all sounds a bit obvious, but there’s a problem. If every site stocks the most popular games, they are all going to look pretty much the same, and offer the same games. So why would a player choose any site in particular? From the casino operator’s point of view, why would a player choose MY site over yours, if both offer the same games? And in addition, eventually even the most enthusiastic players may get bored with playing the same old games, available on all sites, everywhere.
This is where Playtech come in – they have managed to carve out a distinctive niche which has given them a unique market edge. They create top quality games, but these are not available everywhere, making them a real attraction for regular players who are looking for a new challenge. Their colourful, top quality graphics and gameplay make them more than a match for the big name mega games, but their relative rarity on casino sites grants them a kind of cult status – sought out by those “in the know”.
Their games are well up to date technology wise too: all their recent and current designs are compatible with play on any kind of device. Indeed, their games look great and play well on even the most compact smartphone.
Playtech do produce some excellent themed games. Their series of Greek mythological themed Age of the Gods slots delight fans of the genre, whilst with the oriental themed Thai Temple and the tropical Tiki Paradise are also good examples of their excellent designs.
But the type of game for which this company is most renowned is the TV and movie spin-off. Playtech are the kings of the franchise deal: there really are so many classic TV series and Hollywood film themed games that it is not practical to list them all here. On the TV front, you have vintage series like Baywatch, Six Million Dollar Man and The Love Boat, plus more contemporary series like American Dad! and The Sopranos. Film themed games include dozens of iconic spin-offs, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Robocop, Rocky and Top Gun.
But the area where the company really stands out is a result of their exclusive deal with Warner Brothers to licence their Marvel Comics titles. This gives Playtech the right to produce dozens of superb games depicting many of Marvel’s superheroes, including several different slots featuring characters like Batman, Superman and the Green Lantern. The deal also allows the company to produce games based on the most recent Marvel / DC Hollywood movie franchises, such as the Dark Knight, Justice League and Suicide Squad.
So if you are the kind of casino player who is on the lookout for something a bit different , maybe to take on a new challenge, then Playtech games could be the just the thing for you. And even if you’re not – don’t be put off by the unfamiliarity of some of Playtech’s lesser known titles. The quality here is exceptional. Why not give them a try?