In the second part of SCi’s interview with RocketPlay CEO Mani Honigstein, we discuss the company’s approach to social sports and he explains how Zynga has helped shape the business
While he mentions the European real-money market, Lucky Play’s sportsbook is distinctly US-focused in order to exploit what Honigstein perceives to be a largely untapped area, due to strict bans on sports betting.
“Obviously the United States remains a closed market for betting, and there are a lot of politics and struggles around the issue, but people love sports, and they love betting on sports,” he explains.
“We’ve seen great success in terms of user retention and engagement. One of the great aspects is that there are a range of games being played every day, all of which are meaningful to some people out there. In a normal week you’ll have four or five especially big matches, with around three or four in the NBA and perhaps up to 10 in baseball, so there is a selection of matches.
“This doesn’t necessarily mean people will bet every day, but that’s a pretty big range before you’ve even added other sports like tennis, so we think this is key to our growth and I think social and mobile are great channels to drive this.”
Moving to mobile
He admits that this has actually pushed RocketPlay to focus on developing its iOS-optimised offering, which went live on the App Store early in May. “The Facebook Canvas is probably the wrong canvas for in-play betting.
I mean, who has their laptop on when they’re watching telly? Tablets have taken over,” he explains.
“We’re really excited to get this experience to mobile, because I think many people will enjoy this as a mobile game, allowing us to connect Facebook, tablet and smartphones. I’d say the mobile casino space isn’t that crowded – obviously there are hundreds of mobile slots out there, but we’ve got a full casino.”
While the mobile launch looks set to aid RocketPlay’s growth, Honigstein is quick to credit Zynga as a key factor in helping the company become an established player in the social casino space. The operator remains the only developer creating gambling-style games to sign up to the social giant’s publishing platform, and he “only has great things to say about [the company]”.
“They’ve been great partners,” he continues. “They’ve been very patient, and worked very hard to help us to get user numbers where we wanted them. We actually implemented a large portion of the feedback they gave us on the product, and their social know-how is obviously amazing, as they invented the genre with Zynga Poker.”
RocketPlay employs just 25 staff, including management, and Honigstein points out the benefit of working with a much larger incumbent when launching a product, with Zynga able to push hundreds of users into Lucky Casino & Sportsbook for the “tweaking and testing phase”.
“Back then our product wasn’t as full a casino offering as it is now, so to have a couple of hundred people coming into the game to allow us to test it was fantastic,” he adds.
“As a small company there’s only so much you can do, so we were able to focus on the product rather than worry about user acquisition.”
Onwards and upwards
Having started life studying history and oriental culture, before shifting into fantasy, then social sports, does Honigstein have any plans to make yet another dramatic shift in direction? It seems not. “I don’t want to exit this just yet,” he says.
“Our San Francisco office is at Caltrain, so I’m within walking distance of Zynga and GREE, and in our Israel office we’re near to Playtika and Win,” he jokes. “But seriously, we really want to grow the business and scale all our games. We’ve just launched a slot game on iPad [Paradise Slots777], which we haven’t even put any effort into marketing yet as well, so we want to build that up too.”
Cullen adds that this drive to continue to build the company sees Honigstein happily go as far as he feels he needs to in order to ensure the smooth running of the organisation.
“Obviously, when you operate a company across several time zones, communication is paramount and conference calls are going to be a challenge, and scheduling won’t always allow for an ideal time for everyone,” he explains.
“Several times I scheduled calls that were extremely late at night Tel Aviv time or very, very early there and each time Mani was not only available but more than ready to go. He is one of the few CEOs that will roll up his sleeves and do some of the dirty work needed to move the company forward. No job is too small, whether its QA on a new product, research projects on the competition or lending a hand to help product or marketing.”
Someone who is prepared to throw himself into his work hardly seems like the sort to be gearing up to sell, but as the interview comes to a close – the Real Madrid-Borussia Dortmund semi-final tie, to see who Bayern will play in the Champions’ League final, is about to start after all – it seems prudent to ask. Of course, Honigstein is adamant.
“I’m not looking to sell,” he says firmly. “There are going to be all these interesting opportunities coming out as the real-money and social industries come closer together, and there are always opportunities, especially with the egaming businesses so interested in the sector. It’s definitely not time to exit this.”
