Gaming Software Providers

Imagine yourself to be an entrepreneur of an online gambling site. Two of the biggest obstacles you face are:

• Marketing - How can you overcome the public's natural suspicions of you until you can build your own history and reputation?
• Operations - How can you be sure that all the technical details (like user interface, account management and the games themselves) all function without bugs or errors, and on a 24-hour basis?

The solution for both problems lies in the choice of a software package (sometimes called "software platform") for the operation of the online gambling site. Obviously the software will be different for casino table games, poker and sports books (with racing). The intelligent business decision will be to acquire the software from a company known to the public and trusted by them. The software choice should reassure the gambler of the site's honesty and integrity (resolving marketing issues) and of its competence and ease of use (resolving the operations challenges).

The explosion of online gambling businesses all over the world (everywhere but in the United States) has induced some new software companies and consultants to enter the industry, but the field remains dominated by just a few firms. They emerged in the 1990's as "pioneers" of online gambling. As gambling sites increase and multiply, as new ones come and go, these "core" software companies have remained largely the same. So it is natural that the public looks to them as beacons to help navigate uncharted waters.

The software companies, of course, are aware of this responsibility, and most (but not all) go to some pains to prevent the crooked or incompetent from licensing their software. One software provider has even created a user group that looks like an industry association with a "code of conduct" and ethical principles to which licensees must declare agreement.

Owners and executives of the individual gambling web sites are also mindful of the importance of their software choice. Almost all licensed websites display on their home pages which software platform they license and use.

Software providers always retain control over their software. They do not "sell" the software, but keep the source code to themselves. This is both for competitive reasons (to protect their intellectual property) and for orderly software development. Thus, only compiled versions of the software is "licensed" to a given user site, much in the same way that a PC application (like Microsoft Word, for example) is licensed to a PC or Mac user, but not sold.

The operational similarities among licensees of the same gaming software (that is, web sites who have in common the software supplier) have permited some interesting innovations in online gambling. One is the creation of "progressive" jackpots for slot machines and some table games, in which different online gambling sites and their customers are linked in one large pool through the medium of the common software installations. A similar result comes from linking players from different poker rooms into the same real time poker game and at the same table, all through the "miracle" of networking through the software licensor's server, using common protocols. The same capability is applied to multi-site keno or bingo events, where thousands of players may be in the same virtual "room" at the same time.

What, then, distinguishes one gaming web site from another one that uses the same software platform? Are they not just clones of each other?
Web sites can differ, in spite of their functional similarity, in several ways:

• Financial Obligations. Once a customer has opened an account, the software has relatively little influence on how easily a deposit can be made, or a withdrawal accomplished.
• Bonuses. The web site itself has control over how it wants to provide match play money or signing bonuses, and what limitations it puts on using those funds.
• Customer Service. Customer service does depend a little on the software, but it is largely the product of the character, philosophy, recruitment and training of the software licensee. One site may be well-staffed, responsive, polite and helpful. Another may be poorly staffed, resulting in low moral, unanswered inquiries or rude and abusive replies to its customers.
• Choice of Games. Each software platform provides, in theory, hundreds of different games or events, whether in the casino, the poker room or the sports book. It is up to the online gambling web site to winnow this universe down to a number that is manageable for it and its customers. The range of games offered is one of the areas in which online gambling sites distinguish themselves one from the other. Some, like the bingo and keno sites, place themselves in a wholly different category.
• Pace and Style of Play. Most software platforms allow the gaming site or the end-user to select options with respect to speed of play (hands per hour or time to decide), audio accompaniment, and default values for betting and playing (such as X seconds to wait for user input in blackjack before presuming a "stand").
• Special Events. Tournaments and other special events are another way that gaming sites distinguish themselves from the others. Obviously, the software platforms will support special events, but it is up to the web site to decide how and when to run them.
• Graphics. The most obvious distinction, but also perhaps the least important, is the graphical user interface. The software itself will determine what the "look and feel" of the various games will be, but the decoration, the display, the physical appearance of the computer screen itself, is largely controlled by the licensee, not the software. As a result, it is not necessarily easy to look at a web site's home page and guess what the software platform is (unless they tell you), but an experienced user can name the software after just a few mouse clicks into operating the site.