Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JUL 2019年7月 亞博匯 76 into marketing and drove us out of the market,” Simic recalls, “so we focused our energies on technology rather than marketing and decided to sit back while CrownBet educated the Australian DFS market.” It was around this time that Simic stumbled upon PlayUp – the trading name of a company called Revo – which had spent around AU$100 million trying to grow its own fantasy sports business in Asia with little success. Noting that PlayUp, while struggling for revenue, had managed to build a decent following among social media communities, he purchased the assets and implemented his own technology – described by Simic as being “just as good as FanDuel or DraftKings.” “From that moment it took off, the users started signing up in droves,” he recalls. “We’ve now got over 1 million sign-ups from over 100 countries. Those clients are all free-to-play and now we have to convert them to the paid model which we are slowly doing one step at a time.” Central to the PlayUp model is the company’s own cryptocurrency, the PlayChip. Launched in 2018, the PlayChip was borne out of a need to standardize prize pools in both its pay-to-play and free-to-play products but also provides a unique level of flexibility across PlayUp’s numerous betting sites. Those sites, which include none other than DraftStars – acquired from CrownBet in April 2018 – now extend well beyond fantasy sports to sports betting, racing, eSports and online casino. “What we found is that when you buy five companies each turning over $50 million, that’s AU$250 million combined but whereas there were previously five lots of overheads, we now only had one,” explains Simic, whose company also counts Australian-based ClassicBet, Betting.Club, TopBetta and MadBookie among its acquired brands. “By buying them we turned them into profitable entities overnight with a mass database of gamblers, and our ecosystem is a global ecosystem where we can cater to the jurisdiction and offer them sports betting, racing, fantasy sports and casino depending on where they are and what they are allowed to play.” Aside from globalization, Simic says the beauty of the PlayChip concept is the ability to target three distinct player types – the social gamer, the traditional fiat currency player and, perhaps most importantly, the “guys in crypto-land who have a lot of money and are born gamblers at the end of the day.” It is this last category that has led PlayUp to list the PlayChip on more than 20 cryptocurrency exchanges, and counting, over the past 12 months. “I believe there is no other reason at this point to be in crypto unless you are a high speculator, which is a gambler,” Simic adds. “There is around US$180 他回憶道：「事情就從那時開始起飛，用戶開始成群註冊。」 「我們現在於超過100個國家有多於一百萬個註冊用戶。那 些用戶全部都是在免費玩樂，而我們正一步一步慢慢地把他們轉 入一個付費模式當中。」 而在PlayUp 模式中的核心，就是公司自己的加密貨幣Play- Chip。於2018年投入使用的PlayChip ，其源自是由於付費玩樂及 免費玩樂產品的獎賞池需要制度化，但同時亦為PlayUp 的眾多 投注網站帶來一種獨特的靈活性。那些網站中，當然包括PlayUp 在2018年4月從CrownBet 旗下收購的DraftStars。現時的DraftS- tars 已經不局限於夢幻運動，更是包括運動博彩、賽馬、電競運動 及網上娛樂場。 Simic 解釋道：「我們發現的是，如果你買下5間公司，而每間 公司的營業額都超過5,000萬的話，那他們加起來就已經是2億 5,000萬了。同時，他們以前有5份不同的支出，但現在就只剩下一 份。」Simic旗下的公司亦包括以澳洲為基地的ClassicBet、Betting. Club、TopBetta 和MadBookie，還有其他收購回來的品牌。 「在把他們買下後，我們利用龐大的賭客資料庫，就能迅速 地把這些公司變為有盈利的實體。而我們的生態系統亦是一個全 球生態系統，讓我們能夠就著他們身處的司法管轄區，以及當地 準許進行的活動，向他們提供運動博彩、賽馬、夢幻運動及娛樂 場。」 除了全球化外，Simic 說PlayChip這個構思的美麗之處，在於 能夠瞄準三種 不同類型的玩家—社交玩家、傳統法定貨幣玩家， 以及也許是最重要的那些「在虛擬貨幣世界中擁有很多錢，並且 IGAMING BLUE PAGES