Gamesys Makes Good Money in Social Media Gambling

The British gambling law is one of the few regulations in the world that actually makes real-money bets possible on social sites. GameSys was among the first companies to offer online real-money wagering on Facebook for the UK users.

The Friendzy Facebook bingo app launched in August 2012. Noel Hayden, chief executive of GameSys reported positive results to the British gambling news at the Social Gambling Conference held in London last week.

Hayden revealed: “The players that we have converted are high-value players.”

The CEO analyzed: "The social players are more valuable than our standard real-money players. Real-money gambling games can be very lucrative, generating $500 a month from a paying player, and word about such games can spread very rapidly among friends on Facebook."

Hayden pointed out that Facebook's rich viral features are beneficial to online gambling operators. The CEO also praised Facebook targeting aspect saying: "It is unbelievable the targeting you can do on Facebook. We have all had refer-a-friend features in our games, but Facebook enables refer-a-friend on steroids."

UK online bingo provider GameSys formed in 2001. Today the company employs over 700 people and with revenues of GBP 125 million in 2011.

The UK online gambling firm launched its social gaming division as early as in 2009, concentrating on freemium games.

Hayden revealed: "I thought cash gaming moved quickly, but social gaming was moving at light speed. You can move really fast with the right team. It is about the science and the creativity coming together. You have to do all this stuff really fast to compete with the San Francisco dudes."

The next launch of the company will be a free-to-play social gaming title called Here Be Monsters. Other plans include moving more into mobile gaming but at the same time keep a strong focus on web and social game developments.