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Restoration of the gambling business in the conditions of war - the experience of Slots City

The full-scale war in Ukraine came as a surprise to many industries, and the gambling business is not an exception.

Restoration of the gambling business in the conditions of war - the experience of Slots City

Oksana Korotich

01.07.2022 | 10:06

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Pavel Grishchenko, CEO of the young Ukrainian gambling brand Slots City Online, shared the way the company survived in the first weeks of the military invasion, how the online and offline segments were restored, how the marketing strategy of the business has changed, and whether the management had to lay off employees, cut salaries and help with relocation from the war zones.

The Slots City brand operates both land-based gambling establishments and online casinos in Ukraine. Tell us more about what happened to the business after February 24? Did you have to immediately close the gambling halls? Has the online casino continued to operate?

When the war got started, there was no installation, obviously. There was a misunderstanding of how the market would behave, a misunderstanding in general of what would happen tomorrow. There were quite skeptical forecasts. Our establishments closed immediately because we didn't realize how fast the troop advance would be. Therefore, offline halls closed the same day the war began.

Now about online casinos. The key strategic task after the war had started was: "We must save business and jobs." Because we understand that simply laying off employees is wrong. The key task was to earn enough money to pay people's salaries. The strategy was formed for the purpose to preserve business and jobs.

In the first week after the start of the war, the drop in online casinos was 80%.

At that time, we did not think at all about any possible profits. As I said, the task was to earn enough to pay salaries just like in the second month as well.

How long after the start of the war did Slots City manage to restore workflows? Has the company managed to enter the standard operating mode now?

Now we are gradually opening offline establishments. The first hall was opened last month - this is Kyiv "Tourist". And the second hall Kyiv "Mir" opened this month, in June. Two of the seven halls are still open. Now the halls demonstrate about 50% of the pre-war level of the game. I don’t know when the next halls will open, yet. We will look at the situation.

From the second week of the war, everyone realized that in front of us was not the second army in the world, and obviously not one of the top ten. It became clear that no one would occupy anything quickly, that everything would drag on. Naturally, trends began transforming. Customers started coming back to online casinos. By the end of March, we had already reached 60% of the pre-war level by the day. In April, we reached 100% of the pre-war level. Currently, we have even been growing.

But we must take into account that we are a new brand. We were in a state of growth. Therefore, it's incomprehensible if there had been no war, maybe we would have grown even more. So I talk about growth rather cautiously. Maybe this is not growth, but just the conventional dynamics of our development. But I can say for sure that we have already reached the pre-war level.

Has the company's marketing policy changed in any way since the war?

Of course, it has completely changed. As soon as the war started, we turned everything off for a while.

Then, when the situation began to clear up, we began to gradually turn on conversion channels: to buy cheap traffic with a high payback. The objective of the acquisition was precisely the payback of traffic for up to three months. Because, again, the question was no longer that in a week we would all be captured, but in the long term it is not clear.

Therefore, after all, we did not dare to buy traffic that pays off for more than three months.

Accordingly, we gradually increased our conversion activities. Streams in various forms came in very well. Due to this, we have already begun to raise the equipment.

But in general, we can say that now the marketing strategy for promoting and developing the brand is for Ukraine to win. And for starters, we need to do the maximum that depends on us. And then we will return to the usual marketing, we will shoot beautiful and expensive advertising. But so far, all the budgets that are accumulated go to help the country.

What changes have occurred with the state of Slots City? How much did you have to reduce the number of employees in the online and offline segments?

For land-based establishments, this is a temporary suspension of employment contracts for some employees upon prior agreement with them. Specifically, we did not fire anyone, we acted within the law. No one was laid off at online casinos.

Has management had to cut wages for employees?

At offline casinos, we had a reduction in salaries. We couldn't have done otherwise.

Online, we temporarily disproportionately reduced the salaries of employees, but we didn’t cut anyone completely, we didn’t leave anyone without a salary. Disproportionately means that conventionally a top manager has minus 50%, and a simple manager has minus 10%. These are not exact percentages, this is approximate logic. But we already returned salaries to the pre-war level for everyone back in May.

We understand that one of our key values ​​is our employees. Accordingly, as a business, we must make sure that our employees are safe, and comfortable and work well for them.

Did the company relocate remote workers or those who worked in land-based gambling halls in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kyiv?

No, most of our employees were in Kyiv and other large cities where the Russian army had not been. We had to deal with relocation, but for those who wanted, in the first days, we found premises where you can live in western Ukraine. Because we didn't know how things were going to happen. Accordingly, whoever wanted, we allowed them to come there.

Not many people took advantage of the opportunity to move. Most stayed in Kyiv.

Is Slots City hiring new employees now? Perhaps there are new positions in the state that are more in demand in the current conditions, which the company closes through the hiring of new personnel?

Our company has not been big before, because we are a rather young project and have been operating in Ukraine for only a year. Accordingly, we have a lot of "bottlenecks" in the product, development, and marketing, where we can and should be strengthened.

Accordingly, we decided: when? You can’t wait for the perfect moment, the business needs to be developed, especially if it works. Therefore, we made a decision: we take application developers, and we strengthen marketing.

Are there any specifics in the recruitment of personnel in the gambling niche in the current conditions?

There are, of course, specifics in both marketing and development. I can’t say that somewhere it became easier to hair, it even became more difficult. I don't know what it's about. Perhaps with the fact that foreign companies wanted to hire all our IT specialists. But to say that it has become easier and cheaper - no, it has not.

We know that Slots City is working for the victory of Ukraine and supporting the army. Tell us about the initiatives that your company is developing to support the country during the war?

On the ninth day after the start of the war, we made the first donation in the amount of 1 million hryvnias to the Come Back Alive fund. Then they began to understand that now it is important and necessary, and in principle, our investors, and owners, had a great desire to do their best for the common victory. Well, the maximum of what we can, of course.

We returned to work on the Slots City Foundation, which we started working on before the war, then put it on hold. In principle, we had a strategic idea to create a fund that would be aimed at greening and developing cities and green areas in urban life. Now we have completely transferred the idea to a military footing.

Important:

We have a campaign, so to speak, the core of our marketing strategy: we donate 10 hryvnias from each deposit to charity, that is, to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And we do it on our own, and not through the fund. That is, we find a need, we find a solution: where to buy an SUV, a drone, body armor, etc. And we deliver it ourselves.

It is important to understand that the money we accumulate is a large amount, but it is not all Slots City money. Most of this money is the personal funds of friends and partners of the project, including mine, and our employees. Specifically, under the action "10 hryvnias from each deposit" we generate 200-300 thousand hryvnia every month. The rest that we transmit is already semi-personal sources.

Now we believe that charity is the core of our strategy. We conduct all media communication without expensive channels such as TV, or radio. We do everything through the fund, so now it is very important to talk about how exactly the gambling business helps the country.

In addition, our call center, our support in the first days of the war, found all the information regarding evacuation routes and other important information. I'm not saying that we have become a volunteer call center, no, our resource is limited. It's just that if our player needs help, we will provide it.

What are the working plans of Slots City for the near future?

Our plan for the near future is to return to close work on the product, on stability and speed of work. These are key tasks.

Lately, even in the conditions of war, we have been able to introduce new features. For example, we added a bonus car, added the "Wheel of Fortune" - these are all new development features. We have launched a new promotion. We try to make sure that the player does not feel that there is a war and that everything has changed. Our task is to entertain a person and relieve stress. De-stressing is very important right now.

Accordingly, we continue product development. We have introduced new features and now we are moving on to stability and performance. We actually have many more product ideas that can be implemented, but it's too early to talk about them.

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