2019’s Popular Online Casino Games Streamers on Twitch ...

AMA held Friday, April 3rd, 2020
Summary by @dwr (all transcription errors etc. are my own)
(Each answer is prefaced with the name of the FunFair staff member that provided the answer)
Q: What funding methods will the fiat to crypto mechanism support? Bank transfer? Debit card? Credit card?
A: (Lloyd) Funding will be through debit and credit cards only to start with, bank transfer will follow but only in some markets not all.
Q: Will fiat to crypto be available in all FF legal jurisdictions?
A: (Lloyd) Yes outside of some, the main one being China (where there’s no fiat on ramp to crypto).
Q: When the need for separate ETH is removed will players need to pay the equivalent in FUN when opening a session?
A: (Lloyd) No, the house will cover the cost of opening sessions.
Q: What happens if the transaction takes too long - will there be a way of speeding it up as there is now?
A: (Lloyd) No, the server is in control of this. We have quite a lot of experience with making sure our servers can get their transactions mined in a timely manner, including automatically increasing gas price, so I’m not expecting this to be an issue.
Q: Any word on developing a pachinko type of game?
A: (Geoff) We've had a play around with some ideas, but no definite plan yet. It's a hard game to get right.
Q: What is the update on Craps, is it still nearing completion and planned to be released by end Q2 at latest?
A: (Geoff) We've been focusing on other games, so Craps hasn't had a lot of love recently. It's not on the immediate roadmap at the moment, but as ever it's on the list of games we would like to get back to.
Q: Has there been any contact with Binance to ensure they know the dev is still active of this token? I asked in general for someone to update their info page - https://info.binance.com/en/currencies/funfair it hasn't happened yet. Might be good to get them to list the Q2 update for example.
A: (Lloyd) Yes, we have a telegram group with them and converse fairly regularly, we have sent the update through, but they are launching a new way of updating called Binance Info, which we will have full control of and be able to update regularly.
Q: Is there any member of staff in charge of updates etc? If so it would be nice if say Monday 9am when they go into work they had 15 mins to do certain things - update https://funfair.io/release-notes/ . Make sure Binance Info was up to date. Ensure twitteTelegram/Discord is all same info in conjunction.
A: (Lloyd) We’ve had a few members of staff responsible for those things in the past. As mentioned, Matt C is helping out more in B2C in line with priorities around adoption. To cover that we have taken more of JJ’s time to help out on community and B2B marketing. Between JJ and I, we will make sure all is up to date.
Q: What is the update on auto-updating leaderboards for comps, how come it seems to be getting dragged out?
A: (Lloyd) We’re not dragging it out - more that we have other priorities at the moment.
Q: Has there been any progress on the research into a secure means of handling progressive jackpots?
A: (Oliver) Not really, this is a tough one to crack in a trustless way. We are constantly looking around at innovations in the blockchain space that might help us here, as well as continuing our own research.
Q: When [will there be] a slot with 20000x win potential? Attract big gamblers. I find most streamers only play these kinds of slots.
A: (Geoff) At the moment, that kind of win is very difficult with the current set-up due to the way the bankroll per game works. We're looking into ways we could do this, but nothing to announce here. That said, while streamers do flock to high volatility, high win games, there are plenty of amazing, successful slots that don't have such eye-watering prizes (that you'll never see), and I think our games compare very favorably to most of them.
Q: What initiatives have been taken by Kazuma to dominate and take over the Japan casino market?
A: (Tom) The marketing team at CasinoFair will be supporting the launch of CasinoFair JP with Kazuma. Due to a highly regulated market, initially it will be led by social and affiliates. Twitter is the most used social advertising platform in Japan with over 70% of college students on the platform, and over 50% of the workforce. Our affiliate team already has a few affiliates on board and drove their first player through yesterday. We are in contact with all the top affiliates (and have been in the months prior) to ensure we are executing on channels we know have delivered in the past for CF. We will be building on from here in the coming months and really pushing the social element
Q: Would we be seeing any more Asian style/Homegrown games which would be more appealing to that market rather than western themed games and if so, would they be designed and built in-house or would they be created by an Asian Game/Casino creator?
A: (Geoff) I think any game we built towards a specific market would need to take advice from an expert in that market. With that in mind, though, [there is] no reason our internal team couldn't handle such a game.
Q: Will the fiat to crypto also include crypto to fiat? and will it be in Q2?
A: (Lloyd) Not at this time - our provider is looking into that now, it will only be through bank transfer when it happens, and will be market-specific.
Q: Why are we not trying 5 different types of promos at the same time to see which one works?
A: (Tom) The immediate answer is Moon Racer 7 will be changing to include a cumulative jackpot prize and a few other adjustments which have been requested in the community. Look out for this very shortly. However, a much larger piece of work on promotions to encourage new users and manage VIP racers has been investigated. These however require technical changes to automate as they can’t scale manually. We are quite excited to test some quite different metrics once these are delivered by dev in Q2.
Q: Will the removal of the need for separate ETH for gas come in Q2?
A: (Oliver) Yup!
Q: Any news about the Isle of Man license?
A: (Lloyd) We’re still working on bus dev with the IOM operators - however we are working towards the B2C licensing conditions on the platform - you will have seen this from recent responsible gaming releases.
Q: Will you be able to withdraw from CF to your bank afterwards?
A: (Lloyd) Not yet
Q: What steps are FunFair taking to ensure enforcement of responsible gaming laws?
A: (Lloyd) B2C operations does everything they should be doing in line with licensing conditions
Q: Would FF spend money on Instagram or YouTube stars to promote the casinos?
A: (Tom) Unfortunately Facebook and Google are very specific about who they will work with. Their gaming policies and Crypto policies make it very hard to advertise on their platforms. Even twitch won't allow us to run pre-roll in Canada. This has meant I have had to change tack in a few markets, and we are looking at the slower build around our own streamer and the strategy is to be finalized by EOM to then deliver. This unfortunately won't have an immediate impact as its going to be a slow build for our own channel. But we did a bit of analysis and believe our core market is more likely found there than on YouTube by comparison.
Q: Will there be purchasing limits for converting fiat into crypto?
A: (Lloyd) These are set by the payment processing partner
Q: Do you have a target for the quantity of games you would like to achieve by the end of 2020? Or is it a case of developing according to demand etc.?
A: (Geoff) Well, 2019 was the year of filling up the portfolio. 2020 will probably see fewer, but bigger games. I don't have a number I can give, but we think you guys will like the results.
Q: What about some advertising on Binance?
A: (Lloyd) If you can get us a deal we'll happily do that :wink:
Q: Would FunFair play any part in defining fiat to crypto limits? Sounds like the payment processing partner is very experienced in Casino related affairs, am I right?
A: (Lloyd) They know what they are doing, and their limits are set by them in line with the card issuers.
Q: Have you considered allocating some cash to a significant one-time marketing promotion with billboards or, better, television commercials in ANY of the countries you operate in so as to potentially get some awareness of the product? If so, what’s the thought of whether it will be done?
A: (Tom) When I was working with Experian and providing targeting data for television, i.e. target households that have 4 children, high income etc. etc. It became quickly apparent TV doesn't like to do this. They don’t want to be clever, they want mass market. So, they want to show your advert to as many people as possible. However, CasinoFair are very much in a world we need to have people that are crypto aware which isn't national TV. Furthermore, the average cost is $342,000 per 30 second national TV advert. - https://www.webfx.com/blog/business-advice/the-cost-of-advertising-nationally-broken-down-by-medium/ Whereas I can target users online at a cost of about $6 per 1000 users on coinmarket cap. Which is much more likely to be our target market and will be able to understand how crypto works. And to put this is apples for apples comparison, I can serve an advert to every person in the entire country of Canada for almost half the price of one 30 second TV ad spot. So yes, thought about it, and decided we can get better access to our target market in other mediums.
Q: Oliver - what big project are you working on at the moment?
A: (Oliver) Death to Gas
Q: What is Jeremy up to?
A: (Oliver) Jeremy spends most of his time down a big dark R&D hole, trying to solve some of the problems that have been mentioned in other questions.
Q: Will joejoe adams be on the FunFair staff page now?
A: (JoeJoe Adams) :soon: ™️
Q: Does Jez still remain active at FunFair?
A: (Oliver) Yeah, he's around a lot. We might even summon him if we're lucky.
Q: Can you give more details on marketing?
A: (Tom) You can get a lot of insight from the Q2 updates which I suggest you read through though to see what marketing has been up to and our focus.
However, to give you some insight. I joined in January where I can see that a lot of advertising was executed across many sites, particularly around OctobeNovember. Traffic was increased 10-fold. However, none of the traffic converted to long term players.
There are a few reasons for this, retention marketing, funnel friction, educational onboarding, USP identification, and site personalization just to name a few.
I could repeat the process and purchase more traffic and throw loads of advertising, but I fear a similar result may occur. As such, lots of work have been invested in all those aspects above in Q1.
Per my Q2 update we are now ready to retest traffic in our Tier 1 markets to see how users react to the improved user experience, retention marketing etc.
Also in Q2 we are going to be working with our marketing partner to provide personalization and a unique site for every user on site depending on the last game played, if they are new users or if they are VIPs. All features we currently can't do.
Q: Is the UK Government giving any help to FunFair during these hard times?
A: (Oliver) We're in a fortunate position, we're well used to remote working so the current situation isn't causing us any particular problems.
Q: Did anyone reply to my suggestion about purchasable FUN (Scratchable Voucher Cards) an hour ago?
A: (Lloyd) Like a prepaid crypto card? We've not looked into that yet, the fiat to crypto on ramp is step 1
Q: With Japan now localized, could you say if FunFair would be strictly serving Japan or would any surrounding areas be able to participate and if so could you name the neighbors?
A: (Lloyd) We've localized into Japanese, we do not block most Asian markets, including Japan’s neighbors although have not decided to localize for any of them
Q: Refresh me, to be localized in Japan it would have needed a license from the regulators, could you state the name of the regulator if possible?
A: (Lloyd) Online casinos are not regulated in japan, in fact they have only just approved land-based casinos to be built in the country - planned for first one to launch in 2024 or so
Q: But are you talking to anyone on that front in regard to online casinos? In case laws change.
A: (Lloyd) Not yet
[AMA ending…]
(Lloyd) Thanks guys!