"Spain is a very important gaming and betting market for SUZOHAPP"

Among the companies finalizing details for a new edition of the SBC Barcelona Summit, to take place from September 19-21 at the Fira Montjuic in Barcelona, is gaming products manufacturer and distributor SUZOHAPP. At the meeting, the business will showcase its latest solutions, with a focus on its sports betting ecosystem, at booth SB166.

Ahead of the expo, Yogonet caught up with Tim Kennedy, Vice President of Sales at SUZOHAPP, to discuss in a video interview what attendees will find at the company's stand this time around, what is next in sports betting technology, and the importance of omnichannel gaming technology.

The company is set to showcase its sports betting ecosystem at the expo. What will visitors approaching SUZOHAPP's booth find?

Being sports betting focused, the ecosystem is front and center of our stand. More specifically, though, we have the SBT-500+, we also have the Cashio Silver cash redemption terminal, our omnichannel payment system. Plus this time we're also introducing our ITV-9000 scratch ticket vending solution, and a few other things.

Why is this event important for SUZOHAPP and what are your expectations in terms of discussions and networking opportunities?

The event has been growing for a number of years and I think this time it might have even doubled in size since last year. It's becoming a must-attend event in Europe, certainly for sports betting. We've also invited a number of customers from the lottery world, so we're hoping to combine important conversations with both sports betting and lottery operators.

SUZOHAPP has been shortlisted in the Land-Based Betting and & Gaming Product of the Year category for the SBC Barcelona Awards. What explains this recognition?

We've been nominated for the SBT-500+ and that product is kind of unique. It facilitates in-play betting and supports omnichannel payments. You can play with an online wallet, but it also has a bill validator or note acceptor, as we would say in Europe.

It facilitates walking up and playing, so with the notes in your pocket, you can play. It's kind of unique in the marketplace. Traditionally, I would say a lot of countries are still, in land-based at least, involved in transactional betting, and slowly moving to more entertainment-led in-play betting. This is an ideal product for that environment, where you can play amongst friends on the table or bar top.

Since the event is taking place in Barcelona - how important is Spain market for SUZOHAPP at the moment, and how are the company solutions fit for the requirements and player preferences of this market? 

Spain is a very important gaming and betting market for SUZOHAPP. The number of gaming venues, and also betting venues, is substantial in Spain. For us, the opportunity on the betting side is this migration potentially to in-play betting in a retail environment. Spain has some really nice examples where you can play both gaming and betting in a nice, relaxed environment; they also offer drinking and sometimes food as well.

It's kind of a unique entertainment experience, which I think would work very well with this type of tabletop terminal. Spanish customers will definitely be on our target list. However, being what it is, it's a very international event, so expect a lot of other European stakeholders and from much further afield. We'll be talking to those customers as well and reaching out to them.

The event's organizers have called the Sports Betting Zone of the event's highlights, with the vertical set to draw discussions around payments, player protection, compliance and more. What are your expectations for how sports betting will be represented at the expo?

Payments are at the forefront of every discussion, and that continuously evolves. From SUZOHAPP's perspective, our payment solution is very flexible and bridges the online and land-based sectors very well.

As for player protection, we have a number of solutions and we are starting to see the rollout now in a number of countries with facial recognition and some hardware and software solutions that allow staff to meet their compliance obligations, supported by machine software and hardware technology.

Those are two important subjects. The third one is the age-old discussion about omnichannel and what that means. And it continuously evolves, I would say.

As part of the event, you will actually be speaking on a panel about omnichannel gaming. Can you provide us with a preview of what you will be discussing at this session?

I believe the term omnichannel was first adopted around 2010, so we've been talking about omnichannel for a very long time in the wider market. But in gaming, I think omnichannel is very relevant today. Covid was the ideal opportunity for online to basically kill off retail, if it was ever going to happen. And that certainly didn't happen.

I would say retail businesses are bouncing back and reinventing themselves better than ever. I see omnichannel moving to a much more player-centric model, and it's all about keeping players engaged and allowing them to play in the way that they want to play at the time of day that they want to play. And retail is a significant part of that whole player journey and shouldn't be forgotten about.

Besides the sports betting products, SUZOHAPP will be showcasing its new scratch ticket vending machine, and we also have some Custom printing solutions for the betting market. Can you tell us about these other products that will be part of the showcase and their reception thus far?

The scratch ticket vending machine was launched a few months back. We've been engaged in a number of discussions with customers. We actually have a launch customer that we are midway through the project and that will be going live early in the new year. It's being very well received. We have a nice flexible platform that allows us to build a machine that's fit for the requirements of different marketplaces. We're talking to some customers who need a small desktop solution and others who need a full floor-sized vending solution.

From the Custom side, they do a full range of POS terminals and various scanning products for both sports betting and lottery, and they have a really nice OCR solution software package that we bundle with one of their scanners, which could facilitate a really user-friendly sports betting solution. It's been well received, so we hope to include some more of those discussions during the show.

See the full interview here.