We caught up with Magdalena Podhorska-Okolow, VP Commercial – MD Europe at Light & Wonder, to discuss the changes in her role since joining from Authentic Gaming, the current climate of the European market as well as gain an insight into Light & Wonder’s future plans for the continent.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to us Magdalena, you spent five years in various roles at Authentic Gaming before becoming VP Commercial – MD Europe at Light & Wonder. Can you talk us through the transition and what your role entails?
The biggest shift in my role would undoubtedly be the products I am responsible for. Naturally, my time at Authentic Gaming saw me focus on live casino, with live roulette the priority. During that time, I was up close and personal with the vertical and paying slightly less attention to developments within the pure RNG/slots world. However, that is not to say I wasn’t in touch with it having worked at NetEnt prior to Authentic.
There is quite a lot of overlap between my new role at Light & Wonder and my previous role, especially in terms of the markets. Here, I am responsible for Europe and South Africa, which are two regions I am very well versed with. In terms of the day-to-day, my role involves not only looking at the product, but also the content and commercial strategies.
The two companies are quite different in terms of market position, Authentic Gaming is continuing to grow, broaden its reach. They and still have a handful of markets to enter and operators to launch with, whilst Light & Wonder is more about maintaining its leading position in the market through nurturing existing partnerships and ensuring our strategy is on point and future proofed for winning in the region. Having worked in both RNG and Live Casino, I can say they’re both extremely competitive verticals, however within the RNG space, there is far more ‘contenders’ out there with an estimation of some 1,000+ studios out there producing games.
The European landscape is notoriously fragmented with jurisdictions having vastly different regulations to the next, has this proven to be a headache, or has it offered Light & Wonder the ability to carefully segment their offering?
The fragmented nature of the European landscape has definitely provided us with challenges; however, this has become a competitive advantage for Light & Wonder, as we have such a rich history and a strong presence in nearly every regulated European market.
We are currently finalising entry into the remaining few jurisdictions we are yet to enter, the most recent of which being Switzerland. Our presence in Europe has been a huge strength of ours and our customers are delighted to have access to so many regulated jurisdictions through our Open Gaming System that will deliver not only our content, but also provide access to other third-party content and exclusive content build on our platforms only available via Light & Wonder.
While we have mastered the fragmented regulations, it is important to understand the cultural discrepancies – there are many different regions with induvial preferences – it doesn’t make sense to have a one size fits all approach. In order to satisfy each market, you have to produce informed strategies to create the most appropriate and effective roadmap for each, which can be quite a complex task.
