For those of you who often play slot games like Ugga Bugga, you may be familiar with Playtech. However, what is Playtech actually? Well, most people in the online gaming industry consider it to be one of the best, if not the best, providers of online casino games.
As the company gets closer to its third decade, it has seen its fair share of ups and downs (which is unsurprising in this industry) and has emerged as a force to be reckoned with as the world of online gaming changes yet again.
This is the story of how a company founded in Estonia grew to become a behemoth in an overcrowded online casino market.
What is Playtech Actually?
Playtech appeared to have gotten away unscathed, and the clients they did have were expanding by leaps and bounds. In addition, Teddy Sagi, an Israeli, was the brains behind the opening of Playtech.
Sagi wanted to create a company without equal by bringing together the best minds in gaming, technology, and multimedia.
He intended to create casino software that would provide far more detailed reporting than any operator could ever require, while also providing players with a gaming experience unlike any they had ever seen.
In 1999, Sagi formed his team in Estonia, and for the next two years, he worked tirelessly to achieve his goal. Meanwhile, the online casino industry was becoming increasingly popular, with more and more suppliers bringing their products to market.
Sagi may have felt compelled to release something in order to compete with several new suppliers in the short term, but in the long run, he decided that it was better for his company to blow everybody out of the water with their update.
The first public indications of what Sagi and his team had built began to appear in the industry in early 2001. Playtech booths began to appear at industry trade shows, and what operators (and competitors) saw was far ahead of what many of the incumbents had to offer.
Sagi had served notice to the rest of the industry with the launch of Playtech’s casino platform in mid-2001: there was a new player in town, and it was not going to take any prisoners.
When Company on The Rise?
Playtech’s management took an unusual step early on in their development by refusing to discount their software to anyone.
In fact, the company demanded a large upfront payment for the software, as well as information on how much money the potential licensee planned to spend on marketing.
This way of doing business was fundamentally opposed to everything the industry had seen before. In most cases, software companies were practically giving away their platforms in order to attract as many customers as possible.
This wave of new operators seemed too good to be true, and Sagi believed that being more selective with their client list would put Playtech in the best position to avoid being involved in any shady activities.
Playtech’s calculated risk paid off. Many scammers entered (and exited) the casino world over the next few years, often escaping with money owed to players and operators.
They began attracting both existing operators and new licensees. In 2002, they also secured a deal to bring the first land-based European casino online.
Sagi had a much bigger plan for Playtech while all of this was going on. Not only had they created software that could handle the huge amounts of data generated by their large licensees, but it was also ready to add new games to the mix.
He was already on to the next stage in Playtech’s evolution as the casino business grew and continued to generate massive revenues for the company.
In the end, you already know about what is Playtech. You’ll be hard pressed to find a company in the online gambling world that is as diverse or as powerful as Playtech. Today, Playtech has supported a hundred of online casinos, including judi online gambling.