“The iGaming industry is a lot like racing,” says industry veteran Max Chertkov, CEO of Vegangster, as he tells iGaming Expert what it’s like to work in a highly competitive industry. With 15 years of experience in the market, the B2B platform provider has put together a fast car of their own and worked its way to the top, but not before undergoing some changes to its very own structure.
“We started as B2C operators, and it wasn’t our goal to build a B2B platform back then,” explains Chertkov. However, the company decided to change their original strategy in light of the lack of options to get a hold of a solution: “We decided to invest our time and resources to build it for ourselves. It was first a small product, but we started integrating more and more things, and today we are very proud of it.”
While its fast pace makes the iGaming industry resemble racing, Vegangster’s team is made of engineers that “know how to build proper products.”
“At some point, we are like a racing car manufacturer. We built a very good car to drive ourselves at all these industry races. Now, other companies actually have an option to buy it as well and participate in iGaming racing,” Chertkov remarks.
But, what makes their product –or car– stand out? According to the company CEO, building the platform from an operator mindset is one of three keys that puts Vegangster closer to the pole position: “We understand what operators need in order to be successful,” he details.
Another main thing is that everything the company offers is built in-house. According to Chertkov, other companies fail to deliver a seamlessly integrated product because they might have a CRM tool from one provider and a PAM one from another.
“We build the tools internally, and they are seamlessly connected together, like a perfectly designed engine,” he explains.
And the third key relates to time-to-market: “The iGaming industry is high-speed, and you need to adapt to its fast pace to remain efficient and stay ahead. Because we understand operators’ needs, we provide tools that can be ready today – not tomorrow or next week. It’s a perfect combination of speed and tools that can help operators to be successful,” adds Chertkov.
In terms of adapting to the fast-changing industry, Vegangster is also developing its own affiliate model. According to the company’s CEO, while there are a lot of tools operators may already be used to, they have decided to take the matter into their own hands to guarantee all their clients’ needs are satisfied.
According to Chertkov, the company’s approach not only eases the customisation of the affiliates’ brands, but also allows the solution to have a seamless integration to the rest of the business as well. This way, it reduces problems in data transition between the main product and affiliates.
“Analysing data is very important to make proper decisions, so you need to make sure it is calculated correctly. With the system connected together, you reduce the amount of problems of this type.
“At the end of the day, one of the most important needs is problem solving capability. Problems appear on a daily basis, but when you have control over the product, you can sort them faster, which is one of our key approaches,” he explains.
Vegangster has worked its way into becoming partners with a plethora of providers, but one thing that keeps them relevant is their capacity to keep track of global trends.
“You need to watch global trends in order to think how to make them useful, and adapt them to our industry,” says Chertkov.
“There are a lot of opportunities. Currently, there’s a lot of social activity surrounding gameplay. Competitions between players, social events, battles between groups of players. Those types of things create opportunities to create something that can make an impression on people.
“These trends show a growing demand for emotion and entertainment in iGaming, and we aim to bring more positive energy into every product we build.”
