February marked a special month for the global gambling industry with ICE’s last London edition taking place, reuniting stakeholders at the ExCeL exhibition center once again before a planned relocation to Barcelona starting next year. Over the show’s three days (Feb. 6 – 8), the expo served as an ideal platform for companies across all industry verticals to network and catch up with both existing clients and prospective customers, in addition to highlighting their latest innovations.
Operators showed keen interest in Anaxi’s stand during their showcase at the gaming expo. Aristocrat’s online real money gaming division took the opportunity to present the key titles in its growing portfolio, in addition to building new relationships at a moment of growth for the company.
As part of its coverage of the event, Yogonet caught up with Joshua Morris, Head of iGaming Content & Strategy at Anaxi, on day two of the expo to learn more about the online gaming provider’s main titles, its growing presence in the US and Europe, and what is next on its roadmap for the year.
ICE bid farewell to London by attracting thousands of global attendees and hosting the latest in gaming at ExCeL, an ideal platform for Anaxi to present its iGaming portfolio. What was the show like for the company this year?
It’s been a really good show for Anaxi. We also made a lot of progress over the last year, which is worth pointing out: this time last year, we didn’t have half of these games built. Moreover, we now have a presence in all of the top three US states. We are also live in a number of markets across the world, including Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, and Ireland.
Most importantly, we have a growing portfolio of content with more and more customers in the market, which is a positive sign for Anaxi. We’ve had some real success in North America, for instance, with some of our key brands, such as Buffalo and Buffalo Gold going very well for us.
While we feel it’s still early days for Anaxi, it’s been a really positive year for the division and we couldn’t be happier about it. We made a lot of progress and we’ve seen that in the show as well, reflected in a lot of customer meetings and a lot of opportunities ahead.
What are some highlights in specific that you presented at the booth this time around or discussed with your clients? What are some of the key products in Anaxi’s current portfolio?
As the Head of Product, I feel very proud because we have a great portfolio of content to bring to market. We have a very rich heritage of content from the land-based sector, and what we are doing is really focusing on bringing some of our key brands to market in iGaming format from an Aristocrat perspective.
The games that we are featuring at the moment are, of course, Buffalo, Buffalo Classic, and Buffalo Gold, but now we are also increasingly paying attention to our first progressive game that will be coming to market, which is Cash Express Luxury Line.
But then also towards the back end of this year, we will have a whole host of favorite games out there in the market, like Mo Mummy. There is a lot to come, so keep an eye out for further updates.
Seems like 2024 will be a busy year for Anaxi. Buffalo in particular seems to be gathering momentum for the company, building on its popularity in the land-based realm. Any further plans for this brand?
Yes. We are also bringing a new product to market, called Buffalo Quest, which is a daily free game. It is essentially aimed at players who love the Buffalo brand, and what it does is that they can come on, and play the game for free every day.
What happens is that as they come back, and the more that they play, they earn rewards and free spins on their favorite games. It’s called Buffalo Quest and we expect it will be hitting the market in the next four months. We are very excited about it.
Going back to Anaxi’s expanding presence in different markets, which ones do you expect to offer further opportunities for growth going forward? And what types of partnerships is the company targeting in them?
We are heavily focused on North America at the moment. That includes both Canada and the US. And the profile of our customers there has been brilliant so far, including major operators like FanDuel, DraftKings, and MGM, for instance. But we are also now increasingly looking at Canada in specific, and some of the larger lottery operators in the country.
At the same time, we are expanding in Europe as well. In the UK, we recently went live with Entain and across their portfolio of gaming sites. Besides them, we are working with other leading UK operators to bring our content to market. And not only Aristocrat’s content but also the Roxor brand, which is live in the market as well.
