Pulse
Holland Casino Collaboration
By William - 9 December 2021
Bouncing back from the impact of the pandemic, embracing online opportunities and delivering a sustainable casino model.
Holland Casino CEO, Erwin van Lambaart, discusses the role the ECA plays in tackling both local and cross- border issues within Europe: from over-regulation, player protection and removing the ‘emotion’ from the debate around casinos and online.
Why did Holland Casino become a member of the ECA?
Holland Casino has been a member of the ECA from the outset of the organisation and has always supported the collaboration of casino operators in Europe. I think it is very important that besides my primary job, running Holland Casinos with a great team of people, a CEO should not only invest time and effort in their own company, but work together with their peers in the industry.
The Covid pandemic made it more important than ever for the ECA to come together in a transparent and constructive way. We are all facing the same problems in many fields, which is why it is so important that an organisation like the ECA exists.
The ECA Board is a very professional group of people who engage in genuine dialogue about the future of the industry. I think this is a very important reason to be part of an organisation like the ECA.
What is your remit within the ECA and how much engagement do you have with the association?
Holland Casino has provided a Member of the Board for many years who brought expertise in responsible gaming to the ECA. The pandemic and the restructuring of Holland Casino changed this arrangement, but we wanted to ensure we continued to contribute regarding the major issues facing the industry in Europe.
At our first in-person ECA event in Brussels recently, we discussed the future ECA strategy and established working groups dedicated to several important topics, specifically in relation to European regulation for anti-money laundering laws. The European Casino Association members want regulation to be deeply effective and protect our consumers, but too often this crosses the line into over- regulation.
It is important to conduct this dialogue in a professional manner within our own communities, at a national level, but also at the EU level too. In terms of the gambling industry in Europe, there are general EU policies, but the real execution is country-by-country, and it is important that we work at all levels.
How important a role does the ECA play in promoting the positive activities of casinos in Europe?
I think as an industry we are facing a lot of ‘emotion’ in relation to our industry, which worries me since real protection policies are based upon facts, not emotions. I think we have a crucial job as an industry, and as a casino association, to truly explain how well-regulated the industry is and that the measures we’ve implemented really do work.
This is something that we absolutely need to communicate as an organisation, both to the members of the European Parliament and to our local Members of Parliament as well. If we prioritise this effort and explain how serious and professional our industry really is, I’m convinced that they will listen.
Establishing real dialogue to discuss the issues of player protection is our common goal. Very often I explain to politicians it’s not in our interest to extract as much money as possible from a player.
Practically, we cannot exist from that type of behaviour. It is not just morally wrong, it makes no sense commercially, as we want a sincere sustainable relationship with our guest. We want our guests to experience casinos as entertainment, not as a problem.
It is true that there are colleagues who are not members of the ECA and do not behave in a sustainable way. I think it is our job to discuss and encourage our peers to operate in a manner that does not cast us all in a bad light. Our dialogue regarding full player protection needs to be communicated in unison.
What are the universal issues challenging all members of the ECA?
During the meeting in Brussels, we agreed upon a conceptual agenda for the next few years. I think that everyone came to the same conclusions, in regard to regulation, player protections and sustainability. We also agreed that we need the world to appreciate that people working in casinos are craftsmen and women – it is a highly- skilled job and we employ very professional people.
Universally, we are all on the same page, but it’s obvious that the Covid situation has brought us closer together as we’ve shared stories about individual issues that have affected each member. All industries, not just ours, have faced a crisis situation that’s never been taught by a university course, business qualification or management book. The disruption caused by Covid has made listening and learning from one another of paramount importance.
We’ve each faced the same problems at a European level and relied on knowledge from colleagues who’ve implemented successful coping mechanisms. This collaboration accelerated our way of working to deal with the pandemic and highlighted the need for an organisation like the ECA.
One of the additional roles of the ECA is as a voice for the industry at the highest levels. However, for me, lobbying has a negative connotation.
The ECA is not about lobbying, it is about opening a true and continuous dialogue and getting the facts right. It’s about having constructive and sustainable solutions. I think that is why we need a lobby-strategy, but lobbying in itself is often about money – and this is not a money issue at all. It’s about communicating the fact that we are a serious and very adult industry to the highest levels of government.
Has business been lost to online gaming during the lockdowns that won’t return? And in your view – is land-based in opposition to the online sector?
Both online and land-based are elements of the same market, but they exist separately too. I sincerely believe that land-based casinos will always exist. My background is in hospitality, television, live entertainment. Live entertainment is as old as the Greeks. People will always be drawn to live experiences if it’s worth making the effort.
At Holland Casino we have invested heavily into our new venues, which is all about experiences – not just games. Roulette, black jack and slots remain very important, but a land-based experience is also bars, restaurants and entertainment. Everyone needs to understand that the 360 experience is the true difference between land-based and online.
The pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of gaming and betting worldwide at a speed that no one expected. For an elderly generation, not just a younger demographic, they’ve been taught during Covid to order food, goods, and services online. It has accelerated incredibly fast and intensively and it is never going to be reversed.
From a Dutch perspective, we would have loved to have taken the omni-channel experience as far as possible. However, the law doesn’t allow it. We’ve seen in retail that the integration between land- based and online can successfully merge the two elements.
In land-based, however, regulation dictates that we must keep both separate, which we respect. The frustrating thing is that in Holland the law did not regulate online until recently, which meant that a lot of companies in the past operated illegally, and this was especially apparent during the pandemic.
The Dutch market opened on October 1, with only 10 companies receiving licences to date, with Holland Casino being one of them. We started operating on day one, but we were faced with a technical problem that delayed us from the regulator side.
We couldn’t test live until the regulator had tested their system, however, it appears that the technical hiccups have been resolved and we now welcome customers to our online offer.
How does the ECA embrace online?
I think from an ECA perspective, the question online poses is: how do we integrate? We can’t continue to be defensive towards online in the future. A lot of our members (up to 80 per cent I believe) have online and land-based operations. We haven’t found the answer yet, but it is on the table for discussion and top of the agenda for the next board meeting.
The regulation system in Holland is an incredibly high bar and it’s been a very complicated process to attain our licence. Out of 29 applications, only 10 have secured a licence to date, after six months of investigation by the regulator, which says something about the complexity and high standards set by the Dutch regulator. Today, we only want to work with licensed and approved businesses that have been approved by the regulator.
From a personal level, I’d think this would be a similar high-bar situation for accepting online members into the ECA. It is complicated, because in some countries licences have yet to be issued. It is a subject that needs to be on the agenda, but I can’t see a quick resolution to the issue.
Until now, the ECA has been very clear cut about its membership: only land-based operators can apply. However, we currently discuss to find a way to broaden the membership to encompass a broader spectrum.
Has Covid destroyed CapEx to the extent that European casinos are now the poor cousins of the global industry?
I think it varies country-by-country and operator-by-operator. There is not a general line as to how everyone is doing. What we see is that as casinos reopen, they experience a healthy rebound. We’re definitely not back to the regular levels of 2019, but we are seeing customers return.
It’s difficult to compare and contrast at the European level, because the conditions and actions taken to combat Covid have been different from country-to-country. We do not have EU-wide policy on Covid regulations, and questions about vaccination passports, social distancing, red lists for international travel, mean that an overall picture is difficult to quantify.
What is concrete is that ECA members have a vision for the long-term – and that’s healthy. We also known that many members needed to restructure their companies because of Covid. In Holland, Sweden and Austria, for example, the financial impact of Covid brought about the restructuring of the businesses.
Tens of thousands of people work in the land-based sector and unfortunately the restructuring needed to happen because of Covid. However, this has been achieved in such a way as to not only deal with the short-term crisis, but we have modernised our organisations to be future-proof.
A lot of the ECA members have done this in a strong and smart way, so that they don’t just solve the problems of 2021, but for the next few years to come. As a result, we are aware that we can’t just refrain from investing and wait to see where the landscape takes us. I think that the majority of the shareholders understand this point as well.
How much of a game-changer is the introduction of online gaming legislation in Holland – and how is Holland Casino capitalising on this opportunity?
We are in a good position, but we are never finished in terms of adapting and evolving. If you look at our new casino venue, Venlo, this is one of the most sustainable and environmentally built casino’s in Europe.
We wanted Venlo to serve as an example for all that can be done. In addition to this brand-new casino, each year we have been upgrading our casino estate. This year it was Utrecht with a brand-new building, two years ago it was Valkenburg and before that Rotterdam.
We also closed our Schiphol casino as its life cycle was coming to an end, opening a second brand new casino in Amsterdam, which is a growing market. We have created our own concept NXT zones, which is a product that targets the 25–35- year-old segment. NXT focuses on social interaction and entertainment, which incorporates the Interblock Arena combined and integrated with low limit tables games such as black jack, roulette and craps in a simplified version.
In addition, we have launched three different concepts in F&B. LX is our fine dining offer, we now have sports bars, which you’ll know from the US, but are not fully established in Holland. And we have Global Kitchen, which is an F&B concept that we’ve also created ourselves, a global sharing food offer for guest who prefer a shorter restaurant experience.
So we have intensively invested in our land-based operation, while at the same time been able to go online with our trusted partner, Playtech.
We have always been very honest to ourselves about what we know. We know the Dutch market extremely well. We are very good at responsible gaming and complying with anti-money laundering regulations.
We are very good at hospitality and guest experience levels are very high. We appreciate and understand the culture of both our Dutch and high volume of international guests. However, we are not the most technically advanced company in terms of online casinos. So we searched for a trusted, high-tech partner that could deliver the technology we needed to launch a high-end online offer and very successful product, which is why we contracted Playtech.
I think that looking back at the Covid pandemic, we cut our costs immediately as we entered crisis mode for the 10 months, we were closed in 2020. As a result, I think that we are in a relatively good position.
The Dutch government has been very supportive with financial programmes for companies hit by the pandemic. I think that a lot of European governments really took care of companies hit by the pandemic. We didn’t emerge unharmed, but we’re quite healthy given the extraordinary circumstances.
How positive are you right now about the future of casinos in Europe?
I am optimistic and realistic at the same time. We must be aware that as an industry we need to do the right thing at the right time – but we need to do it fast.
The big lesson from the pandemic is that sometimes our industry can be too traditional and conservative; we fail to make decisions quickly, which often is due to regulation, but also because we fail to adapt to changing conditions affecting our industry.
The good thing is that young people – the 24-year-olds and above – like land-based casinos. We need to follow this trend, be an early adopter, we don’t have to be the most innovative, but to be successful we need to adopt faster. We need to jump ahead and embrace measures in law and regulation that are ahead of the curve. And we must always protect the consumer – not because it is written on paper, based on theoretical models, but because it works in the real world.
