Author: Roy Pedersen

Gaming Company Logos on Football Shirts: UK vs. Malta

Gaming Licensing Consultant David Clifton will speak today at the 2015 Betting on Football conference at Emirates Stadium in London about “getting shirty”.
The changes suggested by the Point of Consumption licensing dictates that operators that do not have UK licenses will not be able to advertise in the UK, no matter if they allow UK players or not, but Clifton is questioning the clarity of the licensing and asking whether it is actually illegal for unlicensed operators to sponsor UK sports teams. What is allowed? And what is the industry stopping itself from doing?
All In Translations is represented at the conference by our Sales Executive Michele Spiteri, here with a refreshments between sessions at the Emirates Stadium.

She will report back on this blog with her most interesting findings.
A lot of the betting companies which are sponsoring small and big football clubs around the world are licensed in Malta. Some of them also sponsor local clubs, as there are no laws against gaming companies sponsoring sports team in Malta. To mention just the main ones here: Betsson with Valletta and Betclic with Birkirkara a few seasons back, however the size and the set-up of these local agreements are different from the ones in the English Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga.
The most recent local example is Tipico Careers and the newly promoted St. Andrews FC. Instead of branding their online betting site, Tipico decided to focus on the HR side of things with St. Andrews.
“The club’s aim is to set new standards in youth development of football players in Malta and we want to help them with that. Tipico Careers will assist the club’s teens through talks and seminars about careers and help children with single parents or no parents to attend training sessions. We will also provide training grounds and soccer kits for the less privileged children”, said Thomas Mahoney from the HR Department at Tipico.
Another example is FC Scandinavia which is an amateur team in the GIDA League. The cost of running that team is peanuts in comparison, but thanks to their main sponsor All In Translations they are now getting a brand new Adidas kit, and thanks to the gaming company Guts.com, Steps Properties, the affiliate network Matching Visions, eCabs and Nordic Bar Malta the league fee is covered, not to mention good deals on property, organizing of parties and free taxi rides to every game.

4 days left to register for Pentasia League

Monday, September 7th is the deadline for registering your team for the 2015/16 Pentasia Clubs League. Last season’s double champions, All In Translations, submitted their squad list today, confirming what looks to be a successful transfer window for them.
In:
Patrick Kinni (Casumo). One of the most important new players for FC Scandinavia last season. He led Casumo to a semi-final in the Pentasia cup. Can play both in the back and upfront.
Alexander Thour (Catena Media). In a squad where the average age is 30+, Alexander will be a welcomed fast-paced addition to team up with target players Endre Nesset and Svein Skårås upfront.
Jonas Gisle (Holmen): Probably the only player from All In Translations on transfermrkt.com in addition to last year’s newcomer of the year Felix Preussner. Played on the 3rd level in Norway for Holmen in 2014 (midfielder), so there is no doubt about his skills. The question is: will he show form on the field? Fingers crossed!

Tobias Sinding (free agent): Backup goalie for Anders Lynderup who has been selected Goalkeeper of the year two years running in the Pentasia League. Tobias has played 4th division in Norway and been on trial at Sarpsborg 08.
Out:
Rasmus Preus Hatting (B1908 and Røde Kro): After being a key player for All In Translations since we started the team in 2011, playing infrequently in 2014/2015 due to traveling, Rasmus has asked to be removed from this year’s squad list. There are unconfirmed rumors of FC Copenhagen being interested. “They could use a class defender”, said All In Translations coach Jacob Nielsen.
Eirik Thorvaldsen (Guts): After weighing his options carefully, Eirik decided to leave All In Translations and join his new colleagues at Guts/Gaming Innovation Group. Eirik was our top scorer in 2013 and stepped in as a goal keeper when no one else would in 2015, so he will still be invited to our poker nights. Best of luck at Guts, Eirik!

The matches will be played at the Gzira Don Bosco pitches once again, and the captain’s meeting is planned for Thursday, September 10th.

Young CEO on the Norwegian stock exchange: We are just getting started

After growing faster than all the others, Innovation Gaming Group (GiG) became the first ever gaming company to be listed on the stock exchange in Norway (Oslo Børs). We met Robin Reed (33) this week after he had presented the first quarterly results at Hotel Continental in Oslo, to discuss about the strategy and the attitude that have established him as one of the youngest CEOs on the Norwegian stock exchange.

It has been only three years since All-In Translations wrote content for the upcoming launch of Guts.com. Today, Guts is the cash cow of GiG, and one could say their growth rate has been prodigious. But no matter how unbelievable this may appear to be, it is undeniably factual. The Q2 2015 results showed a pre-tax profit of €875,446 with an all time high revenue of €4.8 million.
Today, when I think back, I am fairly certain I can identify a few essential factors that made possible the epic success of Reed and his business partner and mentor Frode Fagerli – a few factors aside from the obvious ones: brand strategy and an alpha instinct for competition.

Brand strategy
When All-In Translations is hired for any project, our client is asked to fill in a stylistic preferences form which we have created exclusively for gaming companies. An exception to this was Guts, since they sent over their brand strategy even before we asked for it.

They had clearly identified their brand promise and the typical personality of their target group, and the adjectives used to describe the desired tone and style of the textual content had been carefully selected based on that. We wrote those adjectives on a few post-it notes and pasted them on the wall, which made it all so much easier to get into the mind-set of their audience.

The instinct for competition
Reed and Fagerli both have a trackable background as profitable poker players. And let’s face it – you don’t win in the long run in poker unless you are smart as a whip with strategy and money management. But more than anything, you need to think like a winner, make winning a habit and hate to lose even a dime. And if losing happens, you need to figure out the why’s, and then take the necessary steps to make the next outcome a success.
After meeting Reed and Fagerli in numerous situations where competition was a factor, either it being poker, football, ping pong, FIFA or rock-scissors-paper, there was never any doubt whether they would make the best of their winning instinct. I am 100% sure this powerful impulse has been a vital part of the success of GiG, which also includes the iGaming Cloud, Innovation Labs, Betspin and Rizk brands.

“The strategy is to optimize every part of the customer journey to create better conversion and lifetime value for our brands and B2B customers”, said Reed.

He is quick to emphasize mr. Fagerli’s role in the company.

I look up to Frode in many areas, especially his ethical compass, his way of treating people and his focus on the end user.

Reed (10.4%) and Fagerli (8.8%) are the two biggest shareholders in GiG in addition to Bryggen Holding AS (10.4%). Friday EOB, after the week of the quarterly presentation, the GiG stock was valued at 1.55 NOK.

So what now, Robin? Are you going to slow down, cool off the engines, and enjoy the good life?

No, no. This is just the beginning. Now we can finally get started!

What do you think about All-In Translations’ new platform for selling gaming content – allinthecart.com?

When I saw allinthecart.com, I immediately thought to myself: This is really good. In the blink of an eye you are showing the visitor that you can deliver exactly what they need, something which is really specific, either it being a casino review for an affiliate site or a blog post for an operator.

Highly creative and skilled writers needed!

Is writing your best strength, your most marketable skill, your truest passion? If so, we’d like to hear from you!
At All-In Translations, our content services are one of the most sought-after services that we offer for the massive gaming industry. This is why we’re hunting for talented, experienced and motivated freelance writers able to meet tight deadlines and to produce high-quality, original content, on a reliable basis.
Please apply here if you:

have proven writing experience
are genuinely passionate about gaming
are native in one of the following languages: Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Spanish, Swedish

or send your résumé and your writing rates at content@allintranslations.com.

Å Love Letter

One must travel beyond both the Arctic circle and the English alphabet to find this unique place I fell in love with in the summer of 2015.
My previous most-northern-point-to-reach record was 62º, and this happened when I went to Ålesund to write about a football event for a local newspaper. This time, however, the purpose of the trip towards the extreme regions of the Scandinavian North was to show my home country from its best side to my Greek wife and our small son.
Luckily, Norway welcomed us from the moment we arrived, and the sun followed us with few exceptions from all the way down south at the Kristiansand Zoo, to the car free island of Lyngør,

to the peninsula of Løvøya, outside of my home town Horten,

to Vesletjern close to Rødtvet, in the green capital of Oslo,

to Nidarosdomen in Trondheim, the only medieval church in Norway,

to the popular Geirangerfjord, which we watched slide by from the window of our cabin on MS Kong Harald (one of 11 ships on the fleet of Hurtigruten, which was established in 1893 and has been an important means of communication in rural Norway ever since).

When we woke the next day, we passed the Arctic Circle (on 66º north) with the ship heading for Svolvær in Lofoten. We rented a cabin in Laukvik and on the 2nd day the sun went down exactly at midnight,

leaving a spectacular light show, only to return just a few hours later.

In Lofoten, there is only one main road (E10). On the way south, you will see a sign that says Haukland. I’m not gonna claim that the water was warm, but Hauklandsstranda (the Haukland beach) climbed up to a Top 3 all-time beach experiences for me (together with Moorea in French Polynesia and Koh Chang in Thailand).

There are few places to stop for food, but if you get really hungry you can always find some dried fish hanging around.

This is the oldest known conservation method known to man (dried) and in Lofoten there are plenty of places to hang the cod.

The Lofoten road stops at the end of the alphabet, in a tiny town called Å. Whereas the English alphabet stops at Z, the Scandinavian one continues with Æ (Ä in Swedish), Ø (Ö in Swedish) and lastly, Å.

Å is not the only village, town or city in the world named with only one letter. In fact, there are more places called Å in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Å can also mean river in Norwegian, and it indicates present tense when placed in front of a verb.
So simple, yet so descriptive, and revealing when used incorrectly. Norwegians are without a doubt a people of few words and efficient communication, and letter Å is a perfect example of that.