Poker is growing very rapidly due to the engaging gaming formats nowadays. It is predominantly popular among millennials and has huge potential due to the vast gamer base. There are some particular gaming platforms that are consistently working to uplift the standard of this game and deliver a seamless gaming experience to the players. Adda52 offers a highly engaging gaming experience and has become the leading player in this industry. Rajeev Ranjan, Editor, Digital Terminal recently held exclusive interaction with Krishnendu Guha, CMO of Adda52. Krishnendu spoke about the growth of the online poker industry, and their plans to capitalize on the growth opportunities. Read below the excerpts:
Rajeev: Adda52 is one of the prominent player in the online poker industry so how do you see the journey of Adda52 so far? Can you please define few key achievements in this journey?
Krishnendu: The true journey of Adda52 began very early, when the co-founders, Mohit Agarwal & Anuj Gupta, were in college. Mohit had created an online poker software for a project and Mohit & Anuj were inspired by their seniors who had set up an online poker website, called Party Poker, in the US in the 1990s. However, the founders didn’t work on Adda52 right away, and stuck to their corporate careers for a decade. Around this time, the duo was tracking with the craze around online poker being played over social media around 2009- 2010. What surprised them was that users in India played a lot of poker online for no money at all. This was when the two realised that it was finally time to work on their decade-long dream of building a startup for poker players in the country. Some of the milestones that make us unique is shared below:
Rajeev: Poker is growing at a rapid pace in India and youngsters find this game very engaging so how do you look at the future of this game in India? What are your plans to capitalize on the constantly evolving growth opportunities?
Krishnendu: The current base of poker players would be around 5MN in India so one can surely imagine its potential to grow. Poker unlike any other product falls under a niche category which requires mind skills to play and hence is extremely popular among the younger groups. The culture of online poker in India needs a strong involvement of live experience and that’s one of the key areas that we intend to focus. Being a part of Delta corp it gives us an added advantage of getting that trust from users and also explore the live experience clubbed with online gaming.
Rajeev: What are your plans to offer an improved gaming experience and develop interesting gaming formats to engage the audience?
Krishnendu: 2021 will be bigger than ever and we have already launched some amazing promotions like exclusive womens day tournament, 2 CR ACL leaderboard where we intend to find our next Adda52 PRO from the industry. We are also running FLY to VEGAS campaign where a player can win an all expense paid trip to Las Vegas to play at one of the best casinos in the world. This campaign is open to all and there is no limit on how many persons can win it. We are also working on some new game variants which we will unveil during the year.
Rajeev: Since ASCI proposed the new advertising guidelines, what are the new alternative options do you have for promotion? How do you see the new guidelines?
Krishnendu: ASCI has proposed some guidelines which we were following strictly like putting up a disclaimer on every promotional content including videos. It’s very important for every organization to mention a disclaimer rather than finding out alternate ways. We are also not trying to find out any alternate methods to promote our campaigns. In my opinion this is the right way to drive your communication. This way the messaging to your audience is clear and people are aware about the risks involved. Its just similar to any disclaimer notice that involves money like buying mutual funds.
Rajeev: What are your further outreach and expansion plans in the year 2021?
Krishnendu: We intend to carry forward the growth that we have seen in 2020 and we are focusing on product and technology as well apart from marketing campaigns. We will focus more in growing the poker category as that’s what will mainly drive growth. The awareness on real money gaming ecosystem is much better now (thanks to lockdown) so category growth becomes the main focus. We will focus on campaigns which will educate users more about the game since its niche category unlike other real money games.