Spotlight on Intertops

Intertops has been a fixture in the online gambling space since 1996. Open to American players, the brand name is one that players have come to know and trust from casino games to poker and everything in between. You’ve enjoyed tailored promotions and even satellites, which send prize winners to participate in live events complete with flights, accommodations and buy-ins. What was it like starting out in the infancy of this business and what does the future hold? Find out from Intertops Affiliate Team, as we shine a spotlight on the company.

1. Online since 1996, what has changed in the online gaming industry since those early days?

The whole online gaming industry just didn’t exist 21 years ago. Intertops was the pioneer and laid the foundations for everybody else who followed. Due to Intertops, today it is much easier for a start-up to still be around in 20 years’ time. The hurdles that need to be cleared to enter the market are much lower than when we started out.
Intertops had to invent, plan, develop and program everything itself through every single service. Today you can more or less get everything from scratch and easily adapt to changing environments.
Intertops has noticed numerous changes over the course of its existence online. There have been so many changes. You have the change in payment methods, from credit cards to wallets to bitcoin, regulatory requirements, tools such as heat mapping, SEO, competition for attention from social games and entertainment platforms such as Netflix, and also how people communicate after the arrival of social media.

2. The company has been successful in the online casino, poker and sports betting sectors. Where have you seen the most success and what is your strongest market right now?

The figures show that live sports-betting is the area that is currently booming. This is the main change that we can see in recent years from a Sportsbook perspective.

3. Apart from the software, what are the differences between the two casino brands?

Intertops Red Casino, which uses the R.T.G. software platform, offers big jackpots, reaching millions of dollars, exciting leaderboard promotions with a different theme every month and amazing weekly prizes. You can enjoy "live dealer" tables where you can even chat with our friendly live dealers. Classic, which uses the WGS software platform, has its main focus on tournaments. We run Blackjack and even Keno tournaments, as well as more traditional slot events. We are also continuously experimenting with different types of promotion offers to add value and excitement. The two brands are designed to complement each other, to offer more options and choice for the player.

4. Players seem to love the promotions and tournaments. What is the process for creating new offers?

We generally work a month or two in advance. Starting with a basic calendar, we identify the dates that we want to market around and then create offers accordingly. We continuously monitor the response to each and every offer and look to keep the things that players most positively respond to. Not everything works as we would hope of course, but our aim is to add value for the player in an entertaining way. There should be a good reason to log in at least once a day, every day of the week.
In our Sportsbook, all offers are constantly reviewed. Here too, a lot of effort is put into the evaluation of promotions. If we see that a promotion works well for our customers, we discuss what the customers actually liked. Marketing campaigns are always learning processes, so we try hard to gather all the necessary pieces of information to ensure that we offer the best possible service to our customers.

5. Let’s talk poker for a moment. As we speak, satellites are running for a prize package to the Winter Poker Championship in Austria, right?

Yes, that’s right. Players can win a $4,000 poker package to the Winter Poker Championship in Seefeld which includes the Main Event buy-in of €2,160, 5-night’s accommodation for two in a premium hotel and $500 towards travel expenses. It is the second year in a row that we have offered satellites for Seefeld which is one of the most attractive stops on the Casinos Austria Poker Tour! We had great feedback from the players we sent there last winter so we were more than happy to include it on our tournament calendar again this year!
We all know playing poker is fun and we like to add to that fun and excitement by giving our online players the chance to experience an adventure in different places around the world! We have taken players to a bunch of live tournaments in various locations and we pick tournaments and places where we see that there will be lots of poker action, of course, but also plenty of opportunities to enjoy the destination!We are really looking forward to welcoming players to our home turf once again! We love Seefeld and its surroundings and we know that the players will too!
Customers who unfortunately fail to win our Winter Poker Championship package will not have to wait long for the next round of satellites! We will soon be running tourneys to qualify for a trip to the TKPT in St Maarten!

6. Now that the New Year is here, can you tell us what’s in store for players in 2017?

For poker, we will be offering 4-5 satellite promotions to bigger live events. These will be finalized in the next few weeks. We will be offering a lot more casino games through the poker client in a few weeks. When that kicks in, our client will offer Takisto,WorldMatch and Betsoft. At Intertops Red Casino, players can look forward to frequent attractive new-game

additions, and we are also working on a more modern gaming environment.
At Intertops Casino Classic, new game development is always a priority, additional mobile options, while expanded tournaments continue to make everything bigger and better! There are also continued development and improvements going on in our Sportsbook! Our customers can look forward to a big step forward as far as our platform goes, new marketing incentives and a continued focus on mobile betting in 2017.

7. Where do you see the Intertops brand in 20 years’ time?

Intertops has remained popular for such a long time due to its focus on the company’s key strengths... running our own independent sportsbook and picking reliable partners for the casino and poker products.
The company has also benefited from looking beyond the ‘here and now’. It has always been our main focus to build trust and think long-term as far as our players and affiliates are concerned. The customer is in the focus of everything we do. Every player recognizes that Intertops is a rare example of a service that has been around for two decades and has always treated players fairly, and that is something that affiliates can build on.