Bodog88 has continued its Eastern focus, opening a sportsbook and casino in Vietnam and promising poker by the end of the year.
Bodog has been turning away from the highly competitive western market and looking east for some time.
Bodog88’s Managing Director, Robert Gustafsson explains the strategy, “Vietnam, like so many countries in Asia, also has a rapidly growing economy and, having first mover advantage in these countries, will be, I feel, extremely beneficial to Bodog88.”
In August, Bodog halted operations in 20 countries across parts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Earlier this month it announced a pull out from the European market all together.
Canadian players still have access to the .ca site and US players can get a game on the Bovada skin.
This month Bodog announced a deal with TLC88.com to add poker to the site’s existing casino and sports betting products. Philippines based TLC88 is a single currency, single language site, using Chinese and only accepts deposits in Yuan.
Bodog now has language options for Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Thai, English and Vietnamese. Adding the 90 million Vietnamese speakers to its target market means that it has at a stroke replaced almost half of the target market it surrendered in Europe.
Of course, it still needs to get that new market to sign up. Gustafsson expects them to do so. “Vietnam has been overlooked by many online gaming companies … crucially, they are sports mad and love to bet in the same way the Chinese gamers love casino, with European soccer betting being at the top of the list,” he commented.
In spite of the chopping and changing, Bodog’s site traffic has remained remarkably resilient over the last six months with a definite, if small, upwards trend.
Bodog’s strategy over the last two years has been to make its site much more attractive to recreational players. Its new strategy to withdraw from European markets and shift to Asia does not seem to have done it any harm.
