NetEnt, as we all (hopefully) know, is one of the best casino games providers out there. Known mostly for making roulette tables and slots for online casinos, they’re the people behind some of the best video slots ever such as “South Park” and “Gonzo’s Quest”. They employ 750 people in Sweden and Malta, and thus far their company has only been expanding its influence in Europe, where it holds a 30% market share. Their earnings have only been growing recently, seeing a 50% increase over 2015. This all sounds amazing, and yet it doesn’t seem to be enough for CEO Per Eriksson. “We still have big growth potential in Europe. We have approximately a 30 percent market share and that means 70 percent to take,” he told Reuters earlier this month. Yes, you read this right, ladies and gentlemen – NetEnt wants ALL the market share, and they don’t care how feasible that is.
According to Business Insider, NetEnt isn’t just content with taking all of the European market share, oh, no – they also want all of the American one too. It’s currently one of the biggest companies lobbying for looser online gambling regulations in the US – and, as recent developments in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have shown us, it’s working. Eriksson hopes that this will create a domino effect across the East Coast which will eventually reach the rest of the continent. Of course, it makes sense that he’d want that – NetEnt’s market share in the US is only 15%, which means that legalizing online gambling across the board will allow them to expand even further. Right now, it seems less of a matter of “if” and more of “when” – many experts are predicting a legalization of gambling across the board, as that would bring major profits to casinos, providers, the government and, potentially, consumers. In other words, everyone wins. NetEnt just wants to win more.
Still, all irony and sarcasm aside, though, while I can’t see NetEnt having 100% of the market share as Eriksson wants, I’d be okay with them growing even more than they already have. As I said, their games are generally of a very high quality. It’s pretty obvious that they’re not in it just for the money – they want to provide unique and interesting casino experiences to anyone looking for them. In founder Pontus Lindwall’s words: “I did the pay tables behind the slot machines, calculating how it works under the hood. My father said if you want to have good games you have to make sure the player wins a lot. I knew how to do the math to make that happen.” And playing some of their games, even only for a bit, is enough to convince anyone that Lindwall is right – while this isn’t the kind of article where I say who has the best payouts, I’ve never complained of bad pays when playing NetEnt slots. Currently, though, the biggest concern is whether a company growing so quickly and ambitiously can sustain itself without crashing under its own weight, but that’s a question only time can answer.