Golden Nugget plots in-house mobile app development and exclusive igaming content

Golden Nugget Online Gaming (GNOG) is planning to bring front-end product development in-house in the long term to produce its own mobile app and differentiate its product offering. The operator currently uses Scientific Games’ back-end and front-end technology to power its online casino and sportsbook. It is also seeking to develop more exclusive igaming content in-house to compete with the likes of DraftKings, BetMGM, and most recently Penn National Gaming, which just acquired a real-money games studio. GNOG president Thomas Winter told EGR North America the online casino operator would begin migrating some parts of its platform in-house over the course of the next 18 months.

“Today, we are renting our technology back-end and front-end casino and sports core platform, but what we want to do is develop our own mobile applications because the front-end and the UI is really a big part of your differentiation,” Winter said. “Next is to have more games that are bespoke and exclusive to us. We want to build more of our own games perhaps together with some parts of the casino platform where you can have innovative features in terms of jackpots, free spins, and these kinds of things,” he added. “What we want to do is develop our own mobile applications because the front-end and the UI is really a big part of our differentiation.” GNOG is also building its own data warehouse and business intelligence tools this year to allow it to better innovate its personalization efforts. “We’ve always had superior data analytics capabilities to understand our players’ behaviors and adjust and adapt our customer value proposition and product to their needs,” Winter said. The GNOG president hinted at the opportunity for bolt-on acquisitions as the Nasdaq-listed operator scales and moves into new states in the coming months. Winter said the operator would consider small M&A deals that would drive product differentiation or customer acquisition efforts. “In terms of bigger M&A, I don’t really have a comment at the moment, but the industry at some point will consolidate just like any newly regulated industry,” he said. GNOG ended 2020 with $78m in cash reserves, while another $110.2m was raised in March this year via a warrant redemption. It experienced 64% year on year net revenue growth in 2020 to $91.1m, while adjusted EBITDA also grew from $17.8m in 2019 to $28.9m the following year.