Julian Tietz: “Online games are set to have a lasting impact on lotteries”

Julian Tietz, Managing Director at ZEAL Instant Games, touches on the highly exciting segment and how it ties into the lottery market. Germany proves a particularly interesting place to deploy these products, as the market is one of the most heavily regulated. Yet, for ZEAL this is an opportunity to showcase the strength of its portfolio, develop compliant and innovative products and builds an experience that players take to readily. Read our full interview with Tietz below.

Q: ZEAL Network is one of the best-recognized names when it comes to lottery games, but your company has expanded into slot and other online casino games of late with the launch of ZEAL Instant Games. Can you tell us a bit more about this division?

Under the brand ZEAL Instant Games we offer high-quality online games for our own players, but also for our partners in Germany and all over the world.

We have made it our business to use our extensive know-how in the online games sector to develop a constantly growing portfolio of modern and exciting games of different genres.

The market for online games is not only a growth market in Germany, but also promises to have a lasting impact on the online lottery market on an international level – for this reason, we are working flat out to further expand our games business and regularly offer customers and partners new, exciting content.

The growing success of our B2C business as well as numerous prominent international partnerships with Park Avenue Gaming, Swintt etc. show that our efforts in this area are right and important. For this reason, we are continuously working on the further expansion of ZEAL Instant Games. Our goal is to become a leader in both the B2C and B2B sectors.

Q: What has prompted your decision to move more determinedly in this new vertical of the gaming experience?

Our decision to continuously expand our online games business in Germany and abroad is based on two pillars: On the one hand, we noticed that the international demand for online games in the lottery sector has increased significantly in recent years and that numerous providers are desperately looking for partners like us to provide them with high-quality games to include in their portfolio.

On the other hand, with the receipt of the license to offer virtual slot games by the Joint Gaming Authority of the Federal States (GGL), after a long period of waiting, we finally also have the opportunity to offer virtual slot games in our own web shops. The latter is doubly worthwhile for us, because the online games business has great potential in Germany.

ZEAL has already gained a lot of experience in the instant game business during the last years. Building on this experience, and in conjunction with whitelisting for the German market, we want to tap the potential of this market, which is still relatively young in Germany, and become one of the most important providers, as we are in the lottery sector

Q: There have been distinct changes to the regulatory landscape in Germany. Has this been an opportunity or rather something to adapt to for ZEAL Network?

In hardly any other market in the world are lotteries and online games as strongly regulated as in Germany, which of course puts us as a provider of online games under pressure to comply with these regulations.

But as a licensed online lottery broker, we naturally support the strict regulation of offers and providers by the state, because after all, this ensures that both customers and partners recognize us as an official provider and that we stand out from the black market.

Furthermore, we are very happy to take the opportunity to present our offering to the largely untapped market. For us it is a wonderful challenge to provide the players out there with the best possible, licensed offer of online games on the market.

Q: How are consumers responding to ZEAL Network's continuously growing product portfolio?

Thankfully, our customer base responds positively to our continuously growing portfolio, which is also reflected in the numbers we observe. This growth in numbers motivates us to put even more effort into developing new content from different genres.

We strive for a product mix of established and well-known games, which is combined with innovative and novel games, in order to offer the player something outside the mainstream.

Q: Based on the information you have collected across your divisions, what is next for ZEAL Network in 2023 and beyond?

ZEAL is always looking to expand towards new markets and further strengthen its own portfolio. In terms of the games category, we want to further expand our online games portfolio and become a well-established, innovative supplier of instant win games, scratch cards and online slots in the lottery sector.

We also continue to work hard to enter new markets and offer our games in other regulated growth markets through high-profile partnerships.

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