I (Søren) here from Casinoportalen.com
visited the Swedish software producer BossMedia back in May
2003. The purpose of
the visit was to hold a presentation regarding Danish bonus
hunters as well as take a look at what was shaking up there
in Sweden :-)
Boss Media is one of "The Big 4" producers of online casino
gambling software. Boss Media is listed on the Swedish stock
exchange; it´s largest shareholder is Mestöms AB, which currently
holds 16% of Boss Medias shares. Boss Media had a turnover
of over 114 million Swedish Crowns in 2002; most of these revenues
were derived from software licenses as well as royalties paid
from it´s licensed casinos.
I would start my journey by heading north to Grenaa in order to catch the ferry
to Varberg in Sweden. The ferry was set to sail at 14:45 on Monday, and the
weather forcasted was for rain. This not being the optimal setting for a
positive experience had me a bit concerned. My concerns were quickly put
to rest as soon as the ship began to sail from Grenaa harbor. I looked off
onto the horizon; saw what was quickly confirmed to be a clearing sky. After
a few bumps through the Kattegat Sea, I grabbed myself a cold beer and a
fat sandwich and thought "it really doesn't get much better than this".
I arrived in Varberg after a 4 hour sail. The weather was
perfect for following a computer generated map to navigate
our way through part of the Swedish countryside for the next
2 hours and 55 minutes. I were expected to arrive in Vãxjõ at
10 PM on Monday evening. Because of the wide open spaces in
Sweden, I arrived at my destination at 9 PM, even with a few
stops along the way to take some snapshots of the wonderful
nature that is Sweden
Picture
1: Campsite in Sweden
I quickly found the Theatre Park Hotel, dropped my bags in
the room and proceeded to fill my bellie with food in order
to secure a good night's sleep in anticipation for my big day
at Boss Media on Tuesday
Picture
2: Hotel Teaterparken
Picture
3: Boss Medias very discreet entrance
After climbing the stairs to the 3rd floor (even though there
was an elevator, which the active Swedes choose not to use),
we checked in at the reception desk.
Picture
4: Me at the entrance to Boss Media
Picture
5: Reception I was given a cup of coffee and readied myself for my presentation
on Danish online casino bonus hunters. My end goal was to get
the Swedish giants to accept Danes as a part of their bonus
awards programs and to learn more about the casino software
Boss Media.
I was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of people who
showed up to hear my talk. Almost every aspect of the organization
was represented. After explaining
to them my views on bonus hunting and what it means to online players in Denmark,
I began to field questions, of which their were plenty. The
clock quickly struck
11.30 and many of the participants needed to move on to other daily work tasks,
for that reason, we ended our Q&A session.
Jeanette Ström was ready to give me the grand tour of Boss
Media. Boss Media currently has a workforce of 110 employees
who work in the fields of sound, game design, web design, CRM,
Webdollar, support, marketing, sales and administration
Picture
6: Programmers
Picture
7: Slot machines
Here you can see a developer testing
a game and a mechanical toy is of a gaming machine found
throughout hotels in Scandinavia where you can surf for information
and of
course play some online casino games.
Boss Media is very advanced in the development of software
to cellular phones and hand held computers. I received a demonstration
of Gold Club Casino on a hand held which I was allowed to play
online via GRPS, just like I was would be playing on an ordinary
computer. The software ran great and I was overly impressed
with how much capability they had with regards to graphics
on such a small machine.
One thing that I have always complained about regarding the
Boss Media software was the lack of Video Poker games that
are provided by Boss Media. According to Tony Persson, Boss
Media will soon introduce 15 new games of VideoPoker and Slots,
of which I was fortunate enough to get a little taste of. I
can attest to the fact that these new games from Boss Media,
will blow you out of the water with what you will experience.
The following pictures have not yet been made public;
Picture
8: Power Poker
Picture
9: Deuces Wild Video Poker
Picture
10: Jackpot Videopoker
Picture
11: Jungle Jim Enarmad bandit
After a great lunch, I was to meet with Per Karlsson, who
is the manager of Boss Media's very own casino, Gold Club Casino.
I brought with me a host of questions from our very own Jan
of Casinoportalen.com that I was prepared to toss at Per
Picture
12: Per Karlsson
Some of my questions required a bit of assistance, at that
point Per brought in Sales manager Robert Skogh and the developer
of Boss Media's Random Number Generator Roger Jönsson
Picture
13: Roger Jönsson
Interview with Boss Media - Actual
Q&A:
Søren: Why can't Swedes play at Boss Media's casinos?
Per: Legally, there is nothing that stops Swedes from playing
at some of Boss Media's Casino's. WE at Boss Media have chosen
not to allow Swedish players access to our games simply because
we are a listed company on the Swedish stock exchange. This
is in addition to an agreement that we reached with the Swedish
gaming authority's monopoly, basically to keep us from competing
with them in Sweden.
Søren: How many Boss Media Casinos are there?
Per: I believe the number lies around 40 online casinos.
Søren: What happens to older Boss Media Casinos, which
have either 'died' or almost ceased to exist ?
Per: We generally have an agreement with a faulting casino
on how we can buy back or take over casinos and their licenses
if such problems should arise.
Søren: What's all the talk about William Hill opening
up a Boss Media casino?
Robert: It is true that William Hill has purchased a license
with us. I can't go into much detail, but we currently have
a so called API (Application Protocol Interface), which can
be described as a bridge between William Hills new Boss Media
software and their currently existing CryptoLogic Casino. This
now gives the casino manager the possibility of using a super
administrative program to overview/control both casinos. The
program is not completely finished, but we are shooting for
a finish date towards the end of summer.
Søren: How much does a Boss Media Casino cost?
Robert: Prices can vary; I will not say that we are among
the cheapest of casinos and definitely among the most expensive.
A casino can vary in cost from € 250.000 to € 500.000, all
depending on what the buyer or casino licensee wishes to provide
for its players.
Søren: What might you get for that kind of money?
Robert: A casino license, software and a website to start.
We currently have around 47 games to choose from and the basic
casino package allows the buyer to choose 10 of these games.
Søren: After paying for the software and the games,
are your buyers squared up with you?
Robert: Every month a royalty is paid to us for the use of
our software. This amount usually equates to 30%. If in addition
to this, the licensee would like for us to handle their customer
service support, an additional € 7.500 is charged each month.
On top of this 1% of the transactions is then added as a cost
to web dollar for handling financial transactions.
Søren: How do you make rnadom numbers and a fair casino
game?
Roger: It truly isn't possible for a computer to come up with
a coincidental account of numbers. A computer always calculates
its numbers based on mathematical statistics. These statistics
remain constant regardless of the complexity of the calculating
process. I have been responsible for the development of Boss
Medias Random Number Generator 'RNG', also for how one can
receive a random card at one of our casinos and for how a roulette
ball can randomly land on any given number upon any spin of
the wheel. The core to our Random number generator is simply
a little box attached to a computer via a port called an Orion
TRNG. This TRNG interfaces (wide noise), so that a Random number
generator can be read from inside the computer.
The more technically interested can read more about the process
by researching how these mechanisms work. Boss Medias RNG is
tested over billions of results that are constantly monitored
for accuracy in our 100% random results. You can follow up
your interest by looking at the following flow chart in
Picture
14: Flowchart
The day's last meeting was with Pia-Karin Åkesson and Jesper
Svensson, who work on a daily basis with the development of
Boss Medias web design for its own casinos.
After a long and interesting day, I had the opportunity to relax before going
out to dinner. At dinner, I had the opportunity to Peter Bertilsson
Picture
15: Peter Bertilsson
Peter Bertilsson is the Director of Boss Media and Krister
Bergström,
Boss Medias vice Director. Peter was an entertaining man who
previously
resided in Denmark. After speaking in English to the staff
at Boss Media throughout the day (which was truly a bit funny
since Danish and Swedish should be similar), it was nice to
relax and have a conversation with a Swede in Danish.
I had an extremely interesting day at Boss Media. They were
courteous, open and very professional, which in truth is a
contrast to many others in the industry. They were very forthcoming
with information about their organization and its structure.
Thanks for a great experience Boss Media.. Søren
Casinoportalen.com and our danish sisterwebsite Casinoportalen.dk
Good Boss Media Casinos to mention: William
Hill Casino and Casino.net
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