After a soft launch in November Rank Interactive Gaming Ltd. has officially embarked upon its first venture in the online gaming world.
The company's pay-for-play gaming site, www.rank.com, went live this week with little fanfare and that's the way Damian Cope likes it. Cope, the managing director of Rank Interactive Gaming, said today in a press release that the site has been designed with the user in mind.
"We have deliberately kept the site simple and easy to use," he said. "It has been developed to offer people fun, online gaming in a secure environment."
The Rank Group, owners of Mecca Bingo, Grosvenor Casinos and Hard Rock Café, was awarded an online gaming license by the Isle of Man in November and is now ready to take the site to the masses.
Cope said within the month Rank will begin a massive marketing campaign, using mainly the Internet, to reach as many new customers as possible.
The site will initial market to the 5 million Mecca Bingo members and another 700,000 registered Grosvenor Casino members. Rank officials estimates that half of these consumers have a Internet connection.
In his statement Cope said Rank views the Internet as another delivery channel for the company's entertainment product. Taking that approach means biding their time and making sure the process is done in the right manner. Cope said by coming to the Internet later than some of its competitors Rank will be able to learn from their mistakes and gain from what has worked for them.
Although the new site has both free-play and pay-to-play features, the business model will be based heavily on the pay-to-play group of consumers, Cope said.
"Rank.com finances its operations via the pay-to-play model as experience shows that the advertising model is still not yet proven for gaming sites," he explained. "We are also therefore less dependent on building huge numbers of players than other sites, yet we have the benefit of being able to leverage existing customer relationships through our sister companies Mecca Bingo, Grosvenor Casinos and Hard Rock."
It was this pre-established relationship with consumers that Rank tried to leverage during the soft launch in November. The site was promoted through the Mecca Bingo member's circle; those efforts garnered 25,000 registered users, according to company officials. Now that all the bugs have been worked out of the site though, Cope said a new multi-million-pound marketing campaign will focus on using the recognized Rank brand to achieve online success.
The company is already promoting the fact that the site claims to have the largest potential jackpot for a single game, £500,000.
Cope also pointed out that another big selling point with the site is its appeal to even the most casual of bettors.
"You can bet as little as 10 pence and win up to 10,000 stg," he said in a recent interview with AFX News. "We're confident that we can get enough customers online."
Bingo players, lottery ticket buyers and fruit machine players, according to Cope, are all potential players.
Coming to the Internet a couple of years behind some of its competitors, the company spared no expense on its site and sought the leading companies and suppliers.
The gaming software for the site was designed by Orbis, while the popular Cable & Wireless is handling the site's security and hosting demands. The Royal Bank of Scotland, Epiphany designed Rank's CRM software while Datacash was picked as the preferred payment processor.
Cope acknowledged that Rank is getting into the Internet game somewhat behind schedule, but he's confident the company's strong land-based brand will help make it a major online player in a short amount of time.
"As we move into an increasingly interactive society, Rank needs to continue delivering entertainment to its 5 million-plus offline members via every possible channel," he said. "The strength of the Rank brand together with the operation of a traditional business model will help to ensure that our online businesses help grow our existing operations."
Rank dropped £1.8 million into research and development for the site.