SPECIAL REPORT
Goodbye to TitanBet.es, germ of an entire industry and historical rival of 888

Although we cannot pretend to answer the question of why Titanbet.es closes, we consider that explaining the trajectory of this operator and analyzing its evolution since even before the start of the Spanish regulated market, its major milestones and its peculiar strategy throughout the years can help us understand this drastic decision and, incidentally, meet one of the most prominent companies in the history of internet gaming.

1. And we will do it from the following sections:
2. Approach to Titanbet.es
3. A key player in the online gaming sector
4. The rivalry with 888
5. Goodbye statement
6. Evolution and milestones achieved
7. About the Future: casino provider, future Ceuta

1- About Titanbet

Like many other companies that have led the online gaming sector, Titanbet was born from the evolution and undeniable dominance of a company that focused on software development and founded by an Israeli citizen (Teddy Sagi), manages to position itself as a provider of services that in turn decides not to give up operating in an emerging market such as online gaming in the early 2000s, almost a decade before the birth of the Titanbet brand.

With the know-how related to software, digital advertising and payment systems, the Playtech giant began to grow by also operating through licenses in jurisdictions such as Malta or Cyprus before the appearance of regulated markets.

In Spain Titanbet.es would be the operator that started in the online gaming market and aspired to be one of the strongest online gaming websites in Spain, not in vain it operated for almost 6 years in casino and poker under the Titan poker brand and It had the most powerful affiliate network and a poker network, which we will talk about later.

As we will see in the following sections, in addition to paying attention to its parent company Playtech, in our analysis of Titanbet, we will be obliged to refer to different "sister" brands such as Europartners, MarcaApuestas, Winner or Ipoker. But in any case - as we will see - we will not stray too far from the operator that is the object of our analysis.

2- A key player in the sector

Having cited Playtech serves to understand from the outset that Titanbet.es is part of a perfectly oiled machine with years of experience in the gaming industry.

After confirming itself as a leading gambling software developer capable of obtaining operator licenses and working hard to become a benchmark in the acquisition of the first hundreds of thousands of online players, Playtech made Titanbet its standard-bearer in online gaming, taking advantage of the The pull that online poker had before 2010. Later, with the boom in sports betting, it was preferred to favor the more generic brand Titanbet.es.

In any case, Titanbet is the clear example of an operator within the complex network of classic brands such as Ladbrokes Poker, Victor Chandler or Mansion Poker - under the Playtech umbrella - sometimes owned and sometimes simply as the main provider - and with a great skill in recruiting and retaining players.

3- The rivalry with 888 Holdings

The historical rivalry of Playtech and its gaming brands such as Titan and 888 moved to Spain in 2012, the year in which the regulated market began. And it is that both companies are almost identical examples in their genesis and evolution: with founders who launch their projects from software engineering and design, with clear divisions in the company in different areas: product development, marketing and of agreements with other third parties (B2B) ...

Playtech and 888, from their offices in Israel and elsewhere, would become not only the two most powerful foreign companies in the sector on the London Stock Exchange but also staunch rivals when it comes to having the best game offer and the best design.

Obviously, between the two companies we also find differences at a strategic level; for example, although both companies would have their own poker network, in the case of Playtech's (iPoker), they were much more open to expanding it through agreements with outside operators; while 888 chose to exploit its own network with its brands Pacific Poker first and 888 Poker later.

4- A cold statement to announce his goodbye to Spain

Although it is not news that was too surprising, the farewell to the Spanish market was very cold, with an email announcement that its website would be closed on September 14, the date on which Titanbet.es will no longer accept new Users and all those who have a balance in their accounts, will have the opportunity to withdraw it in the days until that date.
s


However, after that date of 09-14-2020, the money that remains in the account may also be withdrawn by express request Customer Service and requesting the effectiveness of those funds.

5 - The Evolution and Milestones of Titan

Although we have already introduced the company, giving the importance of being a Playtech brand, we are not going to delve too deeply into its relationship with the parent company or with its early years. Suffice it to say that since its inception with the success of Titan Poker, the operator supported its sister brands Titan Casino and Titan Bet and from the latter was born the great brand that has remained to this day.

In any case, as has been done in agreements such as the one we will cite with MarcaApuestas, the operator entered regulated markets such as Italy with its own brands and domains (Titanbet.it) thanks to specific agreements with local companies such as in Italy it occurred after the acquisition of the international brand Titan Poker by GiocaLive srl.

In this way, a company that has been at the top of the world game for years had no problems entering European markets with local partners, avoiding the problems that arose in the United States with the UIGE (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act).

But that strategy has led it to uneven growth and ultimately decline ... as we see in the evolution of its business in regulated markets where it does not have a license in France or Portugal or in any of the last open markets in Europe. To that is added and the goodbye in Italy and also its forced departure from the United Kingdom where the agreement with PT Entertainment Services (PTES) -a company also owned by Playtech- that served to manage the Titanbet and Winner brands, blew up this In the same year, the prestige of so many years in the sector, after confirming that norms related to the protection of its players were being breached.

We would also like to remind you - since we have talked about affiliation - that part of the success in the expansion of TitanBet is due to the Europartners brand; an affiliate platform owned by Playtech that, operating in 15 languages and with 70,000 members, has been able to achieve millions of registrations through all possible acquisition strategies in brands such as Titan: positioning in google with Europa Casino, Casino Tropez; or through product development and improvement focusing on poker and online casino like Titan Casino.

Titan Bet was born as a betting house service and was one of the first operators to integrate the products in the same caashier, something only available to a global operator with the support of Playtech. In this way, since 2011 TitanPoker players could with the same username and password bet on sports at Titanbet or play at Titan Casino.

Also note that Titan Poker was a pioneer in online poker, being present since its inception in Spain even before the regulation, creating a perfect revshare system for its growth in forums and poker schools, forming a professional team with sponsored players such as Raúl Páez or being a leader in growth by affiliation.

For this reason, after the start of the regulated market in 2012, it was a big blow to give up the poker product, which stopped offering the first exchangers due to the low volume of traffic achieved by the iPoker network, than with operators such as Betfair. es or Bet365.es barely kept 5% of a market that PokerStars.es and 888.es dominated in the first months of legal gambling in our country.

Now without online poker, and focused on offering the constant launches of Playtech at the level of online casino games and slots, the priority was to have a decent sports betting offer, capable of attracting a more than remarkable user base with the that Titanbet.es had.

Thus, in order to reinforce this objective and consolidate itself as an operator with potential in Spain, Titanbet.es signed an agreement with Sevilla FC in 2016 whereby the Andalusian club made the operator its main sponsor; trying to repeat the successes that the Seville team experienced with their stage promoting 888.com.


Former footballer Morientes was also hired as a brand ambassador and for two years, first Sevilla CF and then the former Real Madrid striker occupied a large part of the promotional space of Titanbet.es both on their website and in the different advertising channels.

However, Playtech's attempt to position its brand Titanbet.es among the elite of operators in the Spanish market would not last long. And it is that in 2017, the colossus of online gambling reached an agreement with Unidad Editorial so that under a long-term agreement, the Marca.com bookmaker would become the great bulwark for the Spanish market.

Since then, MARCAapuestas.es, became the priority platform for Playtech, which considered that a communication giant with massive recognition, should not only be Playtech's "betting house" but also the place to try to convert sports bettors in casino players.

- An uncertain future but supported by Ceuta

We have already seen the global trajectory and the particular case of the Titanbet adventure in Spain. And now, by inferring what awaits the operator in the short and medium term -after its departures from the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain- we could practically assure that after ceasing to be an online poker colossus and a key operator for the global growth of Playetch, expectations are not very encouraging.

The poor management and irreparable damage caused to the brand in the United Kingdom and its disappearance from regulated markets, makes Titanbet a brand adrift that we rule out may undergo a "rebranding" process like the one that occurred a decade ago when Titan Poker switched to TitanBet ...

With the limitations in terms of advertising, the weight of Responsible Gaming and with a parent company -Playtech- much more focused on its role as a developer, it seems that its recent installation in Ceuta will serve to precisely boost developer licenses and choose to be a platform that counts before any other with the latest news from the Playtech factory, especially as regards slots and Live Casino.