Key to Mr Green’s ascent in recent years has been the intrinsic alliance between its technology and business arms, according to tech CEO Mattias Wedar and operations CEO Jesper Kärrbrink. But how is the 10-yearold operator tackling the inevitable tech complexities associated with M&A alongside constantly striving to innovate and enhance the overall UX?

1. 14
Cover feature
Mr Green
Brothers
inarms
Key to Mr Green’s ascent in recent
years has been the intrinsic alliance
between its technology and business
arms, according to tech CEO Mattias
Wedar and operations CEO Jesper
Kärrbrink. But how is the 10-year-
old operator tackling the inevitable
tech complexities associated with
M&A alongside constantly striving to
innovate and enhance the overall UX?
Words | Nicole Macedo
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2. / 15
Cover feature
Mr Green
In the last decade, the gambling indus-
try has become increasingly packed with
smart, agile, brand-focused operators
that have challenged the egaming be-
hemoths in their endeavours to seize
market share. And technology has played
a major role in this evolution. The start-
up mentality of many of these operators
has been a breath of fresh air and, with-
out doubt, brought about a healthy dose
of competition.
Although now a well-established, medi-
um-sized operator, Mr Green penetrated
the industry back in 2008 with this exact
start-up mentality. Since having matured
into an operation of almost 300 employ-
ees with offices in multiple locations,
technology has continued to drive the
business’ growth.
But with growth comes the inevitable
reconsideration of long-term business
strategies. According to Mattias Wedar,
CEO of the business’ tech subsidiary, Mr
Green & Co Technology, it is crucial for
the tech side of the business to work in
conjunction with the core business to
support its long-term vision.
“We do this together,” Wedar says
of the two main arms of the business.
“We don’t see this as either tech or the
business side. Business growth cannot
happen without tech, and tech cannot
grow without the core business require-
ments, so it’s a joint effort [that is] hard
to separate.”
The main task for Mr Green & Co
Technology is to develop according to the
business plan set out by the operational
organisation in Malta. “It’s about deliver-
ing on our ambitious growth plans and,
at the same time, ensure we keep our
platforms and architecture up to date in
terms of modern technology [in the] long
term. So, we don’t only focus on the task
at hand but also on the bigger picture,”
Wedar adds.
His role is to lead the Stockholm-
based tech subsidiary and coordinate the
group’s overarching technology strate-
gy by heading up a 60-plus team that will
imminently be moving into one of the
city’s renowned innovation hubs, dubbed
‘Epicenter Stockholm’.
Integration determination
As Mr Green eclipses its targeted growth
each year and participates in further
M&A, the operator is in the process of
developing a group-wide integration
strategy to avoid the inevitable revenue
losses of platform migration. It’s a rela-
tively new consideration for the Malta-
headquartered firm and one Wedar is pri-
oritising over other tech concerns. “The
idea is to have one common front-end
platform, one middleware, and one set
of suppliers, but it’s going to take time to
get there.”
At present, the operator’s casino site
sits on the NYX platform, while its sports-
book is powered by Kambi. However, the
recently acquired Evoke Gaming’s brands
" S t a r t
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3. 16
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Mr Green
are powered by SBTech and a different
version of the NYX casino platform. So,
Wedar’s next move is to shift all brands
to the same third-party systems and re-
develop Mr Green’s unique middleware
and front-end platforms to suit its multi-
brand strategy.
Wedar explains: “What we’re doing
now is picking the low-hanging fruit on
the supplier and technology sides that
we will integrate and build a joint, multi-
brand and multi-jurisdiction platform.
And this will cover all areas from front-
end to back-end and down to infrastruc-
ture.” Yet with this seismic shift comes
concerns of latency and downtime associ-
ated with complex multiple platform mi-
grations. And, more often than not, these
are a drain on resources and hinder busi-
ness development.
Crucial to avoiding these setbacks is
being smart and agile, but with Wedar’s
background in developing Sweden’s
leading online yellow pages, he is con-
fident he can work with the operator’s
third-party providers to avoid slowing Mr
Green’s fast-paced plans for expansion.
“If you become a master of integration
you have, in a way, mastered this indus-
try,” Kärrbrink comments. “Of course, we
should not work with multiple suppliers
for the same kind of basic functionality.”
It’s clear that the duo is very much on
the same wavelength and are somewhat
of a tangible representation of the close
coalition Mr Green’s business and tech-
nology divisions share. “We are build-
ing a blueprint for future M&A,” Wedar
says. “It might be more cost efficient to
let Mr Green and Redbet [acquired via the
€7m purchase of parent company Evoke
Gaming] run on their individual set-ups
for quite some time, but with larger ac-
quisitions it doesn’t make sense to have
two infrastructure providers as well as
two front-ends and back-ends.”
The Evoke Gaming acquisition, which
was completed just a few weeks ago,
could prove a turning point for the op-
erator as it continues to mature and ap-
proach customers from a new angle.
And although Evoke and its subse-
quent brands represent a different audi-
ence from Mr Green, the executive team
admits it discovered a host of synergies
between the two operations, which led
them to consider this new approach to
hosting all brands on one platform.
“Combining all this well will improve
our overall technology once the integra-
tion is finalised. The turnaround should
take around a year, and the plan right
now looks very promising,” Kärrbrink
adds. As ever, the industry dispute over
legacy technology versus picking and
choosing third-party solutions continues.
And Kärrbrink, whose career in the in-
dustry traces back to Sweden’s monopoly
operator, Svenska Spel, believes that the
sector is far too complex to not work with
providers.
“The demand from customers is too
high,” he says. The operator differenti-
ates its offering by hosting its own mid-
dleware layers and overhauling the front-
end of each of it products. “From the
business side, we have 100% control of
what we offer to the customers,” he con-
tinues. Multiple releases are carried out
on the operator’s middle layers each day,
and Wedar insists it is much more effi-
cient for a gambling firm to own its own
middleware and front-end. Kärrbrink
interjects: “We use NYX as our account
platform and on top we build numerous
layers of middleware where we interact
with our customers.
“Everything the customer sees is
our own technology, and this is under
constant development. You find simi-
lar setups with most operators. What
we have really focused on is innovating
around our products, like Green Gaming,
our sportsbook with its totally new
front-end, and our new live casino – Live
Beyond Live.”
Going green
The operator’s Green Gaming technol-
ogy has sought out to tackle egaming’s
new-found necessity for more stringent
social compliance by combining psy-
chological analysis with a unique algo-
rithm developed by partnering with tech
firm Sustainable Interaction. Mr Green’s
in-house tech team integrated the pro-
gramme into the operator’s middleware
platform and its centrally located da-
ta-powered event hub which records all
individual events and transactions car-
ried out by players in real-time.
Wedar says the biggest challenge with
building this model was the constant pro-
cessing of data in order to create a per-
After first releasing its Kambi-pow-
ered sportsbook product in 2016, the
operator rolled out an overhauled
version of the site in September
2017, including new features devel-
oped in partnership with betting ana-
lytics software provider BetterLogic.
“When it comes to our product, we
are using data and our Bet Assist to
push game information to the play-
er,” Kärrbrink tells EGR Technology.
The Bet Assist prompt aims to guide
customers to “smarter bets”. Another
unique feature to appeal to recre-
ational punters is Combi Spin Football,
which allows users to set the odds
they want to bet at and then ‘spin’ to
find matching games.
“We have built products where you
set a preferred odds level and spin up
a combo of games offered within your
set range so you don’t have to search
through hundreds of bets to find a
combination fitting your preferred
odds level,” Kärrbrink clarifies. The
revamped product was initially aimed
at improving customer acquisition
by becoming more attractive to the
sportsbook affiliate market. The op-
erator recently hired former Betsson
and Wetten executive Jeff Tabone to
lead its online sportsbook division.
Youbetcha
Mr Green CEO Jesper Kärrbrink
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4. / 17
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Mr Green
sonal profile for each player that opted
into the programme. The tech team built
a mechanism within its event hub spe-
cifically for Green Gaming data. “We had
this mechanism in our event hub which
is our central repository for all the activ-
ities that happen on our platform. The
Green Gaming predictive tool applies the
external algorithm on top of this data and
presents individual player profiles with
risk levels,” he says.
Both chief executives are sure that data
is the key to further improving the UX
and offer users a more personalised gam-
bling experience, as well as in the evo-
lution of Green Gaming. If a player opts
into Green Gaming they will have an ini-
tial self-assessment test carried out to
gauge their risk behaviour. From there,
the technology will analyse a player’s
time and money spent, and any minute
changes in behaviour to determine their
overall risk level.
Kärrbrink says: “The second step starts
measuring every spin and every action
you do on the site. We have a risk scale
from zero to 100 and the higher up you
are on that scale, the higher the risk of
becoming a problematic gambler. Based
on where you are on this scale, we push
individual recommendations within a
range of different activities like setting a
limit, taking a break or self-excluding, or
even contacting someone who can sup-
port you.”
It is interesting to note how far the in-
dustry has come as the majority of op-
erators now process data in real-time, a
marvel which Kärrbrink points out was
not the case during his time at Svenska
Spel, as when he started in 2004 the mo-
nopoly operator (among others) was pro-
cessing data in six-month blocks.
Presently the Green Gaming analyses
are based on rolling two-week player data
that updates risk levels continuously. But
the next step, according to Kärrbrink, is
to process predictive data before a player
susta inabil ity
Social responsibility
Behavioural specialists
Sustainable Interaction
developed the unique
algorithm used by
Green Gaming. The
firm offers services and
digital products such
as online training and
web-based, self-help
programmes.
Mr Green launched its Green Gaming problem
gambling detection tool in September
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5. 18
Cover feature
Mr Green
even makes their first move. He turns
to Netflix as the prime example of AI
and machine learning-based technolo-
gy being used to predict what a customer
would want to watch next. He firmly be-
lieves this is where the industry will head
in the near future.
“I think AI and machine learning solu-
tions will be key going forward in terms
of KYC, training CRM, optimising cus-
tomer support and further improving
Green Gaming to be much more person-
alised. The next step for our industry is
to be much more personal and relevant
through laser-sharp predictions based on
historical behaviour.”
Centre of the tech universe
The operator’s new office space at
Epicenter has been home to some of the
biggest hitters on Stockholm’s prolific
tech scene, including Spotify. And Wedar
is positive that the team’s new home will
result in some interesting new partner-
ships with like-minded techies. “The idea
for Epicenter is to host small-to-mid-
sized companies with a proven business
model in a co-location workspace.
“It’s going to be a great, modern,
open-landscape environment where we
will be able to continue delivering new
thrilling products for our players. At the
same time, we get the chance to meet and
work with other innovative, technolo-
gy-driven companies and potentially find
new exciting partnerships.”
Wedar also looks to the new space to
aid the operator’s recruitment efforts.
Kärrbrink and Wedar have both worked
for Swedish search engine Eniro in the
past and are quick to relay how diffi-
cult it is to recruit engineering staff in
the tech-savvy city of Stockholm. “In
Stockholm there is high competition for
skilled engineers and then you have the
likes of Spotify, King and the larger cor-
porations eyeing a digital agenda,” Wedar
explains.
n e w d i g s
Epicenter
Mr Green’s technology
subsidiary will move
into its new office in the
heart of the Swedish
capital’s innovation
hub, known as
‘Epicenter Stockholm’.
The firm will fill what
used to be Spotify’s old
office.
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6. / 19
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Mr Green
“We invested quite substantially in our
leadership programme last year and con-
tinue to do so; we have 40 middle-man-
agers on the programme at the moment.
Green Gaming is also an important part
of recruitment because the industry is
stigmatised, especially if you come from
outside.”
For those who do enter egaming from
the outside world of technology, Wedar
claims there are few other industries that
allow you to work on as many unique
projects in such a fast-paced environment
as online gambling. The operator’s niche,
Kärrbrink says, is its keen focus on UX
and a well-loved brand that endeavours
to offer a much broader entertainment
value to players than any of its counter-
parts.
It is in the process of recruitment
that the operator’s brand-first approach
plays a key role in sourcing new tech
talent. “It’s very strong – and it has to
be [in order] to attract the best talent,”
Kärrbrink says. “One of our main corner-
stones is to have a superior user experi-
ence and that comes from the tech team
in Stockholm being able to redevelop
the product that the business thinks will
drive innovation.”
The operator’s overarching prod-
uct-orientated drive is maintained across
the board to ensure this focus on UX is
upheld. With this in mind, the company
is split into cross teams and given spe-
cific objectives and KPIs to encourage
growth.
Wedar says this methodology will ben-
efit Mr Green in many ways, including
speeding up time to market, encouraging
empowerment and traction, and getting
the right stuff out at the right time. “We
believe the teams are the ones best suited
to make these calls,” Kärrbink adds.
“The key is we give them the full man-
date to deliver on their KPIs and we stop
interfering in their projects. I think this
has created a much stronger feeling of
belonging and it has also improved the
relationship between the Malta and
Stockholm offices.”
Ball’s in their court
Having launched its flagship sportsbook
back in 2016, the firm took a shot in the
dark with its Kambi-powered product,
not knowing whether the offering could
compete with the incumbent sports bet-
ting giants. The UX is very similar to that
of its casino site, offering customers an
entertainment-driven experience and a
unique ‘bet assist’ feature to give novice
punters a nudge in the right direction.
Furthermore, the majority of Mr Green
bettors are cross-sold from its casino site.
And Kärrbrink says the operator has de-
liberately sought to make its offering
similar to a casino in order to make its
users feel welcome. Elsewhere, the prod-
uct feeds punters 15,000 communication
snippets a week on a wide range of mar-
kets and matches. “We are aiming for the
recreational player,” Kärrbrink confirms.
Kärrbrink is also quick to dispel the
wider industry’s suggestion that sports
betting technology is lacking innovation.
Instead, he blames operators for not le-
veraging the extensive host of features
offered to them by their sportsbook sup-
pliers.
“Sportsbook providers are innovating
quite well,” he notes. “It’s often at an op-
erator level that innovation is low in this
case. I went to ICE and when you walked
around the sportsbook providers there
was a lot of innovation around their prod-
ucts. From one match, they have created
hundreds of markets during that 90 min-
utes.”
But plans are in motion to start target-
ing more hard-core punters via its fresh-
ly acquired RedBet site. “Redbet will
look a bit different,” he says. “Mr Green
is continuing to focus on the recreation-
al player, while Red Bet will be targeting
a more hard-core sportsbook fan base.
Integrating Redbet into the Mr Green or-
ganisation will, of course, take a lot of
our focus this year. We will also introduce
Green Gaming for sportsbook, becoming
the first operator offering a risk assess-
ment to sportsbook punters.”
As with any marriage, the one between
Mr Green’s tech and operational arms
must be constantly nurtured, with com-
munication key to its success. But as the
operator looks ahead to developing its
multi-brand portfolio and acquires more
firms, the vision for its underlying tech-
nology may change, however its key pri-
orities will not. Social responsibility, con-
tinuing to build on its brand and creating
a top-notch user experience are always at
the top of the agenda.
To accommodate the newly acquired
75 staff members that came with the
Evoke acquisition, Mr Green expand-
ed its Malta HQ into two new office
floors in February. Communications
director Rikard Rinaldo says the
expansion will help the firm develop
its multi-brand strategy following the
acquisition of Evoke Gaming.
“Integrating multiple brands into a
former single-brand organisation has
required changes to be made both
within the organisation and to the
workplace to accommodate the new
teams.” Rinaldo also outlined plans to
expand into additional office space at
the end of H1 in order to house all of
Mr Green’s Malta-based staff under
one roof.
Commenting on the move, CEO
Jesper Kärrbrink says: “We want to
inspire and motivate our teams in and
outside the workplace. Therefore it
was important to offer a modern work-
place with a lot of rooms for creativity."
Gainingnew
ground
"One of our main
cornerstones
is to have a
superior user
experience and
that comes from
the tech team in
Stockholm"
Jesper Kärrbrink
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