{"id":3333,"date":"2013-08-26T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slategray-wallaby-310340.hostingersite.com\/index.php\/2013\/08\/26\/exclusive-an-interview-with-guts-casino-ceo-robin-reed\/"},"modified":"2013-08-26T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T05:00:00","slug":"exclusive-an-interview-with-guts-casino-ceo-robin-reed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casino-online-best.com\/index.php\/2013\/08\/26\/exclusive-an-interview-with-guts-casino-ceo-robin-reed\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: An interview with Guts Casino CEO Robin Reed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the world of online gaming it doesn\u2019t happen too often that you get a chance to interview a CEO. Norwegian born Robin Reed holds the keys to the Guts Casino headquarters in Malta, and he was kind enough to free up some time for us. Let\u2019s start off with a little introduction to what Guts Casino exactly is, as there is a good chance you are not familiar with them just yet.<\/p>\n

The number one online casino discussion forum, Casinomeister<\/a>, gives Guts Casino a nine out of 10 rating, and that while the company only launched back in May of this year. Casinomeister bases their ranking on all the things customers care about, like software and cash out time. Guts, for instance, ranks higher than other top-notch sites as Betsafe and Betsson (8\/10), Ladbrokes (8.9\/10) and just as high as Bet365.<\/p>\n

Reed started Guts from scratch after he was successful with the Norwegian poker website Donkr.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout a year and a half ago there were a few guys who had been involved in a lot of businesses together who saw an opportunity. We see business as something where you\u2019re contributing to making someone\u2019s life better. We thought that the online casino industry was a bit underdeveloped, so we were sure we could do better for the players. As time progressed more people that we knew could contribute, with the same amount of integrity and vision, became available and we decided to put the shovel into the ground and get the show on the road,\u201d Reed said about the founding days of Guts casino.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn September 2012 we decided to do this and go full throttle as an online casino operator. We started building the product and spent months working on it. In May 2013 we felt like we were finally ready with something that deserved the attention of the customers and went live,\u201d Reed said about the road to Guts going live in May 2013.<\/p>\n

Starting an online casino is not a decision to take lightly, and Reed explains how the financial commitment is not something to understate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot stress enough that if you do decide to start an online casino, and you\u2019re going to do it properly, you do need a substantial amount of cash. You want to make sure that if someone comes in and wins big you\u2019re able to pay out instantly. In our group of people there were many who started successful businesses before like Donkr.com, for instance. We invested our money, got an angel investor on board and we closed a series A funding. By the time we came to the commercial launch the company was very well funded,\u201d Reed said underlining the outstanding financial situation Guts is in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of people who want to start a casino these days. They start white labels and think it\u2019s not going to be that much of a commitment. It is though, and it\u2019s very important that you have enough money to start with,\u201d Reed added.<\/p>\n

In times where not every poker room is doing too well, casinos seem to be in a much better spot. Starting something new in a business with giants such as Unibet, Bet365 and 888 casino is still a huge challenge, and Reed explains why he thinks Guts has a chance at succeeding.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about going back to the roots, and why we started Guts. It\u2019s really important to look at not only at what your product is, but also at what your value propositions are. It\u2019s mostly what your company is all about, and when we started Guts it was because we thought of a casino as something that should be a hassle free entertainment destination. When you go back to the early days of Las Vegas it was a bit rogue, but it cleaned up and reached a wider demographic. It became much more a people and customer anted business. We saw a similar thing happening online. A lot of companies that started online casinos in the early days, they did things different than what we would perceive as top notch. When you talk about how we get customers, we established a whole range of best practices with our casino we felt should be the industry standard. We saw that those were not the industry standard. We know that there are companies that do things well, but all over we thought that there were enough areas where we could improve and I think that gives us the right to live,\u201d Reed said with a passion for his casino.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we went live, we were immediately published on Casinomeister, the biggest casino forum. A user saw that we went live and on the forum they started discussing our policies. It immediately caught a lot of traction and interest. We were at the top of the forum for weeks, as the thread about us kept growing. We entered the Baptism by Fire<\/a> on Casinomeister within a couple of weeks after we launched, and that\u2019s when you\u2019re basically \u2018under the gun\u2019 for a couple of months so people can evaluate your casino. If all goes well you will get placed on their accredited list, and the fastest you can do that is in two months,\u201d Reed said about the biggest casino website picking up on their favorable policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made it within two months, and if we\u2019re not the fastest to get accredited we were definitely one of them,\u201d Reed proudly added as they are now on the accredited list<\/a> at Casinomeister.<\/p>\n

\"Guts\"The Guts Casino Facebook cover photo<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of affiliated traffic from website portals that thought it was a safe and good destination, so from there it grew organically. We had anticipated something like 15 to 20% of our traffic to come from word of mouth, from random people who have heard about it from others. I think it all comes down to what your business is about, what your vision is, where you come from and what you want to do. If people share that vision, and you get some early adopters on board whom like you, then the rest will follow,\u201d Reed said confidently.<\/p>\n

Word of mouth only grows if a website or online casino really stands out in the crowd, and Reed thinks his website does just this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really important that you build something for the players, the customers. If you do that well I think you should be able to make money. One of the aspects that make us one of the best companies out there is the speed of Guts casino cash outs and deposits. Cash outs in particular, because there are a lot of casinos that have this practice from back in the day where you can easily get your money in, but it\u2019s much harder to get it out. Things like sending in all your documents should be an easy process, but it not always is. What happens in other casinos is that they will stall your cash out with a big reversal button showing in the cashier. This makes it so that you, at any point, can cancel the withdrawal so you can continue to play. That\u2019s obviously something they hope that you do so you lose it all back. We actually want to celebrate winners, and people who win in our casino should be able to get their money out as fast as humanly possible. This way people will be happy with our service and advocate the win, and the service to other people. We have the ambition to process cash outs within two hours, so that the customer cannot even change his mind about it,\u201d the Guts CEO said about the unprecedented cash out speed of his online casino.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are operation with a EU license provided by the LGA in Malta. By LGA requirement you have to verify your player so that nobody can abuse a credit card. That\u2019s what they call the \u2018know your customer\u2019 routine, a process where the person proves that he\u2019s cashing the money out to the same source it was deposited from. We are doing this as well to avoid fraud, but I think it\u2019s important to stress that this procedure should come as early as possible. When you\u2019re registering with Guts Casino, we are trying to get you to send in these documents right away. When the cash out actually happens, we then don\u2019t have to ask you for any documents, we can just send the money right away. Most other casinos will wait until you want your money until they start this process, which can be quite frustrating,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n

Like every other casino Guts also has some interesting bonuses. Guts wouldn\u2019t be Guts if they didn\u2019t decide to take a slightly different approach to things.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a Guts casino deposit bonus <\/strong>your money is free. If you deposit \u20ac100, we give you another \u20ac100, but it would be abuse if you were to cash that out immediately. For as long as you are playing with the deposit bonus on Guts casino, you need to clear it before you can cash it out. You can obviously cash out your own deposited money at any time,\u201d Reed said about the Guts casino deposit bonus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see a lot of casinos offer huge bonuses, but we offer a more balanced starter package. We split up the deposit bonus Guts casino into different parts, because we\u2019ve noticed that a lot of players don\u2019t want to deposit a huge amount of money all at once. Our welcome package is split up into three bonuses, and they are as following. For the first \u20ac100 you deposit you get a 100% bonus and 50 free spins on Guts casino. For the second \u20ac100 you deposit you get a 50% bonus, and for the third you get another 100% bonus with 50 free spins. We feel that this is the perfect way to try out our casino, and we\u2019re not looking at changing it at all,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n

About free spins Reed decided to add a little something, as his online casino does things a little different when it comes to free spins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that free spins are a misleading marketing term for many online casinos. You get those free spins to play with, but you cannot cash out after you win with those. You are subject to wagering requirements most of the times, and that\u2019s fair enough when you have deposited money and you\u2019re playing for your bonus. The free spins however should be free, that\u2019s what the name says. What we are doing different with the Guts casino free spins <\/strong>is that you can cash out the money you\u2019ve won right away. The money is credited to your real money wallet. When people get treated honest in the first place they will come back for more, and that\u2019s something we\u2019ve noticed,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n

In the past there have been many discussions about bonus abuse, or bonus whoring as some might call it. Reed gives us his very clear vision on this problem; that\u2019s not a problem to him at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe discussion on bonus whoring is a bit weird to me, because why would you be that suspect towards your own customers with something like bonus abuse, something you don\u2019t see that often? Secondly, you really have to look at what bonus abuse is. If somebody is playing within your terms, and they are able to beat your casino with the bonuses, then it\u2019s certainly not bonus abuse. Bonus abuse is only the case when somebody is creating multiple accounts, or violating the T&C in other ways. We don\u2019t have problems with it, and much of that is due to the extensive work we do in the background. It\u2019s an area we\u2019re putting a lot of work into, because most people don\u2019t abuse the casino in any way. They are just taking advantage of your offer, and they should never feel the problems that are arising from the players that are being dishonest. And then we\u2019re talking about a very small amount of players. We are doing an extensive job in the background, we have our own in-house support, payment and fraud team, a development team for the algorithms and we are looking for all kinds of patterns in people\u2019s play. In the end, it doesn\u2019t violate any players, but it makes sure we pick up on problem players before we get any problems,\u201d Reed stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith online casino deposit bonuses it\u2019s all about the casino terms. If you\u2019re offering a bonus that can be cleared with blackjack, then as a casino you\u2019re just going to have to deal with that. I would be surprised if our bonuses were subject to abuse, and I think our bonuses offer players something more to play with from the start,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n