Mr Gamble’s Paavo Salonen: “We Are Confident We Can Become the Number One Casino Comparison Site in the US”

Mr Gamble is in the business of affiliates where it has become successful through tireless work and a clear focus on creating consumer value. If you asked Mr Gamble’s COO and co-founder, Paavo Salonen, how the company got that far, he would give you no magic sauce formula, but rather walk you through the process.

The company faces challenges today, but it’s through those that Mr Gamble is able to forge its product, breed innovation and push for a strong product that appeals to American consumers. Now, Mr Gamble is on a mission to become the one-stop shop for your casino comparison needs in the regulated US iGaming market and it will surely get there, argues Paavo.

Q: Why did you decide to launch Mr Gamble? Where did the idea for the concept come from?

A: The idea for Mr Gamble came after many years of running an online casino comparison site on my own. I could see the potential for a truly global site, but I did not have the expertise myself to be able to pull it off. I then identified my weaknesses and the areas where I would need assistance and began reaching out to the people, I thought could help me.

With most agreeing to join me, we then set about putting a plan together for an international online casino comparison site that could compete with the biggest brands in the business. In terms of coming up with the name, we got together over a few beers and after some deliberation landed on Mr Gamble.

Q: How did you feel about entering one of the most competitive markets, the US?

The US online gambling market is indeed one of the most competitive markets out there, but I love competition and the entire team is excited by the opportunity on the table. Competition breeds innovation and we will continue to push the boundaries to ensure that our product and service offering is tailored to US players and is market leading.

Mr Gamble has become a recognized global brand in a very short period of time, and we are already competing with big multinational corporations in New Jersey where we hold a license. We have plans to apply for and secure other licenses over the coming months and look forward to growing the Mr Gamble brand across US states as and when they open up.

Q: What has been the biggest challenge faced so far and how did you overcome it?

Our biggest challenge has definitely been finding the right people to join the Mr Gamble team. We genuinely have the best team in the business but trying to find new members that match their skills and ambition hasn’t been easy. With that said, we have found some great new talent to join to our rapidly growing team in recent months.

We have sourced this talent from HR firms and head-hunters, and we have brought some of our subcontractors into our in-house team.

Q: What has been the key to your success? What have you done that sets you apart from your rivals?

I have been in the business long enough to understand what it takes to build and maintain a website. It’s challenging to maintain such a large site, especially when it comes to keeping all of the information up to date. That’s why we have focused heavily on automation since our launch to support our growth with a fairly small team.

Without going into too much into detail, we think that our main edge comes from automation, understanding casino players and the business in general, and taking advantage of different analytics tools.

Q: We can see you hold top search positions for some highly competitive keywords – how have you done this?

To be frank, we don’t know exactly how we have managed to pull this off in such a short space of time, but we have made it a priority to always provide players with what they are looking for. SEO is, of course, always in flux, but it’s nice to see that Google likes our content and website at the moment and is giving us good search positions.

We have focused on all aspects impacting SEO in equal measure, including technical details, content and links and that’s why we think Google likes us.

Q: Where do you see the biggest growth opportunities? How will you leverage them?

The US is going to become the biggest regulated online gambling market in the world. As more and more states start seeing the benefits of regulated online gambling, they will legalize the activity. Based on the growth we have experienced in other markets we are confident that Mr Gamble can take advantage of this to become the number one casino comparison site in the US.