In the early days of the online gambling industry, Playtech was one of the original companies to get a foothold. However, what set them apart is that they were not focused on exclusively dominating a single sector. Instead, it was all about having a strong product in many different areas, including online bingo. In this article, we will not only tell you the best Playtech bingo sites to play at but also give you some background about the company and why it is so popular. 

playtech bingo sites

Compared to other software companies that started around the same time, Playtech's story has been more interesting than most. Much of this has to do with the timing of their business operations and their decisions on dealing with market changes. Here we take a look at each of the key periods of time in the development of this gambling software juggernaut.

You can't talk about this company without talking about Teddy Sagi, the original creator. His idea started in 1999 in Estonia when he wanted to bring together experts in a variety of different areas to build the best online gambling operation available, starting with casino software. This software stood out from its competitors in the early days for a few simple reasons:

• His emphasis on reporting for casino operators was never seen before and later became the gold standard for the industry.

• This information was often used to learn about bigger and better promotions and bonuses to give to players, which is something software companies weren't focused on much at the time.

• A primary focus, and a recurring theme, was giving players a style of high-quality gameplay and an overall atmosphere that had never been seen before.

These were particularly ambitious goals that led to their initial software release in late 2001. Moreover, those ambitions paid off, and they were seen as the absolute premium software provider in the casino world, particularly for new casino and bingo site start-ups. However, Playtech wasn't interested in resting on their laurels, and they quickly jumped into other types of gambling with a focus on bingo play.

It would have been easy for Playtech to coast on their casino-focused work. In fact, just a year after their release, they were responsible for establishing a brick-and-mortar casino. However, they were not content to simply take over one sector of the overall industry.

This was when they added their first Internet bingo games in 2003, only two years after their initial launch. The idea of the timing was to have sites already using their casino software to offer the bingo titles to existing players. With the incredible reputation they had built in such a short time, their bingo offering caught on very quickly.

As bingo fans might suspect, their first release was for the 75-ball style that's generally considered the most popular in modern times. However, back in 2003, it was even more disproportionately popular than now because other forms had yet to be introduced to players as much online. Funny enough, Playtech would lead this charge and create a situation where players would later have much more interest in other forms of bingo, such as the now super popular 50-ball variant, more commonly known as speed bingo.

Something else happened in 2003 that was perfect timing for the company. A man named Chris Moneymaker won the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. Because of his original story of being a "regular guy" and some other factors, we saw the beginning of what has since been called the Poker Boom.

The timing could not have been more perfect for Playtech to pivot to the online poker arena. Just a year later, they launched their iPoker network. Again, they leveraged the fact that they already had relationships with many high-end online casino operators to put their poker tables in front of thousands of players. This led to a competitive advantage that other networks couldn't compare with:

• Building a successful poker network requires having a reasonably high number of players to start with. Otherwise, it never gets off the ground.

• Because of the popularity of their recent online bingo release, operators were more than happy to make a push for their iPoker product as well.

• This led to a perfect set of circumstances for them to create one of the most popular online poker networks in a relatively short period of time.

While this poker network launched in 2004, it was one of the top few most popular in terms of pure traffic within 12 months, mimicking the success of their bingo offering. But unfortunately, this enormous success was about to run into a major roadblock.

In the United States in late 2006, a law called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed. This sudden move was politically motivated and hamstrung the larger online gambling world inside of the US, which was a massive market at the time. Playtech saw their stock drop by almost half in response in a single day, and they had to decide on which moves to make after such a devastating fall.

Just before the UIGEA passed, they had released a new online bingo product. This time, it was 90-ball bingo, and they also entered into sports betting. However, their major change in focus switched to taking over smaller companies interested in selling off after the effective loss of the US market. This would help them to recover their market share while giving them a more robust product, which had been a focus of their overall strategy since the beginning.

It didn't take long before they were in full recovery mode, being one of the only notable names to bounce back as quickly as they did. A part of this was their purchase of bingo software provider Virtue Fusion in 2010. It was clear from their 90-ball release that they were aggressively looking to increase their bingo offering, and with their change in strategy to acquisitions, this was the perfect way to do it.

Even going back to their early work in the bingo sector, it's clear that Playtech had a strong focus in a few key areas. They clearly had a vision they wanted to follow. Even though the circumstances they found themselves in changed the method of how they followed that vision (from software innovation to acquisitions), the end goals remained the same.

• A Wide Range of Bingo Styles: It was clear from early on that they were looking to release more styles of play. Since bingo types were largely regional before the online industry took over, this gave plenty of opportunities to introduce new bingo games to many players.

• The Best Interface Possible: Quality was the name of the game from their very first casino software release. Everything has always been about having a better interface than the competition for this company.

• Strong Social Components: Even going back to their original iPoker release and later to their bingo rooms, they always wanted to make it easy and intuitive for players to interact.

What's fantastic to see is how their history informed the development of their bingo offering. Each of the points that they focused on then is still things they put their time and efforts into today. That includes using acquisitions to boost their bingo product, including a purchase of ECM Systems much later in 2016

In modern times, they have one of the best bingo products on the market. This is mainly due to their focus on the above three points. So they're constantly pushing to offer players a better service.

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