Paddy Mann, Business Development Director at OMEGA Systems, discusses the effects of Covid-19 on their business, the advancement of their product in a compliance sense, and what we can expect from them in the next 6 months.

This might be the most common corporate question asked today but how has OMEGA adapted during this pandemic?

First and foremost, we wish everyone well during these unprecedented times. When the crisis started to take fold we decided, early on, to introduce a work from home policy. At OMEGA, we are proud of the adaptable and flexible work culture that we have cultivated. All of our Employees receive a full home office setup as part of their employment. This has served us well in the past and even more so at the present. The decision to allow our employees to work from home during the pandemic was an easy one for us and we continue to provide our usual superior service to our clients.

Has the performance of OMEGA Systems been impacted at all? How has business been in 2020?

The near global shutdown of sports events has unfortunately impacted our clients that offer and use sportsbook products, but we have seen casino revenues offset some of these losses. The recent return of events like the Premier League have seen a healthy return to profitability for our sports related clients.

During these uncertain times, it has given rise to more operators evaluating their current platforms. When OMEGA Systems was founded over 10 years ago, it was built from the ground up to support any 3^rd party system. In total, we have over 190+ providers, from games to payments to KYC, which we believe has made us even more attractive to potential customers looking to take control of their business, by having their own platform.

We have continued to add more providers and great features to support our clients during this period. The upcoming addition of our proprietary Risk Assessment tool: MARS, to our CORE Management System will greatly enhance the compliance capability of our clients, at no extra cost to them.

OMEGA Systems has continued to march forward in development, business expansion and product offerings, like it always has. We have several new go-lives in the coming months including new jurisdictions such as Hungary, Macedonia, Argentina and Columbia.

What has OMEGA done in the year so far to bolster your clients’ compliance?

We have seen increasing focus on regulatory work in the last 6 months for our clients. This includes the integration of Renaper for the Argentinian markets, Kekkh for the Hungarian market (including support for a whole new responsible gaming framework), as well as regulatory support for the Bosnian, Romanian and North Macedonian markets. Our support for more markets will continue as our clients look to expand their reach.

As mentioned earlier, our team has developed our own Risk Assessment tool: MARS, which assigns risk scores to players within our clients’ systems. We have also added more AML reporting and alerts to further compliment this tool.

This MARS tool sounds very interesting, could we get a bit more info?

MARS was created to allow operators the ability to automatically review player metrics and assign scores to player profiles based on key value pairs and extended attributes based on international standards such as FATF, Corruption Index and EU Sanctions rankings etc. At the heart of MARS is complex rules and analysis engine that automates the aggregation of player characteristics to determine risk scores.

When a player registers, a risk assessment is triggered, and a score is given based on a wide range of criteria. The rules engine updates periodically, giving an accurate picture of a player’s current risk position as well as peace of mind to operators and auditors alike.

The product also takes data from all party 3^rd party KYC providers we have integrated, as well as Social Media scores. Therefore KYC related external scoring is automatically factored in to the MARS calculated scoring for a player.

What does the next 6 months hold for OMEGA?

The next 6 months will be precarious for everyone, due to the pandemic still being an on-going issue. For us, the most important issue is the safety of our employees and their families. Beyond that, we will continue to enhance our back-office software, remaining competitive and dedicated to our clients. The addition of our new compliance tools and features will ensure that our clients have more than adequate regulatory cover. As our clients’ businesses expand and venture into new markets, we will be with them, continuing to adapt and evolve. 

We are also expanding our new location in Lisbon. We are currently recruiting addditiona team members and we will continue to grow our European development hub there, as well as maintaining our offices in Malta and Canada.