What is Provider Rank?

ProviderRank

Provider Rank Introduction

Provider Rank is an objective and cutting-edge ranking system developed by SlotCatalog for evaluating the popularity of casino games developers. It is based mainly on open-source data, and it is closely tied to SlotRank, which is a ranking system for actual casino games. Since different games are popular in different markets, we calculate ProviderRank separately for each market. We also recalculate Provider Rank daily after we gather all the latest data points.

The Challenges of Ranking Systems

There are hundreds of game providers that release hundreds of new casino games on a monthly basis. It’s a very competitive industry, and it has its own leaders and companies with smaller shares of the market. Even then, though, it’s often difficult to estimate the exact market share of a given developer. How far is it from its nearest competitors? And how has its market share changed over time?

Finding answers to these simple questions can be surprisingly difficult. If we’d want to be strict, we would have to look at the number of game rounds played, the number of bets, the average game sessions, etc. Such data points are not readily available, however. We could try to look at financial reports, of course. However, many developers aren’t publicly traded, and such reports are published only several times per year, which is rather unwieldy to say the least.

To get around those issues, SlotCatalog developed an exclusive approach that evaluates the popularity of games and game developers based primarily on open-source data points.

About Provider Rank

The Main idea of SlotRank and ProviderRank is to analyze the positions of the various casino games in online casino lobbies. As you can see on the heatmap below, the most clicked area is located at the top of a casino lobby. It’s only natural, then, that those casino managers put the most popular casino games there in order to attract players’ attention.

Provider Rank
ProviderRank SlotCatalog

We decided to use this observation as the main building block of our objective ranking system. It’s clear that games with higher average positions in lobbies are more popular. We therefore look at as many available casino lobbies as possible, and collect info about the positions of the various casino games.

How Do We Calculate Provider Rank?

  • Our system crawls through more than 2,000 online casinos (both desktop and mobile) from more than 50 markets on a daily basis.
  • From online casino sites, we get a list of presented games and their positions in lobbies.
  • Our automatic process then matches the names of casino games.
  • If there’s any ambiguity at all, we match the names manually.
  • As soon as the data gathering process is complete, we calculate SlotRank. Games with higher average positions in top casino lobbies receive a higher rank.
  • We then look at the SlotRanks that belong to the various game developers and calculate PRV (Provider Rank Value). Better SlotRanks naturally grant more points.
  • Game providers are then sorted according to their PRVs. The actual position of a studio on the list is its ProviderRank.

How Can You Benefit from ProviderRank?

Provider Rank is a tool that can be used by players, game developers, and even operators and casinos.

As a player, you can easily see which game developers are the most popular, exciting, and trustworthy. Even a glance at our ProviderRank list can give you a good idea of which casino games and online slots you should check first.

Game developers, meanwhile, can use ProviderRank to evaluate their market share, track their competition, and see how their ProviderRank changed after various new games came out.

Operators and online casinos can then use SlotCatalog Provider Rank to identify popularity trends and get a good idea of which games they should prioritize and integrate.

Provider Rank on SlotCatalog

There are several places where you can see Provider Rank on SlotCatalog.com. ProviderRank always comes with a market flag, which is, by default, the country you’re visiting from. If we do not have data for your particular country, we use one that’s associated with your language settings.

You can also see ProviderRank displayed on the pages of games developers (here’s Play’n Go’s page, for example: https://slotcatalog.com/en/soft/Playn-Go). It is always displayed near the studio’s logo.

ProviderRank games developers
ProviderRank on the games developers pages

If you want to check out the dynamics of changing ProviderRanks, you can visit the Casino Statistics section. There, you can see how a given ProviderRank has changed over the last 30 days.

Dynamics of changing
Dynamics of changing ProviderRanks

If you want to look at more markets, you can even simply use the countries lists that we have on game provider’s pages:

More Markets
Countries lists

If you look at our main Game Providers page, https://slotcatalog.com/en/Providers, you’ll see that we list the providers according to their Provider Rank by default.

Provider Rank by Default
List the providers

You can also check out the Providers Data section on that very page to see how Provider Ranks have changed over the last 30 days for the top 5 studios.

If you’re our DataPartner or a subscriber, you can also get access to more detailed analytical data and dashboards. Do not hesitate to contact us to get more information about data subscription and Data Partnerships.

Data Partner
Providers Data section

Important Details about ProviderRank

From time to time, we receive questions from companies that want to get a better position on our ProviderRank list. Our answer is always the same - you cannot pay us to get a better rank, and we cannot even change it in any way. It’s always up to you to release games that players want - ProviderRank only reflects how popular certain games and developers are.

Dear partners!
ProviderRank is an objective ranking system that uses objective data. We cannot adjust Provider Rank values by order, sponsorship or any other subjective reasons!

If you want to improve your ProviderRank, you can become our DataPartner and get a more detailed analysis of available data. You can also provide us with data points that we can then use to build a better ranking system (numbers of spins, data for Hot/Cold games section, information about new releases, lists of casinos where players can find your games, integrations with aggregators and platform developers - all these data points can make a positive impact on your ProviderRank). In case you become our Data Partner or Data Subscriber, we can provide you with help from our personal account manager. The account manager will provide you with technical support, ensure that your games are matched correctly, and regularly track your partner casinos.

We are always striving to improve our ranking algorithms, and we regularly publish new updates in the Guides section.

At the moment, we calculate ProviderRank for all studios independently, regardless of whether they are in an exclusivity agreement or not. In other words, the rankings of big companies like Playtech, Games Global, and Pragmatic Play do not include the rankings of studios that create content exclusively for those companies.

As for the challenges that we are still actively solving, they are:

  • Stability of casino site parsing. Changes in casino layouts regularly force us to update our crawling scripts.
  • Games matching difficulties. From time to time, we have to resort to manual games matching. That happens, for example, when casino games don’t use unique titles or have special symbols in their titles.
  • Identifying positions in casino lobbies. Different sizes of game thumbnails and different sequences of lobby visualizations can influence ProviderRank calculations.
  • Casino sections. Online casinos can have several games sections that can be seen as lobbies. In that case, we currently treat these sections as separate lobbies.

The Future of SlotCatalog Provider Rank

The SlotCatalog team is always looking for ways to improve ProviderRank. We want our algorithms to be as sophisticated and objective as possible. To that end, we want to include additional data sources, and update our algorithms in various regards.

Let’s mention some of the things we are working on:

  • New markets. At SlotCatalog, we want to give players from all around the globe accurate info about online casino games. That’s why we are currently increasing the number of scanned markets (at the moment, we are already covering more than 50 countries).
  • DataPartnerships. We are getting more studios, casinos, and platform developers on board as data partners. These partnerships can lead to significant ProviderRank improvements.
  • Using casino APIs. We are always trying to get access to casino APIs, so that we avoid all the inaccuracies that can come with crawling scripts.
  • accurate data on big holdings, aggregators, etc.

Conclusion

SlotCatalog developed Provider Rank as a tool to rank games developers according to objective criteria, which is something that remains unique to this very day. Although we aren’t alone in the business of ranking casino games and developers, our objective and data-based approach certainly stands out.

Furthermore, it is clear that ProviderRank is gaining more and more traction. For example, it was already successfully used to determine the winners of SBC SlotCatalog Awards 2022! Regardless of what your relationship with the online casino gaming industry is, you can get something out of ProviderRank!

Questions and Answers about Provider Rank (FAQ)

❔ What is Provider Rank?

ProviderRank is an objective ranking system that we use to determine the popularity of the various game developers among players. In other words, it’s something we use as a means for ranking slot developers. To that end, we use various data points, most of which are openly sourced.

❔ How can I use SlotCatalog ProviderRank?

As a player, you can use it to find the most popular games. Studios and casinos, on the other hand, can use it to get a clear picture of the market, identify various popularity trends, and see the latest developments.

❔ Where can I find ProviderRank?

You can find ProviderRank all around SlotCatalog.com. For example, you can find the current ProviderRank for a developer on its page. Be aware that, by default, you’ll see the ProviderRank value for your market or one that’s associated with your language setting.

❔ How often is ProviderRank recalculated?

We recalculate ProviderRank on a daily basis.

❔ For which markets does SlotCatalog calculate ProviderRank?

You can check the current list of covered markets in the Countries section on our Game Provider pages.

❔ How are providers sorted?

By default, we sort providers according to basic ProviderRank. You can also use various other sorting options for our provider lists, however.

❔ I represent a games provider. How can I improve the company’s ProviderRank?

We do not adjust ProviderRanks for money, sponsorships, or partnerships. You can, however, improve your company’s ProviderRank via DataPartnership. Do not hesitate to contact us and share data that can help us build a more objective picture of the online casino gaming market.

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