With my consultancy hat on, I’ve done plenty of mystery shopping/undercover casino visits. What you’re looking for is sometimes obvious (step forward, comedically lazy F&B attendant in a Scottish casino reading a book behind the bar and ignoring all the slots players) and sometimes subtle (one of the stereo speakers being out of order on a Novomatic slot machine). 

Anyone can have a walk round with a mental clipboard and tick off the obvious service elements that could be better, but it takes a little more specialist knowledge to understand the details that really make a difference to the customer. And what about online casinos and sports betting sites? Again, anyone can see howling UX failures, but there’s a more subtle layer of insight, as well as massive regional variations in what works and what doesn’t. 

That’s where crowd testing comes in – I spoke with Kyle Wiltshire, CEO of Testa, to find out more. 

Kyle, can you give us an overview of what Testa is all about? 

Testa is a crowd-testing company specifically for the online gambling industry. We have over 1,000 qualified testers in over 100 countries around the globe who can test gambling websites, game and applications. Our network of testers do traditional Q&A + UAT testing looking for bugs and defects. They also test performance and quality on real world devices and internet connections. They can test payment channels, KYC and promotions and even give feedback on UX or local language translations. The idea is to let our customers see their products through the eyes of the end user.  

What gave you the idea? 

I run another company which does technical consulting, mostly for gaming clients. Its primary focus is on uptime and performance of complex software. Think Live Dealer or modern slots. 

We’ve always done some form of crowd testing to validate the projects we work on, getting real users to test things before and after various software and infrastructure improvements. As projects wrapped up or entered a maintenance mode, we received more requests to test in different markets. “Wow, we liked those five testers you used in the Philippines, could you do something similar in Brazil?” 

Eventually, we learned a bit more about the crowd testing industry and had the “lightbulb moment” to launch Testa in 2023. 

What are the more subtle elements that crowd testing picks up better than a single specialist? 

So many. When we use any software, we bring certain biases with us. This includes the engineers, the product people and so on. They are limited by locations, by real devices to test with, often simulating results on different screens and operating systems. They are not using a local internet connection. They may not even speak the language of the target market. 

Using crowd testing lets you see things “on the ground.”  Sometimes the most basic things that can improve a brands image or help conversion and retention. One operator in Brazil was using bónus in their copy instead of bônus. A simple insight for a local tester. Impossible for anybody operating outside the market. 

When we compare the examples above with competitors in the market, suddenly all this information has context. If I tell you it took two mins and 20 seconds to register a new user, well that’s useful but the information stands alone. If I tell you your competitor did it in half the time with half the steps and is bound by the same regulations, you would probably want to dig a little deeper wouldn’t you?

Where do you aim to be with Testa in five years? 

We want Testa to be a no-brainer for any operator or provider in our industry. One of those easy decisions where the investment is recouped quickly and the value is obvious. 

Crowd testing is a fairly new tool and we’re focusing on this industry specifically – so we’ve got work to do in terms of building a reputation and educating the market on the benefits of having real people on the ground around the globe. So, for the immediate future, we’re focused on building the best network of testers and the longest list of happy clients that we can.