Tech & innovation Archives

December 20, 2022

South Africa in focus: Can product be a selling point?

In the third part of a series taking an in-depth look at the South African gambling market, Daniel O’Boyle looks at the standard of product in the market.

In almost every part of the world, the online betting experience has been heavily shaped by what retail betting looked like. So to understand the online betting experience in South Africa, you have to know something about retail betting in South Africa.

“I’ve traveled the world and seen betting shops around the world but I don’t think I’ve ever seen betting shops of the size I’ve seen in South Africa,” Kiron Interactive chief executive Stephen Spartinos says. “You’ve got betting shops of the size of a Wal-Mart and you’ve got 100 cashiers.

“You walk into these shops and you talk about two, three floors. At any time you could have 2,000-3,000 punters in your shop.”

But it’s not simply the size that makes South African betting shops stand out. Betting shops in the country are able to be so large partly because the betting experience..

November 30, 2022

CDI to develop DraftKings horse racing offering

Race track and gaming business Churchill Downs Incorporated (CDI) has entered into a multi-year agreement with DraftKings to develop DK Horse, a pari-mutuel wagering horse racing product for the sports betting operator.

CDI’s B2B horse racing subsidiary TwinSpires will develop the white-label solution. This will involve providing the company’s advanced deposit wagering technology to DraftKings.

While TwinSpires initially started life as CDI’s B2C online betting and casino platform, the business pivoted to being a B2B provider after facing intense market competition in 2021.

Under the terms of the deal, CDI will also provide the pari-mutuel wagering rights to content that the business owns or controls, such as the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby. CDI will also provide additional horse racing content on the operator’s behalf.

“We are excited to collaborate with Churchill Downs Incorporated, not only to give our existing customers an opportunity to engage with pari-mutuel horse wa..

November 30, 2022

Metric partners Racebook HQ for trading services

Sports betting supplier Metric Gaming has partnered with Racebook HQ to offer managed trading services to horse racing operators.

Through the partnership, Racebook HQ will use automated decision makers to offer pricing “on products that are notoriously difficult to trade” across horse racing, greyhound racing and trotting.

“We are extremely excited to announce this partnership and could not have found a better partner in Metric Gaming,” Racebook HQ chief executive Sam Ford said. “Technology is at the core of what we do at Racebook HQ, and Metric Gaming clearly hold the same aspirations to create premium products and services for the global betting and gaming industry.”

Metric Gaming and Racebook HQ: similar outlook

Metric Gaming CEO Keith Hayes said that Metric and Racebook – which is backed by professional racing bettor Zeljko Ranogajec – shared a similar outlook on the global betting landscape.

“RBHQ is the dominant racing provider globally and from our very first conversations,..

November 16, 2022

Sportradar raises guidance after US segment turns Q3 profit

Sportradar raised its full-year guidance after it reported a 30.7% revenue increase to €178.8m and said its US segment turned a profit in Q3.

Sportradar reported that revenue from the United States was up by 61.2% to €31.6m.

“This growth was driven by a strong increase of US betting services, driven by cross-selling non-data products to betting operators as well as benefiting from our customers’ growth as a result of a development in the underlying market and new states legalising betting,” the group said.

Rest-of-world betting services was the largest segment of the business, with revenue up 28.4% from Q3 of 2021.

This, Sportradar said, was mostly due to clients using more products in which Sportradar receives a higher revenue share, such as as managed betting services.

“This growth was driven primarily by increased sales of our higher value-add offerings including managed betting services, which increased 84% to €38.2 million, and live odds services, which increased 12% to €27..

November 15, 2022

Peru igaming regulations ban free bets, mandate supplier registration

Peru will ban free bets and demos, as well as mandating registration for suppliers, as part of its effort to regulate online gambling.

The detail comes as part of Peru’s efforts to regulate online betting and igaming. The country’s Congress unanimously voted for a bill to regulate the sectors in July, which was then signed into law in August, coming into effect 60 days later.

The law names the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru (Mincetur) as the country’s official gambling regulator.

As regulator, the body established a number of rules that will apply to operators in the market, including a ban on free bets and supplier registration requirements.

These rules are subject to a consultation, with stakeholders able to submit their opinions until 2 December.

Free bet ban

The regulations state that operators may not offer any type of remote betting or gaming for free, whether this is for promotional purposes or for education such as through a demo of a game.

If an operator ..

November 9, 2022

STS launches “real-time” personalisation products with Future Anthem

Polish operator STS and AI supplier Future Anthem have together launched a new real-time personalisation product for sports betting.

Through a new agreement, STS will use “real-time exit prediction to fully automate their bonusing and player communications the moment a player’s bet settles”.

Future Anthem said that the new product was delivered within 12 weeks of receiving the necessary data.

Future Anthem CPO Ian Tibot said that lots of businesses in the sports betting space have discussed personalisation, but none had developed products that truly offered personalisation.

“Personalisation in the sports betting industry is a word that has been used for a long time but has never become a reality,” he said. “As a part of our successful Series A funding round this year we were clear in our ambition to lead the industry’s evolution towards delivering personalised player experiences.

“Our vision has been perfectly complemented by the ambition of STS to commit to a real-time personalis..

November 7, 2022

Laila Mintas announces new venture, PlayEngine

Former PlayUp US chief executive Laila Mintas has co-founded a new venture, PlayEngine, and joined as chief executive.

The new business is a “microservices-based” B2B sports betting and igaming platform. The business said that it will “provide its customers with a tailor-made, individual solution that is reliable, scalable, fast and secure”.

Its sportsbook offering will allow clients to accept payments from cryptocurrency as well as fiat money and will include a “travelling wallet” to allow players to use the same wallet in different jurisdictions.

PlayEngine was initially created through the Berkeley Skydeck startup incubator.

“I am very excited about being a co-founder and the CEO of PlayEngine,” Laila Mintas said. “The sports betting and igaming market is just too competitive to work off legacy tech.

“There is a huge need for agile and modern technology and I truly believe that we have the most automated and data-driven product in the market, which will enable the sportsbettin..

November 3, 2022

Taking cover: How to handle bettors’ sensitive data

The popularity of legal sports betting and igaming has quickly spread. But challenges have surfaced in issues related to intellectual property, data protection and security. Russell Karp of DataArt explains how sportsbooks can manage and secure their data to overcome these challenges.

Nowadays, data collection, reporting and protection are as urgent as ever. These issues often intertwine with compliance within and across jurisdictions. With a mound of information to manage, operators must put extra effort into ensuring that bettors’ data is secure both on sportsbook platforms and mobile apps. So how can a sportsbook manage and protect data?

Data Management

Three of the most common data management challenges for sportsbooks include:

The inability to load high volumes of transactional data from gaming machines to legacy systems due to formatting and support issues. Many legacy systems exist in silos and don’t communicate well with other technologies, making it difficult to manage and..

October 21, 2022

A natural evolution for player props

It makes sense that increased availability of player prop bets and integration of insights into betting would converge. Daniel O’Boyle speaks to Henry Newman, CEO of Sporting Risk, about his business’ combined pricing and facts tool for player props.

Two rising forces in sports betting lately have been – in terms of purely trading and markets – an effort to include more player proposition bets and, from a more user-experience-led perspective, a greater effort to integrate insights into the product.

So it only makes sense that these two products would converge.

Henry Newman, CEO, Sporting Risk

Still, it may be surprising to see who has brought a product combining player prop trading and facts for consumers to market first. It wasn’t from one of the data giants or a widely known sportsbook provider, though it was from a group that has made its living from bookmakers for some time.

Henry Newman, chief executive of Sporting Risk, notes that his company’s history in running a successfu..

October 4, 2022

Following the numbers on free-to-play

There’s no shortage of businesses in the free-to-play space, but Tally’s focus on data – perhaps influenced by its top executives’ time spent outside of gambling – makes it stand out. Fresh off a $4m funding round led by Acies Investments, Daniel O'Boyle speaks to CEO Brad Vettesse and COO Rupert Huelsey about the business.

There are some tried-and-tested business models for free-to-play betting-related games to bring in money without taking any real bets.

Some products offer paid unlockables, such as features or extra credits, which players can use real money to access.

Brad vettesse

Others exist as as entertainment in itself, usually used as a way to keep players coming back to betting sites, acting more as a piece of acquisition or retention software for operators.

But perhaps not enough attention has been given to the typical business model of most free-to-use products and services these days: gathering customer data.

So, is this type of data still a mostly untapped reso..

September 30, 2022

Light & Wonder completes $800m OpenBet sale

Light & Wonder has completed the sale of its OpenBet sports betting platform to Endeavor, three months after the initial planned closing date and for $400m less than was first agreed.

Endeavor – a sports media business that owns IMG Arena – will pay $750m in cash for OpenBet, plus 2.3 million Class A shares, worth $50m.

The sale forms part of a general streamlining of the Light & Wonder business, formerly known as Scientific Games. It also sold its lottery arm – which retained the Scientific Games name – in October of last year to private equity group Brookfield Business Partners.

The sale also follows the exit of Barry Cottle as Light & Wonder chief executive, with Matt Wilson serving in the role on a temporary basis until a full-time replacement is found.

Wilson said the new business can now focus on growth, now that it has a more clear focus on gaming, whether land-based, online or social.

“With the completion of the OpenBet divestiture and our now streamlined organisation, Li..

September 23, 2022

Sweden to open applications for B2B licences on 1 March

Sweden will open its application process for B2B supplier licences on 1 March 2023, regulator Spelinspektionen has announced, despite the fact the bill to implement these licences has not yet passed the legislature.

Currently, the bill to implement gambling software licences has not yet become law. The measure was proposed by the government in an effort to increase the level of channelisation in the Swedish market, but has not yet gone to a vote in the Riksdag.

While the results of Sweden’s recent election mean that the government that introduced the bill no longer holds a majority, Spelinspektionen said it was still working to ensure the bill could come into effect as planned if it is passed. The text of the bill says that the new licence regime will come into force on 1 July 2023.

In order to do this, it has now said that it will open applications for licences from 1 March 2023 and encouraged suppliers to prepare applications to be submitted from this date.

The regulator said the..

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Tag: Tech & innovation