Q&A: The brawn behind the brands

The gambling industry is built on a foundation of commercial deals between operators and suppliers. So, in the perpetually evolving world of technology, third-party services are a lifesaver for small, independent firms finding their feet and looking to grow.

But for tier-one operator Sky Betting & Gaming (SB&G) the strategy for success is a combination of proprietary and outsourced technologies. And when it comes to its flagship brand and product, Sky Bet, the unique in-play features available to users are partly what has set the sportsbook apart from others.

SB&G last month renewed its 10-year deal with Betgenius to continue providing trading solutions to Sky Bet’s UK- and Italy-facing operations.

Speaking to EGR Technology, managing director Matt Stephenson believes the two firms have grown together at a similar trajectory and both subscribe to an open and flexible company culture.

“They’ve managed to do something that we try to do in our organisation as well, which is to try to drive responsibility,” he says about Sky Bet’s sustained growth.

“We give people, and it doesn’t matter if they are junior, the opportunity to make decisions and have an impact. If you can get that dynamic right, you end up with really great people who love what they do and feel ownership over the actual operations.”

On the technology provided to Sky Bet, Stephenson says the supplier allows a great deal of flexibility for Sky Bet to integrate its own features, which certainly suits the operator’s consistent product updates.

For example, in November 2017, director of betting technology at Sky Bet Paul McCormick told EGR Technology the Yorkshire-based operator was investing heavily in its in-play betting solution in an effort to surpass bet365 as the “biggest player in the market”.

Elsewhere, Stephenson looks ahead to the forthcoming World Cup with the Betgenius ‘BetBuilder’ product. Appropriately, he says the feature was heavily inspired by Sky Bet’s ‘Request a Bet’ product, which many agree set the tone for the widespread launch of customer generated markets by UK sportsbooks.

EGR Technology: How did the partnership between Sky Bet and Betgenius come about?

Matt Stephenson (MS): We’ve been working with Sky Bet for around 10 years. The original deal was relatively small, but our two businesses have grown at a similar pace and every few years we have extended the partnership to reflect Sky Bet’s changing requirements, along with our product enhancements and innovations.

EGR Technology: How does Betgenius accommodate Sky Bet’s in-house developed features?

MS: It’s about offering them a flexible solution. We have built our technology in a way that allows our customers to have really tight control over their trading whenever they want it, but also rely on us for full outsourcing elsewhere.

We’ll trade over 100,000 live events for Sky Bet over the course of this year and for the vast majority of them they are set up in our trading console and the Betgenius trading teams in Tallinn [in Estonia] and Medellín [in Colombia] do their thing. But for the ones that Sky Bet do want to manage – the higher-profile and higher-value events – they’ve got the ability to go into our console and make micro adjustments to pricing before and during the game to maximise returns.

EGR Technology: How important is this deal to Betgenius?

MS: Whether it’s providing raw data or an outsourced trading service, there isn’t a major operator that we don’t work with. The good thing with Sky Bet is that it’s a really close collaboration and, as I said, we’ve grown along the same trajectory as them.

With their need to offer a greater range of sports and markets, our range of content and services has expanded to meet that need. Sky Bet is the UK’s number one digital bookmaker and so it’s a massive vote of confidence for what we are doing that they have chosen to stick with us as their primary supplier.

EGR Technology: What do you put Sky Bet’s growth over the last few years down to?

MS: Predominantly, it’s the quality of people they have. They’ve managed to do something that we try to do in our organisation as well, which is to try to drive responsibility. So, we give people, and it doesn’t matter if they are junior, the opportunity to make decisions and have an impact.

If you can get that dynamic right, you end up with really great people who love what they do and feel ownership over the actual operations. Of course, the branding and the product is great, and historically their link with Sky Sports, but for me that’s secondary to having extremely smart people.

EGR Technology: How has Sky Bet in Italy been performing from a technology perspective?

MS: It’s going well [although] they’re coming from a slightly different position, of course. Italy is an incredibly competitive market, so it will take significant investment, but they’re always in it for the long game.

For Betgenius, Italy has been a big success story. We’ve managed to make the technology work and adapt to specific regulatory requirements in the market and work with Sisal, Snaitech, Betaland, Eurobet, Intralot and Lottomatica among others.

Sky Bet has a great chance of growing market share there and who wouldn’t back them to do so?

EGR Technology: What preparations is Betgenius making for the upcoming World Cup?

MS: A big focus for us is on the Bet- Builder product we have launched in partnership with Sportcast, which funnily enough was in part inspired by the success of Sky Bet’s ‘Request a Bet’ service.

Historically during the World Cup, it’s been about increasing the number of market types available and lots of generous offers, but BetBuilder will give our clients something different to offer their customers.

It enables punters to combine a set of markets together to bet on several events occurring within the same game, akin to creating their own narrative that they believe will play out during the 90 minutes.

Crucially, it’s fully automated and looks great – a really compelling addition to a pre-match betting offering. I think that will almost define the World Cup from a bookmaking perspective.

EGR Technology: If the US starts to open up in terms of sports betting, how is Betgenius preparing itself to enter the market?

MS: We have been preparing for some time. The Genius Sports Group, to which Betgenius belongs, employs over 100 people in the US with offices in LA, Washington DC and New York, so we are set up and ready to go as and when PASPA is repealed.

We also have strong relationships with the US sports leagues. For example, we are the integrity partner to the MLB [baseball] and the PGA Tour [golf]. We believe the leagues will have a vital role to play in the US market, so having that how they want their live sports data to be managed will be vital for sportsbook suppliers.

Naturally, our turnkey sports betting solution [Betgenius Sportsbook Platform] is right in the mix when it comes to licence holders looking to launch a sportsbook. There are lots of exciting opportunities and Betgenius will have a big part to play in the regulated US market.

Betgenius MD Matt Stephenson