Virgin on success: how to compete as a challenger brand in the UK market

To be a challenger sportsbook in a UK gambling market packed with household names and major operators merging to create conglomerates capable of domestic domination is not an enviable mission. Virgin Bet, one of the two sportsbook operations owned by media outfit LiveScore Group, is taking on that task, and leading the charge is industry veteran James McKay.

McKay, who has spent time with William Hill, Superbet, Scientific Games and Gaming Innovation Group, comes across as a man who can quietly, but brilliantly, go about his business. After more than 12 years in the industry, taking in both operator and supplier perspectives, he is as well-placed as any other candidate to lead Virgin Bet into battle.

Speaking to EGR, McKay details how the first two years of operations have gone for Virgin Bet, along with which products he thinks will help the operator carve out a name for itself.

EGR Intel: Virgin Bet launched in 2019 as LiveScore Group demerged from Gamesys Group. Being a smaller operator in a crowded field, how does Virgin Bet as a challenger brand go about becoming a destination for customers?

James McKay (JM): I guess when you are a smaller competitor, you do have to play to your strengths. Our biggest pillar is customer experience and customer service. So, how you get dealt with through all of your lifecycle with us, from the early life to retention and thinking about the experience when you are on the site.

We try to achieve world-class; to get to the point that everything is there for the customers, and there’s nothing that they’re missing. We’ve been concentrating on a lot of the product features as well as getting closer to the bigger players, so when [customers] get this extra experience with us, the product itself is on a par and therefore our retention rates are very good. We’ve stuck to our traits of what we know; what the brand is associated with and also what we think makes a good operator.

EGR Intel: Virgin Bet is powered by DraftKings-owned SBTech. Is this a relationship you are happy with or are there thoughts about moving in-house?

JM: I think that’s always an interesting conversation. The growth we’ve seen in the last 12 months, you wouldn’t want to change anything because of the great relationship we have with SBTech and the successes we’ve seen. I think it’s important to concentrate on these successes rather than the issues that may be involved when working with a third-party provider.

There’s always going to be a frustration because an operator always wants to go quicker than the platform provider, right? We have a lot of ideas and we’ve got some great guys in our team to come up with really good ideas, but we have to work towards a roadmap that also fits the platform provider, and you can understand that their focus isn’t necessarily all with us. So, that’s a little bit tough.

Anything that you can have in-house is better and quicker because you can manage it yourself, so that is a challenge. But it’s the same challenge that everybody’s got because the majority are working with platform providers.

EGR Intel: What type of bettor are you targeting?

JM: I don’t think there’s necessarily an answer. We are older in terms of the age bracket that we’re actually getting through the door, but I don’t think we’re necessarily pinpointing a specific one, it’s just that I think that comes with how we market.

EGR Intel: Following on from this, how does holding the licence to use the Virgin brand impact traffic and interest, seeing Richard Branson can be a divisive figure?

JM: I would say the positives outweigh the negatives by a long way. It’s a very long-standing brand. There may be a few that have been turned off through experiences with Branson or whether it be through some of the other businesses they have and then you get turned off overall.

What we see is the significance of having it is better and how it performs versus a brand that you’d have to make from scratch is night and day.

EGR Intel: On the LiveScore Group website, Virgin Bet’s description mentions disrupting the sportsbook industry, so how and why is the brand doing this?

JM: It is to be the rival that everybody is looking at. Being a disruptor is just somebody who’s taking market share, and we’ve obviously done extremely well. I think we’ve got a few innovative features where people are looking over their shoulder. The big guys are going to have to start thinking about it because what we are doing and what we’re showing in terms of the numbers is we’re doing something right, so therefore they’re going to have to try and adapt to compete with us.

EGR Intel: In terms of product, can you explain the free-to-play Fives feature and what benefits it offers?

JM: Each day you log in you get given a player at random and you can have up to five players for the weekend. On the Friday you then spin a wheel, and it will land on a monetary amount. If those players score a goal, you will get that amount multiplied by the number of goals that they score.

There’s a couple of key moments that get people involved with football. One is obviously supporting a team. The second is following footballers themselves. We think there was something we could get out of that. You get extra spend in the wallet and through having some interest in the game you didn’t necessarily have.

So, for example, Watford and Everton are playing and you’re a Manchester United fan, but you’ve got one of the players, suddenly it makes it a hell of a lot more interesting. You can get that engagement at times when necessarily you wouldn’t have before.

EGR Intel: How do your streaming capabilities benefit the customer?

JM: What we are quite proud of is we probably have the biggest amount of content outside of the tier-one operators. We are speaking with anybody that offers anything. We had existing deals with IMG, Genius Sports, Sportradar and we’ve just signed up to Stats Perform.

We think it is important for engagement, for the product itself and for people to enjoy coming to the site and maybe taking more time out of their day. Streaming is obviously one of those drivers that keeps people on-site for longer.

We’re always on the lookout [to get more streams added] and it’s something we’re proud of. It’s not cheap so it’s one of those things we feel is important to have as part of our product so we can be on a par with these operators that we’re trying to compete with.

EGR Intel: Are there any additional sportsbook innovations Virgin Bet is looking to implement, such as bet builders?

JM: When you have a platform provider that you have to work with, a lot of the roadmap is based on them, but we have a couple of things that we can work on from our side and bet builder is certainly one that is in the mix.

That whole move to in-game multis has revolutionised the business and we’ve got to make sure we’re at the forefront of it. I remember when I was at Hills, they were saying that it’s the biggest revolution since in-play because we are now all wanting and moving to it. We’ve got to keep abreast of all those changes and that is definitely one that we need to make sure we’re on top of.

EGR Intel: Do you agree with some people who say sportsbook tech has gone stale and there is a distinct lack of innovation in the vertical? Or is innovation overrated?

JM: I don’t think there is one answer for it, I think it is a bit of both. There’s obviously a lot of people, like the younger generation, coming through who haven’t experienced it and who also think it’s a very good product. We are in a place where it’s functional and it does what it should do and it’s quite easy.

We’re getting better at that customer experience of how to navigate and how to show them the number of markets we’ve got. I think that over the years it’s actually quite innovative, although it feels like it isn’t. Actually, how you display and how you navigate through an app or a web page is relatively innovative.

In the future, when you talk about competition, it’s not just about the tier ones within our industry, but how companies like Amazon and Netflix are moving within their own industry is what we should try and take onboard. I would be cautious with it at the same time because I’ve seen it a lot in the past where we’ve almost gone too far down that route while forgetting about some of the norms, and I guess the product that people already love. You’ve got to be careful. I think there’s always time for innovation, and there always should be, and we should always be looking to change it.

We have to understand what we are, and we are a sports betting company. I think sometimes you can forget that amid innovation and thinking about what you do, and therefore you go away from those core KPIs of running a sportsbook.

EGR Intel: Is Virgin Bet looking to expand into any new jurisdictions outside the UK?

JM: You have to look at the strength of the brand. Where Virgin Bet resonates would be where you use it. Virgin is obviously very strong in some English-speaking territories, and therefore the decision to use it in those territories in the future would make sense 100%.

EGR Intel: What are your hopes and expectations for Virgin Bet over the next 12-24 months?

JM: I think it’s to continue the growth. I’m not sure we’ll be able to keep up as much growth as we’ve done in the last 12 months, but certainly to keep on growing. I think if we concentrate on our key pillars of customer experience, and ultimately product, I don’t think we will be too far away.