Exclusive: Former Goldman Sachs traders to launch Football Index competitor
Former FX traders team up with former BetVictor trader to develop new SportStack product
Two former Goldman Sachs traders are planning to launch a new Football Index-style trading product that combines fantasy with sports betting, EGR Intel has learned.
The upcoming SportStack product, which will launch in time for the new Premier League season, lets bettors speculate on player performance in an individual game or season.
For example, Harry Kane’s line in a game might be set at 75 performance points (similar to fantasy points), and players can buy or sell based on their own projections.
The product is the brainchild of Nick Smith and Kristian Brauten-Smith, who both left their jobs at Goldman Sachs last week to focus full-time on the product.
Their third co-founder is Trajan Przybylski, who helped build several BetVictor pricing and trading models, and is currently a full-time API trader on Matchbook and Betdaq.
Przybylski is building the tech for SportStack, with the trio aiming to soft-launch ahead of the next Premier League season.
“We think it’s crazy that when it comes to sports you are forced to make a binary bet,” Smith told EGR. “You shouldn’t have to play fantasy sports to express your view on who will and won’t perform well – and soon enough you won’t have to. Betfair may have changed the way people bet, but SportStack will change what people bet on”.
Smith said the concept differed to Football Index because SportStack was a true exchange, with the ability to go and long and short, with bets matched by other users rather than betting against the house.
In Football Index, user can only ‘buy’ or go long on a player, then sell that player back to Football index when they so choose.
“The technology is a lot like the Betfair Exchange,” Smith said. “We’ll welcome API users or professional bettors because we’re building from a global, scalable model from scratch that you can apply to any sports.
To help build liquidity, SportStack will initially focus on two or three high-profile players in specific games, but will expand to more players in more games and more sports as liquidity allows.
Season-long trades will also be allowed. “We had enough of getting a stable salary, we thought we’d start earning nothing for a while,” joked Smith.