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Interview: Juice Reel’s CEO on how its bet tracking tool and Crowdsourced Insights is elevating the experience for data-driven bettors

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Juice Reel is on a mission to become the ultimate ecosystem for the modern sports bettor. With its mobile app synced to 250+ sportsbooks, the data it collects is unprecedented and has become a must-have tool for bettors looking to make better wagering decisions.

For sportsbooks, Juice Reel is now an effective acquisition and retention engine. Not only does the app drive users to place bets with regulated operators, the company’s new subscription-based Crowdsourced Insights is delivering valuable insight that data-driven bettors crave. 

Gaming Americas spoke to Ricky Gold, CEO of Juice Reel, to learn more about the company’s model, how its range of features work, and what the future holds for sports betting in the US.

 

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For those new to Juice Reel, can you explain how your bet tracking and analytics tool works exactly and the reasoning behind developing such a product?

The Juice Reel app allows sports bettors to automatically link in any betting platform or website within seconds, instantaneously uploading their open and historic bets to the platform. Juice Reel offers useful analytics to our users and while this data-syncing automation is convenient for them, we want to support the wider betting industry as well and provide value to sportsbooks. The data we are accruing is not bounded by any market or operator, so essentially, we are establishing a complete understanding of bettors that use the Juice Reel app. This allows us to leverage this understanding and user-data in order to support sportsbooks in the most efficient way, allowing them to maximize player retention and acquisition.

How is the tool unique compared to other solutions available within the market?

From the bettor’s perspective, no tool on the market is really comparable when it comes to bet tracking and analytics. It all starts with a sportsbook-agnostic automation, our platform is allowing users to connect with over 250+ sportsbooks, effectively ending the era where users had to manually type bets one by one or keep spreadsheets. Once we leverage and repackage the data synced onto our app, we are able to create useful and actionable insights for users that cannot be found outside of Juice Reel. Furthermore, we are working on evolving Juice Reel so that it can be more than just a tool used for tracking and insights, instead becoming a centralized bet-placing platform. Our insights help users decide what to bet on, but then the question arises “with which sportsbook do I place the bet with”. We want to help our users find the best sportsbook to place their bet on, one that perfectly matches each user according to the data and insights we collect.

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This key feature is how Juice Reel helps sportsbooks, and more than just bringing operators a new bettor that hasn’t signed up with them yet, Juice Reel will expand the lifetime value that a player is worth to a sportsbook. This is done by our platform initiating bets – our insights, particularly real-time live betting insights, will prompt a user to place a bet that they may have not placed if they were betting without the help of Juice Reel. When our insights are producing a bet that wouldn’t have been initiated without our platform, this effectively grows the total addressable market withing the sports betting industry. Ultimately, if through our features a user bets more than they would’ve, then this expands the industry as a whole.

For bettors, how easy is it to register their bets into the app? Can they seamlessly place bets through the app too?

Connecting your sportsbook into Juice Reel takes about one minute.  It’s incredibly simple, straightforward, and most importantly, you only have to connect the sportsbook once. This allows the user to continue where they left off the day before, ensuring they experience a seamless long-term betting environment.

Users today can’t place bets directly though our app, but we are looking to expand on this by implementing a feature which could speed up this process. In the near future, if a user clicks a bet/insight it will automatically pop open the respective sportsbook app and pre-load the exact bet you were looking at. This is yet another example of how we help sportsbooks, by bringing them more betting volume.

 

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Just how important is the tracking tool from a responsible gambling perspective? Does the tool only work alongside regulated sportsbooks in legalized markets?

Reducing unregulated gambling and promoting responsible play is at the core of Juice Reel’s ethos, this is reflected not only in our features, but also in our business model. Juice Reel users can upload betting data from both regulated and unregulated platforms. While Juice Reel has no deals with any unregulated platform, we aggregate data from as many sources as possible in an effort to drive users to sign up and place bets solely with regulated operators. Juice Reel never promotes or facilitates illegal gambling, and our business model is designed in a way to capitalize off the ability of directing users and their bets to regulated platforms.

Providing users with a seamless and automated bet tracker gives users a comprehensive understanding of their betting habits and their profit/loss across all the platforms. Empowering users with this information is at the core of what it means to gamble responsibly, we’re allowing sports bettors to clearly see and analyze their spending habits, as well as pointing out unsuccessful betting patterns.

 

Tell us more about Crowdsourced Insights? How does the subscription service work?

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An entire industry exists around “following the smart money” and data-driven bettors are always looking to figure out what team the “sharps” are betting on, such as professional bettors or those with long track records of success. There is a massive flaw in how bettors are deducing where the sharp or smart money is – they automatically assume that if there’s a lot of money and a lack of people betting on one particular side of a game, this must be where the easy money is. It’s important to note that big bettors don’t necessarily mean smart bettors, historical performance is the only barometer to determine a bettor’s overall performance.

Due to the fact that users sync in all of their betting data, Juice Reel can clearly identify which players are historically profitable bettors and which are failing to bet successfully. By using the betting data each user has synced in, Juice Reel is able to analyze and package the data into actionable insights. One example unique to Juice Reel is that for a given game, Juice Reel can show subscribers what side of a game the top 10% historical performers are on and what side the bottom 10% performers are on. So, in a case where historical winners and losers are betting different sides of a game, subscribers can tail profitable bettors.

 

Finally, in what ways do you envisage the tool to evolve over the coming months and years? Will you add any new features to the ecosystem?

With the industry mindset slowly evolving from an ‘acquire bettors at all costs’ mentality to one where there’s a focus on customer retention and betting volume, Juice Reel is at the forefront of that industry shift and primed to be a major beneficiary of this future macroeconomic change. Juice Reel is evolving from being a bet tracking tool to being an actionable betting platform. Without revealing too much, all of our future features will be designed to reward users and create value for bettors, while also driving players and betting handle to regulated sportsbooks.

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We want to bring an Expedia-meets-Robinhood-like experience for both pre-game and in-play betting. We want users to use Juice Reel so they can be informed and supported in regard to everything related to sports betting. We want them to use the app in order to decide what to bet and with whom to place the bet with. Whilst also following their bets through a game and placing live bets using our Live Value feature. By recycling the betting data into insights, we can reward users for contributing their betting activity to the community, thus creating a sports-betting ecosystem that sees everyone playing in a sustainable, supportive, mutually beneficial and safe environment.

 

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AGCO

AGCO Requires Ontario Gaming Operators to Stop Offering WBA Bets Due to Integrity Concerns

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The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) has mandated all Ontario-registered sportsbook operators to halt offering and accepting wagers on World Boxing Association (WBA) events immediately. This measure is being taken to protect the Ontario betting public following concerns that WBA-sanctioned boxing matches are not adequately being safeguarded against match-fixing and insider betting.

Since December 2023, the AGCO has been conducting a comprehensive review of suspicious wagering activity on a WBA-sanctioned title fight between Yoenis Tellez and Livan Navarro that was held in Orlando, Florida. Suspicious betting patterns on the bout lasting over 5.5 rounds were reported to the AGCO by two registered independent integrity monitors and detected in Ontario by a registered igaming operator. Media reports also alleged that Tellez’s Manager placed $110,000 on the match lasting longer than 5.5 rounds at a Florida casino. The bout ended with Tellez knocking out Navarro in the 10th round.

Following an intensive review that included outreach to the WBA, Ontario-registered gaming operators, independent integrity monitors, and regulators in other jurisdictions, the AGCO has concluded that bets related to WBA events do not currently meet the Registrar’s Standards for Internet Gaming.

The AGCO requires all Ontario-registered gaming operators to ensure the sport betting products they offer are on events that are effectively supervised by a sport governing body. At a minimum, the sport governing body must have and enforce codes of conduct that prohibit betting by insiders.

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Registered gaming operators were unable to demonstrate to the AGCO that the WBA prohibits betting from insiders, which could include an athlete’s coaches, managers, handlers, athletic trainers, medical professionals, or others with access to non-public information. Further, registered gaming operators were unable to demonstrate that the WBA took any action to investigate or enforce the allegations of potential match-fixing and insider wagering.

The AGCO has indicated to registered operators that in order for WBA betting products to be reinstated in Ontario, operators must demonstrate that the WBA effectively supervises its events, thus bringing them into compliance with the Registrar’s Standards. In December 2022, the AGCO required gaming operators to stop offering bets on UFC events for similar issues related to insider betting safeguards. Within a month, UFC amended its policies and implemented new protocols that allowed the AGCO to reinstate betting on UFC events in the province.

“Ontarians who wish to bet on sporting events need to be confident that those events are fairly run, and that clear integrity safeguards are in place and enforced by an effective sport governing body. Knowing the popularity of boxing in Ontario, we look forward to reinstating betting on WBA events once appropriate safeguards against possible match-fixing and insider betting have been confirmed,” Dr. Karin Schnarr, Registrar and CEO of AGCO, said.

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Andrew Cochrane Chief Business Officer of GiG

GiG increases Ontario market presence, powering the launch of Casino Time

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Gaming Innovation Group Inc. (GiG), has announced the launch of Casino Time, powered by its award winning iGaming platform and pioneering real-time rules engine LogicX, with revolutionary sportsbook, SportX soon to follow, to further extend its footprint in the regulated Canadian province of Ontario.

The launch of Casino Time carries extra significance, marking only the second time that on-demand, regulated online Bingo has been made available in Ontario. The new Bingo product vertical, launched alongside a strong Casino offering, will be boosted by GiG’s new sportsbook, SportX, as part of a planned release later this year.

GiG has focused its solutions on driving exponential growth in revenue for operators with its highly scalable iGaming platform, offering localised third party content and leading suppliers for the Ontarian market. GiGs peerless gamification layer creates an optimised and immersive casino experience tailored to regional preferences, swelling client retention and player engagement.

Canadian owned and operated, Casino Time is a joint venture amongst leading retail operators in Ontario’s Charitable Gaming sector, delivering Bingo, Slots and Live Dealer Casino Games. Promising a personalised service and community experience, Casino Time is continuing its long-standing partnership with local charities, introducing its joint fundraising model into the iGaming space for the first time.

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Now coming towards the end of its second year of licensed operations, Ontario has emerged as one of the largest iGaming markets in North America, second only to New Jersey according to data supplied by Vixio. The first and as yet only Canadian province to launch a regulated market, Ontario boasts more than 1.6 million active player accounts spread over 40 plus operators, generating €1.3 billion in Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) in its first year of trading, with this data supplied by iGaming Ontario.

Andrew Cochrane, Chief Business Officer of GiG, said: GiG continues to set the pace with a strong cadence of brand launches in 2024, and I’m pleased that when operators are seeking platform solutions in regulated markets, GiG is leading the pack. Our partnership with Casino Time, will help deliver something new and exciting to the Ontarian market, and further helps to demonstrate the flexibility of our solutions, adapting to match the regional aspirations of our partners to deliver growth.

D’Arcy Stuart, CEO of Casino Time, said: “We are thrilled to partner with GiG as the core technology provider of our iGaming platform. Their powerful suite of player engagement tools, as well as diverse content and regulatory integrations, underpin our ability to serve and delight our player community. Our hybrid online and offline customer network, as well as unique bingo offerings, will drive exciting opportunities as the platform and the marketplace continues to grow.”

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Bragg Gaming Group

Bragg Gaming Announces Resignation of Chief Financial Officer

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Bragg Gaming Group Inc., a global B2B gaming technology and content provider, announced that Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Ronen Kannor, has notified Bragg’s board of directors (Board) that he will resign from his position to pursue other career opportunities, effective June 3, 2024. The Company confirms that the search for a replacement CFO has commenced.

Matevž Mazij, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board, commented: “We thank Ronen for his dedication and commitment to Bragg over the past four years and for his unwavering service as a pivotal member of the leadership team.

“During his tenure as CFO, the Company has undergone huge positive transformation including being uplisted to the Toronto Stock Exchange, dual listed on the NASDAQ and successfully completing two acquisitions, all while reporting consecutive years of revenue, gross profit and adjusted EBITDA growth. We wish Ronen all the very best in his future endeavors.”

Ronen Kannor commented: “It has been an honor to be part of the Bragg team which has successfully navigated many challenges and continued to deliver consistent growth over the past four years. I thank the Board for their support throughout my time with Bragg, and I am now fully focused on ensuring a smooth handover to my successor.

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“Special thanks goes to my finance team, who work tirelessly to deliver the positive change and financial growth that the Company continues to achieve. I wish them and all of my colleagues continued success with Bragg now and in the future.”

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