Interviews
Cheltenham: Next steps for horse racing
Horse racing is one of the oldest activities in the world and the Cheltenham Festival is one of the spiritual homes of the sport. While the meeting is guaranteed to deliver strong engagement rates for UK-facing operators, there’s less interest among sportsbooks further afield in Europe. However, as horse racing continues to grow on the international stage, are European operators missing a trick by not identifying ways to make Cheltenham Festival and other UK meetings appealing to their own audience?
With the festival kicking off this week, European Gaming spoke to experts in the field on how the sport can make an impact internationally and the best practices required to make it relevant to a wider audience, while maintaining its status in the UK.
Alan Casey, CEO of AllSported
Adam Conway, Head of Trading at SIS
Dylan Casey Head of Paid Media, Checkd Media
Huge opportunities abound throughout the festival which brings a great deal of competition. How can horse racing operators make sure they stand out from the crowd during the event?
Dylan Casey: Too many operators allow their messaging to become like wallpaper throughout Cheltenham week. The ones who succeed are those that offer something unique or present their offer in a way that captures the customer’s eye and paid social advertising can allow operators to do just that.
A major advantage of paid social for horse racing operators is the guarantee of eyeballs and the sequencing of the messaging. The control of adverts being seen in a particular order can allow operators to get creative and even allow them to tailor the offer a customer sees based on their behaviour.
When running paid social for partner’s during the festival, we like them to refresh their messaging and offers daily. By tailoring it to certain races, horses or even jockeys, the messaging is always fresh and can help to avoid ad fatigue.
Not all operators will have the flexibility and resources to promote a different offer for each day of the festival. However, even if an operator’s offer isn’t unique enough to stand out, paid social advertising provides them with a huge opportunity to present that offer in a way that will allow them to do so.
Alan Casey: Content is king. Creating a sense of familiarity and comfort is all-important in cross-selling. Time and again, we see that racecards that feature plenty of content, predictions and ratings improve dwell time significantly.
However, even when an operator has this all-important content, how do they balance the integration times with the results? Separate integrations and multiple API feeds can take time and a lot of resources to put in place. It’s true that content is not always the priority compared to revenue-generating add-ons like cashing out, but without the content to engage customers, it’s likely a sportsbook will only get customers who are there to make a specific bet.
As well as that, consistency and balance matters a great deal, operators don’t need to be stand-out price every race, but an operator needs to be competitive in every race in terms of pricing and place terms. An operator can acquire a lot of customers by having the headline offer of the day or week, but it leaves the door open for customers to exploit that offer and leave.
Adam Conway: Aside from the traditional marketing techniques that operators adopt for the week of Cheltenham Festival, such as attractive promotional offers, offering a vast range of markets that are appealing to both existing bettors and newcomers is important. This includes the use of derivatives, which complement classic markets and allows those with little experience of racing betting to get involved.
Through our partnership with RACELAB we can offer the latest in trading technology which can help operators stay ahead of the smart money and offer prices at opportune times that standout from the crowd.
To what extent is there an appetite for UK horse racing outside the UK and Ireland? How does the sport need to adapt to appeal to this audience?
Alan Casey: From a customer perspective, there is a huge appetite, especially with regards to Cheltenham. It’s an easy sell with the best horses, jockeys and trainers on show and there are always magical storylines that capture the public’s imagination around the festival.
The obstacle for international operators is that the sport requires a huge level of expertise to work within it. The time and financial investment necessary to building a team to monitor the landscape is formidable.
The obvious solution is to outsource, but even then, there are pitfalls. It’s possible that an out-of-the-box service will leave an operator open to inaccurate pricing and following the exchanges blindly is dangerous based on liquidity and latency issues. It can be difficult to acquire and retain horse racing customers and even more so if there is no differentiation in the offering.
Operators need to invest in a flexible solution with a great deal of two-way communication. It’s vitally important to be able to react to your own customers’ bets and factor this into pricing. If an operator is reacting to the market alone, that lag will eat away at their bottom line.
Adam Conway: The cultural significance of major UK horse racing meetings means less for international operators and their customers, but there are still opportunities for non-UK sportsbooks to make the most of these events. The betting product needs be optimised differently for markets where there is less racing heritage, otherwise bettors are not going to be as likely to engage. This means promoting certain markets that can be more relevant to them. For instance, derivatives are becoming increasingly popular with international operators, with markets such as match betting and odds vs. evens far easier to understand. Ultimately, these types of markets don’t require as much insight into the sport itself, which encourages a wider audience to engage with the product. Horse racing needs to attract a new generation of bettors, and outside of the UK these kinds of markets are important to this approach.
Of course, establishing an in-house trading team to cover 24/7 racing events can be costly. In addition, the availability of traders that have the specialist knowledge required can be difficult to find in markets where there is a modest racing culture, which means they cannot efficiently manage pricing and risk. Our SIS Trading Services can help operators in these markets by offering them a fully outsourced solution that leaves the entire racing proposition in the hands of our experts.
How can international operators capitalise on UK horse racing meetings like Cheltenham Festival, which are proven to generate strong bettor engagement in its home market? What can domestic operators do to maintain a slice of the action amid such intense competition?
Adam Conway: One of the main challenges that UK operators face during major UK meetings such as the Cheltenham Festival is profitability. Promotions which include offers like extra places paid can impact the overall margins they can make. These sportsbooks require products and tools that can grow business and maximise margins. At SIS, we are working hard to make this possible by enhancing our Trading Services with the addition of next generation trading tools. In partnership with RACELAB, our traders now have the very latest technology advantage, ensuring we can stay ahead of the smart money and produce more intelligent prices. This includes the Odds Engine compilation software, which has the biggest breadth of content and the most sophisticated trader controls and the highest number of priced horses (including all the local pools).
For international bettors from regions where there is less racing heritage, we have found that it has been useful to offer additional levels of support to operators new to the sport. This means increasing the emphasis on those betting markets that are simpler to understand and don’t require specific in-depth racing knowledge. We can offer operators a managed trading service to help them manage their risk.
Alan Casey: A little education goes a long way. A huge number of people that aren’t full-time racing fans flock to bet on Cheltenham every year because of the status it holds. Investing in the right odds and pricing package that includes content as part of the deal can go a long way towards engaging these fans, as well as seasoned ones.
Cheltenham simply lends itself to this kind of content with some captivating narratives every year. Rachael Blackmore and Henry de Bromhead combining throughout last year’s event and taking the festival by storm stands out as a great example. There are always interesting narratives surrounding Ruby Walsh and Willie Mullins as well. It all captures the imagination and if international operators can gain the means to educate their customers on the ins and outs of the sport, they will be on to a winner.
Domestically, it’s about finding the right balance between trading and marketing teams. Consistency is essential in this product offering throughout the week. Single race odds boosts or acquisition offers don’t guarantee you a customer’s wallet for the four days of the festival or even for an entire day. The key is giving customers a choice of races that spreads out the positions more evenly and then helps the operator engage the customer in each race throughout the festival.
How is price latency and odds generation different in horse racing compared to other sports betting activities? What challenges does this present for operators?
Alan Casey: If we take a traditional sport like football, the teamsheets are announced an hour before kick-off and we see the market shifts as a result. Outside of that, there isn’t a lot of other information flowing into the market.
In horse racing however, there is more information in the market and operators are exposed from the minute they put bets up with no set times as to when information will enter the market. Latency issues become far more apparent in horseracing, dealing with large bets can result in loss of margin from a day’s racing. During the final minutes before the off, any latency or speed issue can result in operators being left badly exposed.
With the market constantly flocculating like this, Push APIs that inform operators the instant a price has changed can be invaluable, leaving no time for incorrect pricing on a sportsbook. Mere seconds of inaccurate pricing can be the difference between profit and loss.
Match Hype has just won two industry competitions. Talk us through your product.
Match Hype brings engagement from social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram into the sportsbook. Our technology automatically turns raw sports data into short videos full of sports and betting insights. We have the capacity to create up to a million videos daily in more than 30 languages. We also provide hosting and streaming of the videos, and we track everything in the video thanks to our own player. The high level of video experience and the scale make us unique in the market, and we believe that this innovation is extremely needed in the industry—and the judges in the competitions probably agree with us.
What technologies are you leveraging to deliver such a cutting-edge tool/product?
We have more than six years’ experience in developing dynamic video solutions for clients like Microsoft, HBO, and SAP, and a decade in high-end video production for similarly well-known clients. Match Hype is the essence of this. We have developed our own robust cloud infrastructure that enables us to work on a huge scale. We can also leverage the integration of third-party solutions that help us make the video content rich and engaging. The AI boom came at the right time to help us make the experience for the viewer even better.
Who is Match Hype aimed at?
We focus mostly on sportsbook operators, where we think we can bring the biggest value. But we also have clients on the affiliate and media side. Our “competition” at the moment are creative professionals who are able to create one video at a time. To cover hundreds or thousands of events daily, you need huge manpower. With Match Hype, you don’t need that—it’s all automated. Anybody who appreciates this level of efficiency will benefit.
The end users are any sports fans who enjoy engaging videos. So basically everybody.
Has this industry been slow to embrace video content and unlock the potential it offers? If so, why?
It’s hard for us to talk about the whole industry, as we haven’t been part of it for that long. But iGaming feels like a conservative industry where only truly meaningful innovations make it. Fingers crossed for Match Hype being one of them. We are confident because of our track record in other industries, and mostly thanks to the results of our dynamic videos that are already used by significant igaming industry players.
What makes video content so effective at customer acquisition? How can Match Hype be used in this regard?
People just love video content. In the last review, TikTok said that the average user spends around 90 minutes a day on their platform. Platforms like Spotify used to be music and podcasts only; now they are full of videos. You just can’t ignore that. Video killed the radio star, and a static sportsbook is next to die.
And what about retention? How can it be used to keep players engaged and coming back for more?
Imagine that a 30-second video gives you the exact insights to help you make a betting decision without spending dozens of minutes on different resources to gather all the information. People don’t want to read anymore. This is probably an even bigger strength of Match Hype than user acquisition.
What can we expect from Match Hype in the coming months?
We will establish Match Hype as an industry standard for dynamic video content. We’ll bring many more sports like tennis, basketball horse racing and. We are preparing real-time video use cases—for example, half-time updates in football—and new distribution channels like integration directly into streams. The potential is huge. Stay tuned.
Any final thoughts?
For the last year, we have talked with literally hundreds of iGaming experts, investors, and executives. Almost every one of them sees fan engagement as a huge topic in the upcoming months and years. And video will definitely play a key part in it.
Video says more than a thousand words. Give it a go—watch one of our 30-second videos and see for yourself.
The post Exclusive Q&A w/ Radek Pšurný, CEO at Match Hype appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
For those that might not know, can you give us a brief overview of Pick’Em Player Props?
In simple terms, the new Pick’Em Player Props product from WA.Technology is almost like a hybrid between fantasy sports and sports betting. In the same vein as traditional player props products that you see in traditional sports, players can select markets on individual players – we have just taken that model and elevated it.
During the game, players can make between two and six bet selections. For example, will Erling Haaland score more or less than 2.5 shots? The number of bet selections the player makes then determines their multiplier. By allowing bettors to unleash their sporting knowledge and provide engaging games for them to play, we are helping our operator partners to not only engage with a wider player base but also to fuel long-term retention. It really is a one-of-a-kind product and one we’re incredibly excited about. It’s already proving to be a top performer in LatAm.
Why has now been the right time to unveil Pick’Em Player Props?
Over the last few years, we’ve seen significant growth in the number of player proposition products. There are several reasons for that. Sports fans have shown a growing affinity for individual players rather than a team. They follow players on social media and engage with content featuring that player.
This reflects the wider trend we’re seeing: the new generation of fans is more in love with the players than the team itself. A great example of this is both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Bettors worldwide would wager on either of those players and engage with their content regardless of which team they played for or what club they supported.
The appetite for player-driven betting is increasing dramatically, resulting in a greater demand for products specifically tailored to individual athletes.
With more traditional sportsbooks, however, we’ve found that there isn’t as much depth of product regarding player propositions – aside from goal scorer markets. We wanted to change that – we wanted to deliver a fun, engaging product that helps build a sense of community among players.
Since Pick’Em Player Props is also a hybrid of fantasy and sports, it can act as an attractive tool to facilitate new market entries, as fantasy sports are not regulated like sportsbooks or iGaming. Take the US for example. In most states, operators do not need a licence to offer a fantasy sports product. This is the case for many markets around the world, too. I believe this will be an attractive proposition for operators looking to expand their international footprint, and as a truly global provider, we’re here to make that happen.
In your view, what differentiates WA.Technology’s Pick’Em Player Props from other player props products on the market?
Currently, we are the only B2B provider to offer a player propositions product that combines sports and fantasy. A handful of companies in the US offer something similar, but they are all B2C companies – we are bringing something totally unique to the B2B space.
Fantasy Sports have always been popular in the US. But over the last 18 months, we’ve seen a meteoric rise in the demand for player proposition markets; we wanted to develop a product that caters to that growth in demand and delivers something unique for our partners.
For other player props products on the market, something that is worth noting is that the design and UX are doing little to engage Millennial/Gen Z bettors. This audience demands a streamlined UX that is easy to use. Our Pick’Em version has been specifically designed with this demographic in mind, although we have been careful not to disenfranchise other age groups. We have kept the design sleek, streamlined and easy to use to deliver that. It’s extremely well-designed compared to what you might see in a more traditional sportsbook.
The game is straightforward to understand because we have fixed multipliers. This decision differentiates us from more traditional products, where the multipliers vary depending on how many bets you place. It also makes the product much more accessible for players who might otherwise not be familiar with fantasy or player props.
Another major defining factor is that we have ensured players can add multiple bets from different markets together. On most sports betting sites out there, you cannot combine player props markets. You couldn’t, for example, have a bet slip combining Erling Haaland’s Over/Under Shots and Kevin De Bruyne’s Shots on Target. We know this is frustrating for many bettors. We wanted to eliminate that barrier and elevate sports fans’ experience.
How does the level of data granularity influence the design and effectiveness of player proposition betting products, particularly in terms of player engagement and personalised betting options?
We are very fortunate that the data feed we use for our player props markets is the best. We have a wide range of insights and data analytics available, giving us an edge over other companies within the space – this is a serious differentiator.
The enhanced data range means we can deliver many more bespoke, personalised betting options to players while also getting more granular with the markets we can offer.
Our Managed Services Team, which oversees all things trading, also closely monitors the markets that are most popular with players. For example, if we see an influx in bets on ‘shots on target’, we know how to create more promotions around this particular market. We can tailor the CMS to engage better with players and create a more personalised experience.
Players can also ‘favourite’ particular players and clubs. Any market featuring that player will automatically appear when the Pick’Em Player Props application loads up.
Are there any markets where you believe Pick’Em Player Props will prove to be particularly popular? If so, why?
In all honesty, I can’t think of a market where this won’t be popular! Regions such as LatAm present an enormous opportunity for the growth of player proposition markets. I believe we can really plug a gap in the products currently offered to bettors.
Across the continent, we’ve seen players show a real passion for player-focused markets, and we’re here to capitalise on that. In Brazil, for example, if we were to create markets on Neymar, I’d anticipate this would gain much traction!
The real selling point for Pick’Em Player Props here is that we offer an extensive range of sports and markets that cater to a broad audience – but within that, we can personalise sports and bet selections not to overwhelm the player. I’d expect that markets on football will perform exceptionally well across Africa and LatAm, while countries such as South Africa may have a stronger preference for Rugby or Cricket.
Ultimately, it’s about understanding the unique preferences of players within each jurisdiction our partners operate in and tailoring the product accordingly. With teams based in various markets worldwide, we can get to grips with the local knowledge and fully understand what resonates with bettors.
In your view, what are some of the factors behind the growth of player props products in the last 12 months?
Most definitely shows how sports media companies are incorporating more player-specific content into their roster. This already has a huge impact, and I can’t see it changing anytime soon.
Whether it’s interviews with specific players, post-match analytics on performance or even the inherent growth of social media, the balance is undoubtedly tipping more towards the player rather than the team.
Personalisation will also have a considerable knock-on effect on the growth of player propositions. Bettors want more bespoke offers, specific bet suggestions and more instant content tailored to their unique playing habits. With a product like Pick’Em Player Props, you can personalise that betting experience to your heart’s content.
It also becomes much easier for sportsbooks to align with a specific user’s interests when we deliver unmatched data analytics and levels of personalisation that are available via WA.Technology’s product suite.
In short, Pick’Em Player Props gives operators the tools they need to create wide-ranging engagement opportunities without sticking to the rigid sporting calendar, where sometimes you might have to wait several days between a game. By incorporating fantasy sports, we can deliver round-the-clock content much faster, therefore meeting the demands of players. If you want to find out more – make sure to stop by Stand 1095 at SiGMA!
Behind every stellar online slot is an equally stellar maths model. These are becoming more experimental as the industry flirts with an increasing array of innovative new mechanics. We spoke to Pablo Martinez, Math/Design Lead and Founder at maverick game studio Peter & Sons to find out more.
Do you have to be a maths genius to build a slot machine?
Nah, you don’t need to be a maths genius. It’s more about having the right mix of skills and loving what you do. You need to play a lot of games, see what’s working out there, and understand what makes them fun. Knowing maths helps, sure, but it’s more about creating something players want to keep coming back to.
Peter & Sons is known for making games that dare to be different, visually and thematically. Is the underlying math equally experimental?
Definitely! We love pushing boundaries, both in how our games look and how they play. Sure, it’s a bit of a gamble to have a bunch of games with unique mechanics, but we’re all about trying new things. Games like Peter Hunter and our upcoming Muddy Waters are great examples — they bring fresh gameplay and new experiences to the table. Each year, we try to put out at least one or two experimental titles, keeping things interesting while mixing them with more familiar styles.
Do you come up with the maths model first and then build the game around that? Take us through the process of building the game from start to finish.
We usually start with an idea for the mechanics first. We make a quick prototype to see if the concept can work with the maths. Then we bring in the art team to brainstorm themes that will fit well. Once we have a basic prototype, we go through a bunch of tweaks and changes until the art, mechanics, and maths all feel right together. It’s a back-and-forth process where we’re constantly finetuning everything to get the best balance.
Why do you think a mechanic like Megaways was so successful?
Megaways took off because it’s a fun, exciting mechanic that gave players something fresh, but smart brand marketing really helped it catch on.
Is there pressure as a slots developer to come up with the ‘next’ Megaways?
Not really. Coming up with new mechanics is always fun, but it’s not the only way to make a hit. Plenty of top games are just clever twists on classic mechanics. It’s more about creating a great experience that keeps players coming back, whether it’s something brand new or just a fresh spin on something more familiar.
Which slots are more popular, high or low volatility, and why do you think that is?
It depends on the market, but in some unregulated markets — and especially with some operators — high-volatility slots are really popular. A big reason for this is streamers. High-volatility games make for exciting content, so they get a lot of attention and hype online. That thrill factor really draws players in.
Which is your favorite Peter & Sons mechanic and why?
Right now, I’d say the fishing mechanic in our upcoming game Muddy Waters. It’s a new twist on the fishing genre that really brings something fresh to the gameplay. It’s exciting to take a familiar theme and make it feel totally different.
Tell us about the mechanics in your latest release, Barbarossa Revenge.
Barbarossa Revenge is a pirate-themed, high-volatility game with 243 ways to win. It’s a DoubleMax game, meaning the multiplier doubles with each cascade. You’ve also got Multiplier Jumps and a Cashout feature that guarantees wins. During Free Spins, the multipliers don’t reset and can keep growing unlimited. With a max win potential of 30,000x the bet, this game is a real thrill!
Week 46/2024 slot games releases
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Exclusive Interview with Miklos Handa (Founder of the email marketing solutions, “MailMike.net”), speaker at Vienna International Gaming Expo 2018
