Its no secret stockbrokers enjoy a good gamble and Nick “The Moose” Batsford, a legend in London’s financial corridors, believes stock trading and sports betting are essentially one and the same.
Batsford worked in stock markets for over thirty years and eventually decided to do something different in the form of TipTV, a daily live online video show he created for financial trading and sports betting enthusiasts.
TipTV has succeeded in an area where are lot of other “tipster” sites have failed, but most of these sites were focused on sports betting tips alone as opposed to combining finance and sports into one website.
“I watched Bloomberg, I watched CNBC which are financial TV stations and I was really trying to find someone to aid and abet”, shared Batsford. “I was watching it one summer every day thinking, ‘oh the next guest is going to come on and he’s going to make me money’ but it just didn’t happen. So I thought, you know what, I can do better. Tip TV was born in my mind”.
Batsford’s initial focus with TipTV was finance, but seeing as stock traders, in particular day traders, don’t really care how their money is made (and their compliance officers don’t care about sports betting), sports went into the mix.
“I thought to myself, you know what, it doesn’t have to be a stock because sometimes it takes days or weeks for something to move, it may be a horse race, it may be a football match, it might be an ice hockey match, as long as its high conviction…that’s why we effectively got finance and sport and mixed them together”.
The biggest reason why TipTV has been successful in comparison to other sports betting focused tipster sites is because it’s a lot easier to monitize the finance than the sports, according to Batsford. Another element of TipTV’s success is the calibre of guests Batsford has been able to invite on the show.
“I think every person who comes on the show is, particularly in finance, they’ve worked in the markets, they’re not journalists, these are people that have done the job, they’re not the people selling the courses- these are people who are actually doing it or have done it, so its that experience that is key for me”, shared Batsford.
With all this quality content to offer, in order to expand their sports betting side of the business, Batsford recognized a solid mobile product was in order.
“The important thing for me was that we were producing a fantastic sports show but not a lot of people were watching it”, Batsford said. “I did some investigations and they said 86% of the kids are watching Sky Sport through a mobile app and I thought, right, that’s the answer, I’ve got to get into the 21st century – I still use a quill pen but that’s irrelevant- the kids love the apps”.
Creating a state-of-the-art app and populating it with the right content is the key to attracting the right audience, a concept Batsford is familiar with and now putting into practice at TipTV.
“In terms of YouTube, the average view time on these videos is 45 seconds so its almost less is more in this day and age. Young people don’t watch TV anymore! I cannot get my head around that, but that’s the way of the world”, said Batsford.
Plans for growing TipTV to an even bigger offering are still evolving and Batsford has his eyes on markets extending far beyond the UK.
“We’re in the clasp of putting a couple of major deals together, we have a vision in terms of the finance to push it out internationally. In terms of the sport, we’re still working on the monitization, we’ve got Richard Keys as a shareholder in Tip TV, he’s sort of aiding and abetting us and we’ve got some other things up our sleeves”, he shared.
With all these plans for growth and enabling finance and sports betting fans to make smarter choices, Batsford has a healthy view towards gambling and endeavours to relay his message to every viewer.
“We always say don’t gamble with what you cannot afford to lose. That really is absolutely key to me, its all about cash management – don’t go mad, don’t get drunk and gamble because you’ll end up losing”, he said.
