ICE Totally Gaming 2018 is in full force, today marking the third day of its enormous expo floor, including exhibitor OtherLevels, a digital messaging platform. According to OtherLevels CEO Brendan O’Kane, this year at ICE is all about in-play messaging, specifically for sports betting operators.
Having been in the business for over six years, O’Kane has mastered the art of delivering a relevant message via a mobile device to a receptive customer in real-time.
“I think what we’ve seen is a change over the last decade, really, where we had email as the main form of messaging, it wasn’t very suited to something in real time which is really what in-play is all about”, shared O’Kane.
“You then had new message types emerge, things like web push and app push and now suddenly we’re able to combine those together and for the first time be able to reach someone and if you want to do it in real time, you need to be able to get to their mobile. So really you are combining mobile, real time, these new messaging types, and as a result we can deliver in-play solutions”, he said.
With the 2018 World Cup around the corner, sports betting operators are gearing up to take full advantage of the opportunity. The latest technology allows for sophisticated, real-time messaging, so combine that with the right in-play experience during the World Cup and sports betting operators should be looking at a revenue boost.
“I think the World Cup just has this enormous amount of attention, so its always going to generally, for some operators, particularly those who are focused on football, generate a boost around wagering anyway”, said O’Kane.
“But, in-play then gives them that opportunity, whereas if I’m used to, say, betting on in-play in environments like the UK, suddenly another operator with good World Cup coverage can get out there and actually now start offering markets across all of those pool games and of course the finals for the World Cup”, he continued.
“Which means that an Australian who is living in the UK could bet in in-play betting in real time on Australia with a UK wagering operator, so its just a fantastic opportunity”, he added.
The betting industry’s focus on Big Data, artificial intelligence and other emerging technology also promises to sharpen messaging techniques in the future, paving the way for an ultimate level of personalization.
“When you look at in-play and you look at messaging in general, we are just getting more and more sophisticated about working out how to reach audiences. Now we can reach audiences in all sorts of different ways which means we can reach your users whether they’re on the web, whether they’re in-app, whether they’re on a mobile device, so that’s the first big thing that’s been a major development over the past few years”, O’Kane shared.
“But also the amount of data we’re seeing coming through, we’re able to make predictions about how I can reach you, what type of message I should send you, when I should send, obviously things like AI are starting to help us do that even better, so really the messaging experience is just getting more and more fine-tuned, both with the channel and also the time and the content, its just getting more and more personalized”, he added.
ICE Totally Gaming is such an important event on our calendars because it kicks off the year in terms of key trends and innovations to watch, with in-play sophistication and offerings certainly on the list for 2018.
“This year for us at ICE, it is all about in-play. So you’ll see that from the booth, you’ll see that from the demonstrations we’re running, the information we’ll be sharing”, revealed O’Kane.
We think its a big thing because from a messaging point of view, only a very, very small number of operators have gone and tackled how to do in-play themselves. Maybe operators would like to, they find that there are elements that are quite challenging about combining segmentation, messaging, the events, somehow working out how to do all that, so that’s really what we’re talking about at ICE and we’ll be showcasing our solution”, he said.
