Gambling industry professionals returned to the Kensington Olympia today to continue their journey with SBC for Betting on Sports week 2018. The second day of the conference was busy and buzzing on the expo floor with numerous sessions taking place in five different conference rooms.
The Casinobeats Summit featured a “changing affiliate landscape” panel, providing a nice perspective into the online gambling industry from the unique affiliate point of view. The panel was kitted out with some of the industry’s most experienced affiliates in the business, including the likes of Bryan Bailey of Casinomeister, Lee-Ann Johnstone of Affiliate Insider Ian Simms or “Simmo” of Rightlander.
The question of what players really want was addressed and Bailey shared his findings from the recent Casinomeister survey. The results may be surprising to some, underlying the importance of listening to customers and also to our affiliates.
“What they really want are fast payments, payments that are locked so they get them right away, they’re looking at also getting VIP bonuses, this sort of thing, one thing that we did find out is what they don’t want is the gamification that you’ve been seeing that’s coming up”, Bailey told CalvinAyre.com
“A lot of these casinos coming up with ways you can achieve different levels, player status, this sort of thing. They’re not looking for that. I thought that was kind of surprising, I thought we had a younger player base who were into video games and this sort of thing”, he added.
Bailey also told CalvinAyre.com he believes the online gambling industry is getting too regulated, pushing players into the black market. He also warned affiliates to beware of revenue shares that are too high because in order for those operators to survive, there must be something dodgy going on in the background, such as shaving.
In an environment of massive consolidation on both the operator and affiliate side, Bailey believes there is still room in the market for smaller affiliates. One of his top tips for smaller affiliates is to attend events such as Betting on Sports for both content and networking purposes.
“That’s how I really got Casinomeister off the ground way back when. In 2001, I started going to these conferences and I was meeting people who were the CEOs and different software companies, operators, people who were really running the industry”, he shared.
“I was able to start writing a lot about the conferences, doing a write-up before and afterwards, I was getting press passes because I became a media partner which is free. You become a media partner, they put your logo on the site and then you come to the conference, you write about it, you meet people, and you’ll have a lot of really great content because you’re getting it first-hand”, Bailey said.
Excitement surrounding the American market was obvious at Betting on Sports, especially now that PASPA has officially been revealed. The movement we are seeing right now for the online sports betting market is in New Jersey and DraftKings provided the first mobile offering to the market.
“Its blown away our expectations”, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins told CalvinAyre.com in an exclusive interview.
“I was a little surprised that we got out first, I know a lot of other companies have been in New Jersey and have been doing sports betting in other markets, but we did and numbers are just off the charts, I think we’re somewhere in the three or four hundred percent above our forecast range right now”, Robins said.
At present there are now up to eight digital offerings in New Jersey’s sports betting market, but Robins has faith DraftKings will be able to maintain their position as an industry leader.
“Obviously we knew competition was going to come, we expected actually to be competing with others since day one so we’ve been thinking about it that way and preparing for it that way for a while”, he shared.
“We’re doing a lot of marketing, we also are really continuing to invest in our product, getting it out the door was just the first inning and now we have a lot of work to do to make it better and better”, Robins said.
“We need to make sure we don’t get complacent, that we make sure that we’re investing, I think if we do those things then we’re going to continue to have the best product in the market and the best product always wins, especially if you put some marketing juice behind it”, Robins added.
The convergence of crypto and sports betting was a topic covered throughout the duration of Betting on Sports and day two featured a panel on crypto-led sports betting brands and regulations. Panelist Joe McCallum, Director of Sportsbook for Sportsbet.io, explained how his organization determines their target markets.
“In terms of jurisdictions, what we’re trying to do is focus on is high adoption of cryptocurrency and that’s been the driver in terms of where we’ve targeted. The world cup actually helped us”, he told CalvinAyre.com.
“One of the most popular countries with good football teams in the World Cup and cryptocurrencies and Brazil came out on top. So we made Brazil our focus, we targeted Brazil, then Japan is one of the big ones as well and the Japanese team is playing well, so we’re focusing on that”, McCallum said.
“So its really from a customer viewpoint in terms of wanting to get involved in an event and they had the currency and just putting those two together, it was not rocket science”, McCallum added.
Looking back on the past few days at Betting on Sports 2018, its evident SBC has done an amazing job growing this event, consistently providing a friendly and educational meeting spot for sports betting industry professionals and beyond. Integrating affiliate-specific, casino-specific and eSports-specific elements was a nice addition, attracting more delegates to the event this year.
“I think we have certainly grown the exhibition this year, around 140-ish exhibitors, we increased it to 270 speakers across three days – a lot of CEOs, directors, senior executives – which has given some amazing content which I think everyone has been very happy about, more networking areas…its been pretty good!”, SBC Founder Rasmus Sojmark told CalvinAyre.com.
“Its only happening because of the support of all our sponsors”, he added.
“I’d like to thank all of them, but you’ve seen some incredibly nice stand from Betradar, SBTech, Golden Race, Optima, Trustly, High Pay, eCom Pay, it’s a good mix of relevant companies for all the delegates to go and see and talk to about future business partnership and working together”, said Sojmark.
