Delegates returned to the Olympia London after an evening of official dinners and a busy networking party, ready for more action and mingling with like-minded professionals. The buzz continued throughout day two of Betting on Sports and everyone enjoyed the free bars, especially towards the end of the day.
One of today’s highlights was the presence of Ronnie O’Sullivan, the world’s best snooker player and recipient of his fourth Shanghai Masters title just last week. O’Sullivan appeared on the “Working with Ambassadors” panel at the Sports Sponsorship Seminar, during which he explained his reciprocal relationship with Betcris.
“I think what’s really worked well with Betcris is they’ve allowed me to go and play and focus on my snooker career and they said we’ll support you in every victory you have, every match that you do, we’re supporting you – we feel like we’re on this journey together”, O’Sullivan shared in an exclusive interview with CalvinAyre.com.
“For me, that was great because it allowed me to just go and be the best that I could possibly be and I think that getting from 13th or 14th in the world when I first signed up with Betcris to number one within two years was because I was allowed to just focus on my snooker and re-dedicate myself to snooker in many ways, whereas before, I had to do other things to make money because snooker is not the most financially brilliant sport”, he revealed.
“With Betcris’s support, it allowed me to just focus on snooker again which was great and then I was able to get to number one”, he shared.
Talk of the regulated U.S. market and the opportunities that lie within permeated the conference schedule and while the market is still in its infancy stages, numerous parties are interested. Affiliate Gambling.com is putting a lot of time and resources into cracking the regulated U.S. market, including a recent investment injection of 15.5 million USD from New Jersey-based Edison Partners and therefore has a wealth of knowledge to share on the subject.
“Start with the licensing first”, advised Gambing.com’s Business Development Director Gavin Walters.
“You need to get yourself licensed. Make sure you’re in good shape to actually go through that legal process. Then, deals with the operators. That’s not a standard deal, it’s a contract now, an agreement. You might want to change the terms within that and make sure that fits for the partnership you’re willing to take forward”, he said.
“Again, bring in your legal team. That’s going to take time, its going to cost money. But once you’ve gone through all that, then you can begin doing what you do as an affiliate”, Walters added.
This afternoon I had the pleasure of moderating the “Affiliate Marketing for Generation Z” panel, a bit of a look into the old crystal ball as no one knows exactly how to cater to this market just yet. In an exclusive interview after the panel, Marinos Shiapanis of Campeon Gaming Partners shared his perspective from the operator side.
“You have to see [players’] behavior when they come to the site, you have to understand what they like and don’t like”, Shiapanis explained.
“What we see with the younger generation, its faster things- easier registration processes. Pay n’ play is one of these- they just tap, put money in and they play- this is something they like. You have to find more ways like this”, he said.
“You have to give them the way to cash out quickly. You have to give them content that will make them stay with you like tournaments. Like quests. Play the first 100 then the second hundred, win something and go on and go on”, Shiapanis added.
“Give them prizes- we recently had in one of our sites a big prize tournament with iPhones, Netflix, iPads, a lot of things that the new generation likes and it was very successful, we saw that the participation on that and age level was lower than the average age level across the site”, he revealed.
Looking back over the past two days, its obvious to everyone this event has outgrown its original “Betting on Sports” name. To reflect these developments, SBC have some exciting plans for next year’s installment, including a location and brand name change. We spoke with SBC Gaming’s CEO and Founder Rasmus Sojmark to find out more details.
“Next year we’re moving to Barcelona and its going to be called The SBC Summit. So we’re culminating all the brands, sports, casino, payments, digital marketing and safer gambling, into one big event and we felt SBC Summit was a great name for that”, he said.
“Its going to take place 8th to 11th September in central Barcelona, easy access to everything, great hotels, great evening events, its going to be a very good event”, Sojmark added.
