Tech & innovation – Page 5

November 7, 2022

Laila Mintas announces new venture, PlayEngine

Former PlayUp US chief executive Laila Mintas has co-founded a new venture, PlayEngine, and joined as chief executive.

The new business is a “microservices-based” B2B sports betting and igaming platform. The business said that it will “provide its customers with a tailor-made, individual solution that is reliable, scalable, fast and secure”.

Its sportsbook offering will allow clients to accept payments from cryptocurrency as well as fiat money and will include a “travelling wallet” to allow players to use the same wallet in different jurisdictions.

PlayEngine was initially created through the Berkeley Skydeck startup incubator.

“I am very excited about being a co-founder and the CEO of PlayEngine,” Laila Mintas said. “The sports betting and igaming market is just too competitive to work off legacy tech.

“There is a huge need for agile and modern technology and I truly believe that we have the most automated and data-driven product in the market, which will enable the sportsbettin..

November 3, 2022

Taking cover: How to handle bettors’ sensitive data

The popularity of legal sports betting and igaming has quickly spread. But challenges have surfaced in issues related to intellectual property, data protection and security. Russell Karp of DataArt explains how sportsbooks can manage and secure their data to overcome these challenges.

Nowadays, data collection, reporting and protection are as urgent as ever. These issues often intertwine with compliance within and across jurisdictions. With a mound of information to manage, operators must put extra effort into ensuring that bettors’ data is secure both on sportsbook platforms and mobile apps. So how can a sportsbook manage and protect data?

Data Management

Three of the most common data management challenges for sportsbooks include:

The inability to load high volumes of transactional data from gaming machines to legacy systems due to formatting and support issues. Many legacy systems exist in silos and don’t communicate well with other technologies, making it difficult to manage and..

October 21, 2022

A natural evolution for player props

It makes sense that increased availability of player prop bets and integration of insights into betting would converge. Daniel O’Boyle speaks to Henry Newman, CEO of Sporting Risk, about his business’ combined pricing and facts tool for player props.

Two rising forces in sports betting lately have been – in terms of purely trading and markets – an effort to include more player proposition bets and, from a more user-experience-led perspective, a greater effort to integrate insights into the product.

So it only makes sense that these two products would converge.

Henry Newman, CEO, Sporting Risk

Still, it may be surprising to see who has brought a product combining player prop trading and facts for consumers to market first. It wasn’t from one of the data giants or a widely known sportsbook provider, though it was from a group that has made its living from bookmakers for some time.

Henry Newman, chief executive of Sporting Risk, notes that his company’s history in running a successfu..

October 4, 2022

Following the numbers on free-to-play

There’s no shortage of businesses in the free-to-play space, but Tally’s focus on data – perhaps influenced by its top executives’ time spent outside of gambling – makes it stand out. Fresh off a $4m funding round led by Acies Investments, Daniel O'Boyle speaks to CEO Brad Vettesse and COO Rupert Huelsey about the business.

There are some tried-and-tested business models for free-to-play betting-related games to bring in money without taking any real bets.

Some products offer paid unlockables, such as features or extra credits, which players can use real money to access.

Brad vettesse

Others exist as as entertainment in itself, usually used as a way to keep players coming back to betting sites, acting more as a piece of acquisition or retention software for operators.

But perhaps not enough attention has been given to the typical business model of most free-to-use products and services these days: gathering customer data.

So, is this type of data still a mostly untapped reso..

September 30, 2022

Light & Wonder completes $800m OpenBet sale

Light & Wonder has completed the sale of its OpenBet sports betting platform to Endeavor, three months after the initial planned closing date and for $400m less than was first agreed.

Endeavor – a sports media business that owns IMG Arena – will pay $750m in cash for OpenBet, plus 2.3 million Class A shares, worth $50m.

The sale forms part of a general streamlining of the Light & Wonder business, formerly known as Scientific Games. It also sold its lottery arm – which retained the Scientific Games name – in October of last year to private equity group Brookfield Business Partners.

The sale also follows the exit of Barry Cottle as Light & Wonder chief executive, with Matt Wilson serving in the role on a temporary basis until a full-time replacement is found.

Wilson said the new business can now focus on growth, now that it has a more clear focus on gaming, whether land-based, online or social.

“With the completion of the OpenBet divestiture and our now streamlined organisation, Li..

September 23, 2022

Sweden to open applications for B2B licences on 1 March

Sweden will open its application process for B2B supplier licences on 1 March 2023, regulator Spelinspektionen has announced, despite the fact the bill to implement these licences has not yet passed the legislature.

Currently, the bill to implement gambling software licences has not yet become law. The measure was proposed by the government in an effort to increase the level of channelisation in the Swedish market, but has not yet gone to a vote in the Riksdag.

While the results of Sweden’s recent election mean that the government that introduced the bill no longer holds a majority, Spelinspektionen said it was still working to ensure the bill could come into effect as planned if it is passed. The text of the bill says that the new licence regime will come into force on 1 July 2023.

In order to do this, it has now said that it will open applications for licences from 1 March 2023 and encouraged suppliers to prepare applications to be submitted from this date.

The regulator said the..

September 15, 2022

Sportradar pens deal with European Table Tennis Union

Sportradar’s Integrity Services unit has entered into a bet monitoring agreement with the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU), the governing body of table tennis in Europe.

Sportradar will monitor key events, including matches in the European Championships, as well the as the men’s and women’s Champions League.

This will be done through Sportradar’s Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS), its in-house bet monitoring system.

The UFDS is already active, having monitored the 2022 European Championships in Munich last month.

Through the system, a global team of integrity professionals will analyse the betting patterns of matches for abnormalities, allowing for suspicious activity to be flagged for further investigation.

“Protecting the integrity of European Table Tennis is a top priority, so it is vital that there are robust measures in place in to safeguard our competitions from match-fixing,” said European Table Tennis Union acting president Pedro Moura. “Through this partnership, m..

September 14, 2022

Amelco to launch in South Africa with new operator LulaBet

Sports betting platform provider Amelco is set to launch in South Africa, through a partnership with new operator LulaBet.

LulaBet is set to launch in the market this month, with an aim of being “South Africa’s premium sports betting and entertainment website”.

Amelco head of business development Brandon Walker said he expects the launch of Amelco’s product to have a major impact on the South African market.

“Our launch in South Africa is going to be a true gamechanger – we have the insight on exactly what the market needs, and with our market-leading tech, we’re ready to bring the first true end-to-end tier-one platform and sportsbook to local players,” he said. “Amelco has been servicing the industry’s best for 15 years and, having prepared to enter South Africa for 12 months, we have finally found the right partner in LulaBet to bring local players the best of breed.

“Together, we genuinely believe we can transform this market and we can’t wait to get started.”

Ian Gutteridge,..

September 7, 2022

Betegy to ramp up US push following Yolo investment

Betegy has closed an investment round led by Yolo Investments – the venture capital arm of the Yolo Group, which operates the Sportsbet.io brand.

Betegy – which provides data visualisations, automated on-air and retail graphics, and casino marketing assets to operators – intends to use the funds to continue its scaling in the US. The announcement follows a previous funding round led by JKR Investment Group, which was announced in 2020.

iGB spoke to both Betegy founder and chief executive Alex Kornilov, and Yolo Investments founder and GP Tim Heath to discuss the deal and how Betegy plans to further adapt its products for the US market, and the startup funding sector as a whole.

What encouraged you to invest in the business; what do you think that Betegy brings to the market that wasn’t on offer before?

TH: Betegy’s great innovation is to automate the previously time-consuming process of turning reams of data into world-class content. We know the product works because it’s been succ..

September 2, 2022

Simon Hammon’s lessons from a lifetime in slots: The present

Simon Hammon, recently named chief executive of Relax Gaming, insists he’s not a typical “product guy”. But the games released under his watch, like Starburst during his time at NetEnt, have had a massive impact on the industry. In the second part of a three-part interview, Hammon offers advice for businesses in the crowded slots space of today.

Simon Hammon’s success at NetEnt ultimately took him to Relax Gaming. In part one of this series, Hammon outlined how the move might have looked to some like a “step down”.

But since joining, the business has been growing strongly. For the second quarter of 2022, revenue was up 20% quarter-on-quarter to £5.2m, with six new titles rolled out and the Dream Drop jackpot feature going live.

Its partner base expanded to 15 new operators in that same period, while 132 studios were integrated into its RGS, while its reach extended to Italy and Spain, with a licence for Ontario setting it up for entry to North America.

That business-minded view has..

August 17, 2022

Sportradar shares up 15% after raising full-year revenue guidance

Data provider Sportradar’s share price rocketed after it raised its full-year revenue guidance for 2022.

The announcement came as part of its second-quarter financial report, in which the provider also revealed that its revenue for the three months to 30 June was €177.2m, up 23.0% year-on-year.

In total, €29.1m of Sportradar’s revenue came from the US, up by 66.3% as the US market continued to expand. Rest-of-world betting services brought in €95.5m, up by 20.6%. This, the business said, was mostly due to more focus on “higher-value-add” services such as managed betting services.

Rest-of-world audiovisual services to betting operators came to €39.7m, up by just short of 10% thanks mostly to new customers.

Other operations brought in a further €12.9m.

The business then paid €43.4m for purchased services and data licences, up 33.1%, plus €64.4m in personnel expenses, up 37.6%, €21.2m in other operating income, a slight increase, and €49.2m in depreciation and amortisation, up by 75…

August 17, 2022

Genius beats revenue and earnings guidance in Q2

Sports data supplier Genius exceeded its revenue and earnings guidance in Q2 of 2022, while its loss was drastically reduced as large stock-based payments no longer weighed into its earnings.

The operator’s revenue exceeded its guidance for the quarter, which was set at $68m.

Betting technology, content and services brought in $44.8m, which was up by 10.4% year-on-year. Genius said about half of the increase was due to new customer additions, around $1.5m from renewed or renegotiated contracts with existing clients at higher prices, and a further $500,000 from “increased customer utilisation of existing Genius content”.

Revenue from media technology, content and services almost doubled to $15.0m. Sports technology content and services revenue was $11.3m, up 56.9%.

Looking at revenue geographically, $43.9m came from Europe, a 4.5% increase, $21.4m from the Americas, more than double the total from a year earlier, and $5.8m from the rest of the world, up by 34.9%.

Genius’ cost of re..

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Tag: Tech & innovation