Buzz Words C
BUZZ SPORTS
Sometimes a concept comes along that’s so simple you wonder why it’s taken so long to arrive. Buzz Sports’ ZonePlay is one such product…
onfusion is the enemy of success. If you want your product to go mainstream you have to make it simple, accessible and immediately understandable. In my younger days I would never in a million
years have entered a bookmakers simply because I didn’t really know what odds of 10/11 meant, nor how to ask for what I really wanted. The day some genius put a poster up in the shop window that simply said “£5 on Ronaldo to score first on Saturday wins you £10” was a turning point in making gambling a simple, understandable (and more importantly, fun) pursuit that could be enjoyed by a sports enthusiast rather than a seasoned gambler.
Online gambling has certainly made the ‘one-click’
wager possible, but is it fun? Is it a live social activity that can be shared between a group of generally non- gambling mates who just want a ‘flutter’ to amuse themselves?
Buzz Sports’ ZonePlay is an online system that
hopes to revolutionise on-the-spot sports betting. It supports various sports, offering a live window into the event itself as it ticks over and presenting the user with various simple ways to bet on the next outcome in the game, be that a corner in soccer, or an ‘ace’ in tennis. Casino International Online spoke to Buzz Sports’ Marketing Director, Ian Williams about the fledgling product…
online gaming business, especially sports betting. The owner of the company decided to spin off that knowledge into Buzz Sports, using the backend we already had as the platform to develop ZonePlay.
CIO: The product still appears as ‘Beta’… IW: Well we went live in March 2011 after about
three to four years in development, so it’s relatively new. We’re constantly updating it, adding new features and aspects to the game play, as well as adding new sports. We launched with just football, then introduced Aussie Rules as we have clients on the retail side based in Australia who wanted that product. We recently added live cricket, and that product is now trialing in Jennings stores. The numbers coming out of those locations are absolutely fantastic.
“Buzz Sports as a company is all online; we don’t have any retail presence so we don’t operate the terminals for ‘us’, we supply them for the bookmaker or the casino”
CIO: Was there anything that operated as ZonePlay
does before you? IW: No; it’s totally unique. People could copy it, but
we think we probably have a two year head start on everyone else. People can look at it and say ‘oh right; it’s just betting on the next event or as the ball is moving around’, but to actually model the data is very difficult. We’ve got a team of statisticians here who work pretty much around the clock doing things like regression analysis on every game to ensure the models we’ve got are up to date and are working as predicted.
CIO: And you’re delivering this via online and
Casino International Online: How did ZonePlay come into being? Ian Williams: We have a ten year history in the
64 JUNE 2011
direct to locations via terminal… IW: Yes; the terminals are what we call third-party retail terminals, so they’re run by the likes of Jennings
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