BUZZ SPORTS
and Ladbrokes. We have them in Belgium; we have them in Croatia; we’ve just gone live in Italy and Germany… 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, or whoever requires them.
CIO: Are there any differences between the online
and terminal product? IW: We have more capability online – where we
have leaderboards and chat – and the stakes are capped at £10 on the terminals at the moment. We could increase that to whatever a user wants, but online you can bet up to £100 a unit.
CIO: How are the live games tracked for the
system? IW: We have a team of traders who not only trade the games, but also use the software to track the ball around the pitch or court (or wherever the sport demands). Depending upon when the ball is the model predicts the mathematical chance of a specific event happening based upon what data the model is feeding it.
CIO: So each game is down to a single individual
manually tracking the game? IW: Yes. There’s a pretty large amount of pressure,
but we have a dedicated trader that trades that game, and then supervisors to watch the traders to make sure everything is as it should be and that the settlements are correct. We have instant feedback if something isn’t right. We always aim to have zero errors in the settlements, and if there ever is even one per game we feel quite disappointed.
CIO: How does the tracking system work? IW: The traders have various screens on their desks; one shows the live coverage, while the other screen has a delay of 20 seconds so that the trader has another chance to view every event. They can also
rewind footage to check back 100%. The bespoke software we’ve developed is quite sophisticated.
CIO: What’s the maximum number of events you
can cover at any one time? IW: It’s only limited by the number of traders we’ve got. The UK is probably one of the worst places to watch live soccer because there isn’t a live Saturday three o’clock kick off. However, we’ve got all the
streams and stadium feeds, so on a Saturday we’ll be trading as many games as we’ve got pictures for. It really comes down to the wants and needs of the business. Is there much point trading West Ham vs Bolton when we’ve got Man Utd. Vs Chelsea on Sky? Probably not; It all comes down to general business decisions that I guess most bookmakers have on what games they want to trade in-running, and if they think there’s the volume there.
COI: How do you decide which events deserve
coverage? IW: To be honest people will bet on anything they
can watch. A lot of punters sitting in a betting shop don’t really care where the action is coming from because right now they’re probably betting on virtual horse racing. The fact that they can watch a game from Saudi Arabia and bet on it in a shop is probably more attractive than betting on virtual dog racing. These guys know that this is a live product, and once
JUNE 2011 65
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