BUZZ SPORTS
going to happen or has happened. CIO: When a big part of a product’s selling point is
its simplicity, is it hard to hold back from over- developing it? IW: Yes, something we’re very keen to do is keep it
as simple as possible for the user. We could add a whole range of additional betting opportunities to it, but we’re very keen to be more of a sports entertainment company as opposed to a hardcore gambling company. We’ve had people requesting a number of features; they want in-play betting or constant props running throughout the game. These are all things we could add if we wanted, but we decided that we want to be known as the company that did this first and did it the best. We have a product that’s very difficult to copy and is unique in that no one else has done it and no one else can do it easily. The level of detail we’ve gone into with the models and the trading is very difficult to replicate.
they start seeing it in every shop they’ll really start to trust the game and play it more and more. We will take over the virtual sphere because we don’t need to be doing virtual betting when there’s live sport action on. The comment from Ladbrokes’ chief execs was that they want to know if in-play betting works in the shops and our product offers the easiest way for them to find that out without spending a whole bunch of time and money at their end.
CIO: Tell me about the delay on the betting... IW: The delay between the ‘click’ and the bet placing depends upon the sport. With cricket it’s three seconds, with the AFL it’s five seconds, with soccer it’s longer [seven seconds] because the ball moves so quickly. On the models like cricket and tennis most of the models are premeditated;
“We recently added live cricket, and that product is now trialing in Jennings stores. The numbers coming out of those locations are absolutely fantastic.”
COI: What’s the next area of focus for you now? IW: The real priority is getting it out further in
terms of new clients as well as increasing the number of sports that we cover. One of the issues we have right now is that we don’t have 24/7 coverage with sports, so from an acquisition-of-players point of view, bringing a guy in at eight o’clock in the morning leaves him with nothing to do for hours. We’re really dependant on the fixture schedule and the TV schedule, so we’re limited that way, and will be until we add more sports.
COI: What is your main priority right now? IW: Our main priority is to grow the business, and
nothing would change dramatically between events. For instance, a player getting an ‘ace’ won’t affect the probability of him getting another ‘ace’. With football, however, if the ball is up one end of the pitch it dramatically affects the chances of there being a corner, free kick or goal at the other end of the pitch. Obviously there’s always a delay between live and the feed you receive as a customer, so there’s always going to be a minimum of at least three seconds just on the basis that someone could have prior knowledge of what’s
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we think we’ll do that by adding more sports and by adding more opportunities for people to see ZonePlay. We want to be all round the world. Right now we’re in distribution deals with people in Mexico, Brazil, Australia and all over Europe, so we have nice geographical coverage and these markets all require something different from us as a provider. The guys in Croatia want Croatian League soccer to be traded, so we trade that for them… but would guys in the UK watch that over something else? It’s really about tailoring each offer to the individual clients.
For more information on Buzz Sports and ZonePlay, visit
www.buzzsports.com
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