Pulse
SPORTS BETTING TWAIN SPORT
organisation within BetGames as it has separate product and engineering team. Tere are some overlaps, but they are independent of one another and from a branding perspective Twain has nothing to do with BetGames whatsoever.
What's the thinking behind the brand name?
Initially it was called Action Games. Following brand research by Yanina (marketing team?)and her team, Action Games was found to sound more like a computer game genre and wasn't quite the right fit. Te Hybrid Sports League had already labelled the product Twain Sports, so we decided to go with that.
Why reinvent the wheel and call the thing differently on a betting platform than the actual sport ‘s name itself? Twain is old English for two and as a head-to-head product it makes sense to roll with it.
What is each partner responsible for in the cooperation?
Te Hybrid Sports League is essentially accountable for anything related to the sports such as its organisation, the rules, event schedule – like a sports league or federation such as Premier League and UEFA. What BetGames has done is take the content, develop the betting platform, and offer Twain Sport as a betting product exclusively in return for a decent fee. In addition, we have offered the Hybrid Sports League some additional technology as we have a 10-year history in streaming technology in-house, so we possess the know-how and equipment they lacked.
Whilst they are building up their sports offering, we have offered the means to stream with our technology and do some consulting work in terms of hardware development. In short, our relationship is a technology and content partnership, sprinkled with some consulting work.
What difficulties did BetGames face in the build-up to launch?
Tere were two or three big challenges. First and foremost was ensuring compliance and integrity. If you look at the entire project cycle, it has been two years since talks commenced but the project was only kicked off formally 18 months ago. During this year and a half, much of our workload has been dedicated to compliance and integrity. It was clear to us that if we’re going to enter such a co-operation, we would have to challenge one other.
We told them how much we loved what they do, but that if they want to have us as their partner there will need to a top-notch tier one integrity concept, and we will do the same on our end from a betting platform perspective. Tat was probably the biggest challenge - to find the right
P82 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS
set-up and processes. Tere are several compliance 'layers' to ensure it was comparable from an integrity point of view to any tier one football competition. It was super expensive, painful, and time-consuming.
Secondly, we had the technical issues. Te key thing to note is we are a live casino operator and moving from casinogames into trading new sports? It’s a different beast entirely. Creating a sports platform, trading platform and the risk management tools is something we have never done before. Ten there is a hardware layer that collects multiple data points of every shot. To do this from scratch in no more than nine months of serious work. Doing the innovative stuff sounds cool, and it actually is, but it requires every individual to go the absolute extra mile over a long period of time.
As with the entire BetGames portfolio, Twain Sport is designed to be a
complementary product. We never wanted to have a
portfolio that competes with Evolution, Playtech or
Pragmatic Play and have a price war. We want products
that add value for partners and ourselves. This allows us not to focus on competitors too much, but on innovation,
Now, during the soft-launch period, we are facing all kinds of minor headaches that come with launching a brand new live traded betting product. Tere is lots of coordination required with the Hybrid Sports League's. It's still tricky like any live operation based product, but very enjoyable at the same time. We are currently starting the broader roll out of the product which comes with the usual integration headaches.
If you are rolling out something new, you need to convince partners of its quality and integrity concept. As it turns out, this aspect wasn't too difficult after announcing the co-operation with Sportradar. Getting the integration priority when every sportsbook is preparing for the World Cup has been the tricky part.
We are on a good track, but those have been the key issues we’ve faced getting Twain Sport where it is today: compliance, building a sports platform from scratch, and the standard operational stuff that comes with it.
What opportunities does Twain Sport offer for engagement, cross-sell, and revenue for BetGames' partners?
As with the entire BetGames portfolio, Twain Sport is designed to be a complementary product. We never wanted to have a portfolio that competes with Evolution, Playtech or Pragmatic Play and have a price war. We want products that add value for partners and ourselves. Tis allows us not to focus on competitors too much, but on innovation, because we are the only ones in this space. Tere is a lot of cross-sell and up-sell potential into the casino space, but we are positioning the product as an add-on at the moment.
Tere is a fragmented sports calendar, and we are offering operators and players a super exciting, action packed product where players can bet and enjoy a full head-to-head tournament every single hour. As awareness of the product grows, there are many synergies, i.e. to position Twain Sport during breaks in major sports events. For example, when NBA games finish the second quarter and have a 15-minute break, operators lose a lot of players.
Twain Sport offers T-Basket to stream four or five games during that quarter of an hour so as not to lose them and keep them engaged. Tey can also be used pre- and post-match, or during off peak hours. As it is, the offering is not yet strong enough to be a standalone product like the Premier League is on a Saturday afternoon. But our partner works on several new sports and we will be building a betting category out of that in the coming months and years.
Who is the target demographic?
It's tailored for a younger audience, and this was one of our key considerations when creating the product. Te first was integrity and the second was how we can offer an engaging product that resonates with the 18-25 demographic. As such, the content is quick, it's live, easy to consume, everything is done within max two button taps, there are full head-to-head tournaments every hour and social profiles for the players to follow.
Where do you recommend operators position Twain Sport within their lobbies?
Initially, I used the tagline ‘turning virtuals into reality’ to explain the product. We are convincing partners to position Twain Sport as a separate category like BetGames. What we have seen with BetGames is that if it is thrown in with live casino, it just doesn’t work. Tere are a few partners where it does perform to an extent, but it mostly doesn’t because it is then sat with 300 other live offerings that are fundamentally different from what BetGames was built for – to offer a bridge between sports and casino.
With Twain, it’s a bit of a different story. We
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108
