Pulse
FANTASY SPORTS FSB, SCOUT GAMING & INCENTIVE GAMES
from one point in their journey to another.
Te best way for fantasy sports brands to differentiate is to really understand their audience and their own market position and then create or deploy content from third parties like Scout that matches this audience and position. Don’t try to be all things to all people, that often results in a muddled message that appeals precisely to nobody. It’s all about knowing your market and producing content for it.
Bob: FSB offer our operator partners the ability to take control of pricing in a number of ways. Our Price Boost tool means partners can offer a best price position across any sportsbook market while with Bet Boost they can award tokens to their player base that enables end users to inflate the price of the sportsbook opportunity of their choosing.
Of course, it is important for marketing, retention, content and trading teams to work closely together to identify ways to come up with headline boosts that capture player attention and deliver genuine value, while also acting as a point of difference compared to rival operators.
It is also worth highlighting our hybrid trading model that we have made available in the US, as this allows operators to independently trade the sports of their choosing. For example, our operator partners can focus on the key US sports while allowing our expert traders to manage the rest of the long-tail global content.
With odds compilers for conventional sports betting sites rarely missing a trick when it comes to pricing markets, is there an argument that the player versus player model used in fantasy sports betting is more appealing to customers looking to consistently profit from their bets?
Victor: I believe there are enough missed priced opportunities the with majority of bookmakers, but players that will consistently wager those opportunities will be restricted. With the business model of player versus player, the operators profit margin is not affected by players that have an edge and therefore they can keep playing.
Araz: Because of the maturity of those traditional sports betting markets, even professional sports bettors and traders can sometimes struggle to drive any substantial margin. Tere is an argument to be made that fantasy players with the highest skill levels can give themselves an edge over other players and that this might give those types of customers another option. Te big debate for operators though is whether or not an environment where very highly skilled players consistently take
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“Because of the maturity of those traditional sports betting markets, even professional sports bettors and traders can sometimes struggle to drive any substantial margin. There is an argument to be made that fantasy players with the highest skill levels can give themselves an edge over
other players and that this might give those types of
customers another option. The big debate for operators though is whether or not an
environment where very highly skilled players consistently take profits from less
experienced or more casual players is conducive to their objectives.”
Araz Heydariyehzadeh
Araz: We already have reams of data from the US, particularly from the likes of DraftKings and FanDuel, that show there is a strong overlap between fantasy and sportsbook players. While these groups certainly aren’t identical, they do often share a number of key characteristics. Recent data suggests that anywhere between 30-70 per cent of users in some markets initially only played fantasy but are now playing both. Tis indicates that fantasy is playing a role in educating users about sportsbook betting in some capacity.
Tere is also an argument to be made, and we have data from our B2B partners across the world to support it, that fantasy can act as a lower learning curve form of sports betting for users who may simply not be interested in sportsbook betting. Tis does have something to do with the fact that fantasy originally started out as a free-to-play product, and users gained experience and skills playing fantasy games which they now feel more comfortable playing for money. Te same isn’t true for sports betting.
Bob: I think that customers will continue to do both for the time being as fantasy sports and daily fantasy sports offer things that straight-up sports betting does not. Almost all US sports fans will be part of a fantasy league with their friends, while a significant number will also continue to take part in daily contests for the fast-paced action they provide.
profits from less experienced or more casual players is conducive to their objectives.
In my option, there aren’t a great many situations in which that provides a good outcome for the operator or for the vast majority of users. Te most effective way for the operator to handle this is to have a clear market position and objective in mind. Tere are ways B2B DFS providers like Scout can provide games that pit the top players against one another and allow them to battle it out, without cannibalising fun or mass market appeal for more casual players.
My personal philosophy is that fantasy should provide the maximum amount of fun and entertainment for the largest number of users possible within a specific player segment, so products should be fun, exciting and for entertainment rather than generating large amounts of profit for a small group of people.
In more recently regulated markets, fantasy sports betting has been around for some time, whilst traditional online sports betting is only just being made available. Do you think we’ll see a mass migration of players in these markets from DFS sites to sportsbooks now that they’re legal, or will customers have the appetite to do both?
However, over time I think daily fantasy will become less popular as more states embrace legal sports betting. Tis is certainly the case as operators continue to roll out micro markets and prop bets as they offer very similar gameplay to DFS and, ultimately, is why operators looking to transition players from fantasy to real money betting offer them.
Victor: In some markets DFS was the ‘closest thing’ legally available for people that wanted to wager on sports. Tat segment will likely migrate to sports betting and significantly reduce their fantasy betting. For the remaining players there will be those that will do both and those that will stick to just DFS. We believe that for the operators betting on sports will be a much bigger driver for their revenue and profits than DFS.
Sports betting odds are generally quite consistent across the board. How do and should online sportsbooks go about pricing their markets in a way that offers value and appeal to bettors?
Araz: Because sportsbook odds are usually very consistent, the differences in pricing generally appeal to a certain kind of punter and that is the more experienced, regular bettor which represents a smaller portion but a higher turnover segment of the market.
To the mass market, casual punter placing stakes of £5, the difference in prices between a favourite horse or team to win on two bookmaker sites is usually unlikely to be
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