Interviews

Putting People First! Hamest Safaryan discusses Digitain’s commitment to partners and their preparations for the upcoming LatAm events – SiGMA Americas & Peru Gaming Show.

Hamest Safaryan: “Digitain’s culture is to put our partners and people at the centre of everything we do”.

How are you preparing for both LatAm shows?

Digitain has an extensive trade show events attendance calendar for 2023. Our teams travel many thousands of miles annually, so preparation is essential to ensure a smooth journey for our team, the equipment and the booth build.

As we have been doing these roadshows for many years, we are used to the challenges some of which we can’t control such as air travel interruptions or delays for example, so we always ensure early arrival to meet with show organisers, planners for the booth construction etc.

Our team very much looks forward to the shows, as it is about people, and Digitain’s culture is to put our partners and people at the centre of everything we do. So we are excited to meet with our existing partners, welcome new partners to our booth and discuss their business requirements and how the whole Digitain family can support and exceed their goals for that market.

SiGMA Americas is going to LatAm with all its international experience. What do you expect to see in each event?

SiGMA is a great brand, they have always been and continue to be super organised with both attendees and exhibitors. We expect good attendance, great content streams, and of course networking events. The networking events are super important, for people to get to know one another, and how they look at the challenge and develop an adaptable solution. It’s people that deliver the solutions, and that is a core value of Digitain.

What are the company’s goals for the expo? What are your expectations in terms of meeting with clients and potential deals?

As an established sportsbook and igaming platform solutions provider with over 150 international partners, we are somewhat in a good position that the brand is known, with high levels of trust, reliability and code stability and of deliverability and support services of our technology solutions.

This means our inquiry pipeline is already strong in terms of booth meetings, and of course, we always welcome walk-ups whom our team shall be very happy to meet. From an expectations perspective, it is to meet partners and new partners alike, deals take time, and Digitain is with you at every step of that journey in selecting your future technology partner.

“We are somewhat in a good position that the brand is known, with high levels of trust, reliability and code stability.”

What products are you most eager to showcase? Do you have any specific products for different countries in LatAm?

For this specific show, we are lucky to showcase many in-house products that our partners shall find suitable for the Peru market, especially for the Latam market. A complete omnichannel platform solution with different verticals and a sportsbook API solution with customisation are available to discuss at our booth E120.

What assessment do you make about the current situation in Brazil regarding sports betting regulation?

Digitain as an organisation fully supports regulation and multi-jurisdictional licensing regimes. These frameworks are exceptionally important in the supply chain, and foremostly to protect the end players.

Of course, regulation takes time with policymakers, but you only must look at the great success of the USA, whereby legal sports betting has expanded on the state-by-state level. This has provided employment, tax dollars, and consumer protection to citizens.

What are the major challenges when building a sports betting platform?

As a business, we have invested heavily both financially and in people to create solutions, build out those solutions, and support services. This investment doesn’t end when you have a market-ready product, it continues, it evolves.

Perhaps the major challenges are on the front end. Simply today’s digital players, want a more one-2-one or personalised service, that appeals to the local market and end players betting interests.

Digitain’s robust platform which supports multiple languages and local currencies allows LatAm gaming operators/partners to reach the widest local audience and if required cross-border audience as possible.

Players’ appetite for deeper digital personalised experiences from sports betting brands will continue at a faster pace. Our solution facilitates this much-needed localisation. On the front end, dynamic CMS at each touch point in the marketing funnel allows partners personalized experiences to test user journeys, with more relevancy and authenticity within the critical moments of the new players’ onboarding lifecycle within the platform.

“Simply today’s digital players, want a more one-2-one or personalised service.”

The Latin American market is going through an exponential expansion, what is Digitain’s biggest challenge in this scenario?

We as a business organization view challenges as opportunities to deliver solutions, we are an ideas and solutions company.

Therefore, we have already expanded our sales and customer success teams for LatAm, along with more localization on the front end, look and feel, betting markets and promotions, to the back end in terms of payments and our Paydrom payment gateway.

For sure we are an internal business, but we act and think locally, and work alongside our partners to deliver local market needs and requirements. This will allow our business to grow in LatAm and our partners’ businesses to grow.

Source: Focus Gaming News

Leading the Charge! Hmayak, Digitain’s Sales Team Manager, discusses his 7-year journey and his role in connecting partners with Centrivo’s powerful iGaming solutions.

Hmayak, you’re an industry veteran; when did you join Digitain?

I joined the business in August 2016 as an account manager and shall soon celebrate seven years with Digitain. I’ve held several roles within the company and my current role as Sales Team Manager for over two years.

What’s your remit?

My role involves leading an experienced team of professionals looking to Digitain for their complete platform needs.

This involves attending several global industry trade shows, which are unique for meeting existing and new partners.

Tell us about Centrivo.

Digitain has been a pioneering and leading provider of innovative sports betting and gaming platform technologies across global markets for several years.

With that, we have always taken digital-first and customer-first mantras. Before its counterparts, our business has embraced AI and ML technologies to enable it to become one of the world’s most potent and technologically adaptable in the iGaming sector.

Centrivo is an all-in-one, feature-rich iGaming platform. It is a centralised hub with all the essential components, including its award-winning GLI-certified sportsbook and the Paydrom payment gateway.

The platform comes with all the tools and mechanisms required for effective risk management, brand management, data analysis and monitoring, cashier and customer interface customisation, and player profile management and categorisation. It includes multi-language and multi-currency support, a full reporting suite, and player-focused automation. Centrivo makes it possible to set up your brand within minutes.

Paydrom, our payment gateway, is an effective and comprehensive solution integrated with over 400 leading international payment providers. We empower our partners to process deposits, transfers, and withdrawals securely and swiftly securely and swiftly for iGaming. Paydrom offers various payment processing solutions, including card payments, e-wallets, bank transfers, and crypto transactions. We give our partners and their players the freedom to perform online transactions safely, wherever they might be.

Source: 5 Star Media

GAT Expo Cartagena: A resounding success for Digitain! Read this exclusive interview with Gevorg Rushanyan, Senior Sales Manager at Digitain, recap the highlights and Centrivo’s impact in the LatAm market.

How was the experience for the company at this GAT edition?

Digitain attends many expos throughout the year and GAT is always one that the team and I thoroughly enjoy. The warm welcome, and meeting existing partners, and new partners is always a privilege and honour.

We had a busy few days, and overall we were extremely pleased with the show and are following up with all inquiries taken.

Why is important for Digitain to be present in GAT Colombia?

GAT Colombia it is one of those shows that everyone attends if they are currently operating in the Latam region or looking to enter the market. It has everything you need if you are considering launching a business or are looking to perhaps change platform providers. So, it is a must to attend if an operator is serious about the Latam market.

What innovations are the company launching here?

Our focus continues to be on our award-winnning, GLI-certified iGaming Platform, Centrivo. Centrivo is highly flexible and customer-focused. We do understand the need for custom and unique approach – you will have all of this with Centrivo, including multiple templates, color and shape changes i the User Interface, Dynamic Rules Management, System notifications, Cashier module, Bonus Management, and more for any market in the Latam region.

What opportunities do you see in the Colombia market?

Latam and Colombia continue to be strong demand markets for Digitain. We shall continue to service our existing partners and new partners with the highest levels of digital solutions, and as long as the demand is there, Digitain will be happy to serve that market.

What is your vision of the regulation in Latam region?

Regulation is always welcome. Digitain as a global company supports regulation across the board, and as a business, we continue to ensure our systems are certified and compliant, within the frameworks issued by the regulatory authorities.

What was the feedback of the public?

Overall, a resounding success. Many new friendships were made, and it is always good to see old friends.

Any comment about the change of place?

From our perspective, the Expo is always well organized, and everyone is very helpful. We are already looking forward to next year.

Source: SoloAzar 

Digitain Group’s Founder Vardges Vardanyan on Digitain’s 2022 achievements, cooperation with football legend Luís Figo, preparations for ICE London 2023 and the plans for the upcoming years.

Hello, Mr Vardanyan, it’s my pleasure to talk to you today.

We know that Digitain has a story of more than 20 years. How you started?

Digitain roots back to 1999, when we started out as a lottery company. Totogaming, our B2C operation in Armenia, was launched in 2004. Years later, in 2015, the experience and the expertise in sports betting that we built up while running TotoGaming encouraged and drove us to entering the B2B market and establishing our B2B brand – Digitain. From then onwards Digitain has been taking its unique position in the B2B market up until the present day.

What is the key to success of Digitain? How you became so successful in this competitive industry?

One can never succeed with low-quality products or by taking quick corners. Offering the best product and services is essential for success. We have always been driven by and committed to this idea. But nothing can work without people- the professional and compassionate people who stand behind all this. This combination can really work wonders.

2022 was noted as one of the most successful years in Digitain’s history. What was special about this year? What goals you have achieved?

You are right, 2022 was a record-breaking year for Digitain. One of the biggest achievements of 2022 was the cooperation with football legend Luís Figo who joined the Digitain family as Brand Ambassador.

2022 was as well remarkable for Digitain in terms of international recognition and, in particular, the awards it received in the iGaming Industry. We won awards in more than 10 categories for our top-quality products and as an industry-leading company in such significant industry awards as Sigma Awards, SBC Awards, International Gaming Awards, etc… This has been the biggest number of the awards we have won in one year.

The year was also a huge success in terms of events – we had a chance to participate in more than 20 industry events, in 16 of which we were presented with a stand. What has been an indicator of success for me is that our stand areas would always be busy and crowded. We had astonishing results and definitely hit the expo goals we set for 2022.

The most important parts are, of course, the new products launched in 2022, as well as existing product upgrades. Innovative and excellent products stand behind our success, that’s what we focus on more.

Thanks to our teams’ efforts new Sportsbook features were developed and added specifically for the World Cup 2022. We also introduced our unique Sports Betting Jackpot, the only one in the industry – a feature that lets players bet on predefined events and win the jackpot if their bets win.

We launched new products, such as our standalone Payment Gateway – Paydrom, our GLI-certified, highly flexible and customer-focused iGaming platform – Centrivo and our very own Odds Feed – OddsON.

Our in-house Virtual Sports portfolio expanded with the addition of 8 new games, all of those instantly becoming virtual football fans’ top favourites.

We received GLI-certification for a number of products and features, which allows us to expand our geography and enter new markets.

I think we have a lot to be proud of․ We have accomplished many goals this year. But, of course, the more goals we achieve, the more ambitious we become, so for this year we have set a number of new goals and I am sure that with our professional team we will be able to realize those.

You talked about cooperation with Luís Figo. Could you tell us more about this interesting partnership?

Not always an iGaming business can claim to have worked with a true sports legend. For Digitain, this actually happened! It gives me great pleasure to welcome Luís Figo to the Digitain family. He is an incredible iconic person. Figo, who is praised for his unmatched reputation, impressive background, and winning attitude, is without a doubt the ideal choice to represent our Sportsbook’s quality, innovation, and effectiveness when it comes to the global representation of an iGaming company with the most recent sports betting solutions, namely Digitain. We are really excited to collaborate with this sporting legend.

He has a stellar reputation, and I think that our collaboration makes a big statement about how confident we are in our brand and our position as a major player in the market. We have significantly expanded our geographic footprint in LatAm and Asia over the past several years, and our partnership with Mr. Figo helps to increase brand recognition in both of these crucial regions, as well as globally.

What is going to change in 2023? What are your plans?

We have a lot of exciting plans for 2023. One of our main goals is to continue expanding our presence in new markets, specifically the European market.

We are also focusing on improving our existing products and launching new ones to meet the evolving needs of our partners.

We established new offices in Romania this year and I hope that our team working in Romania will bring us one step closer to our goals.

One of the most significant news of the year was the formation of Digitain Group. We launched Galaxsys – fast & skill games provider, and Relum – online casino platform, that have already achieved great success in the industry. This year we are launching our new Live Casino software providing company – Imagine Live. It is quite promising and we are sure that we will talk about the success of this company in the next year’s review.

In addition, we are preparing for ICE London 2023 – one of the biggest gaming events in the world. We are looking forward to showcasing our products and services to a global audience.

ICE London 2023 is just around the corner, what we can expect from Digitain during the biggest iGaming expo?

We are putting a lot of effort into preparing for ICE London 2023. We want to make a strong impression at the event and showcase Digitain as one of the leaders in the iGaming industry.

Empowering Your Success – that’s our motto for ICE London and the whole year. Our 20+ years of expertise has helped us to establish a strong presence in the iGaming world with our award-winning products. Since then, Digitain has grown hand in hand with its partners, walking in parallel and laying the pathway to success. And today we can confidently say – We are the success and we can Empower Your Success!

We are going to present our award-winning products – Sprotsbook, Centrivo iGaming Platform, Virtual Sports Product, as well as officially launch our new payment gateway – Paydrom.

A number of surprises, that we will soon reveal, will be waiting for the visitors at our stand.

What more would you like to add?

We are very excited about the future of Digitain Group and the opportunities that lie ahead. We are committed to continuing to innovate and bring the best products and services to our partners. We believe that with hard work and dedication, we can achieve even greater success in the future.

Thank you for your time and insightful interview, Mr Vardanyan. We hope we’ll talk about much more success next year.

Thank you too, it was my pleasure.

Source: 5 Star Media

Ahead of ICE London 2023, set to take place on February 7-9 at ExCel London, where the global gambling industry will be reunited once again, Yogonet spoke with Hamest Safaryan, Sales Team Manager at Digitain, about the company’s expectations for the renowned event and plans for the promising year ahead.

What products will the business showcase at the event, and what will it focus on?

Digitain is very excited about the upcoming edition of ICE London, which we will be part of with one of the biggest and most innovative stands throughout the whole event and over 130 staff attending. Digitain will showcase the complete range of the company’s products – all available across online, mobile, and retail channels.

These include our multifunctional, highly-flexible, full-platform solution Centrivo, our multi-award-winning Sportsbook with its complete pre-match and live offering, our new payment gateway Paydrom and our easy-to-integrate, in-house Virtual Sports. At ICE London 2023, we will be focusing on empowering the success of our existing and potential partners. We intend to deliver drive and passion for business to all the attendees, as ICE 2023 is a perfect stage to get a taste of success.

Given ICE London’s status as one of the major global events in the industry, what are your expectations and objectives for the expo?

If I say that we have high expectations from the event, that will not be enough since every company sets expectations based on the work and effort every participant puts into the show.

I can assure you Digitain is preparing for ICE 2023, combining all its departments’ input and hard work to represent the company in the best light possible. We are confident that all the expectations – in terms of brand positioning, mutual cooperation, market expansion, and new prospects attraction – will be met.

ICE London is a huge networking opportunity where business relationships run with the highest possible speed. The very fact of the event being hosted in London and bringing together all profile businesses of the industry has a huge impact on the company’s main strategy: not only in terms of sales and business development but also in terms of partnerships improving the product portfolio to deliver a comprehensive service to our partners.

How would you describe the industry’s and your clients’ current demands at the time? What markets will you focus on at the expo?

Today’s industry clients are increasingly educated, unforgiving, and demanding in terms of product quality, support delivery, and compliance to the market needs, all of which are related to high competition among the suppliers.

With its premium iGaming platform, e-Sports, Virtual Sports, and award-winning Sportsbook, Digitain has established itself as a leading supplier of iGaming software solutions worldwide.

The corporation is primarily concerned with the European regulated market, but it has high goals of expanding into the Americas, Africa, and Asia in the near future. The firm has over 2000 employees and thus invests heavily in its growth so that it can give its all to the business and its partners. Having said this, we are proud to be one of the best employers in the industry, which remains part of our strategy.

During the month of November, we saw Digitain ink new deals with game providers Spribe and Gaming Corps. What do these kinds of partnerships represent for Digitain?

Cooperation with industry-leading suppliers is part of the offer improvement journey. We are already seeing the positive outcome from these cooperations and are very excited about these and many more cooperations initiated last year and coming up early this year. Additional announcements about this will be made in due time, of course.

The event comes as we enter a new year for gambling. What is your assessment of the company’s performance in 2022, and what should we expect from it in 2023?

For Digitain, 2022 was a defining year. The collaboration with football icon Luís Figo, who joined the Digitain family as Brand Ambassador, was one of the year’s most significant accomplishments.

Multiple awards received in more than ten different categories, from the Sigma Awards, the SBC Awards, the International Gaming Awards, and other prominent industry awards in 2022, recognized our high-quality solutions and established us as a market leader.

We had a fantastic and eventful year, with active representation at over 20 different expos and conferences worldwide. Our staff worked hard to create and implement new Sportsbook features in time for the 2022 World Cup.

We also launched many new, in-house products, including our independent payment gateway Paydrom, our GLI-certified, highly adaptable, and customer-focused iGaming platform Centrivo, our odds feed OddsON, and our in-house Virtual Sports.

We had phenomenal growth in Sales in 2022, reaching new regulated markets in Europe and beyond, exceeding the number of signed contracts target.

In 2023, Digitain established itself as Digitain Group, having under its umbrella such group companies as Galaxsys (a supplier of fast and skill games), Relum (an online casino engine), and the live casino software provider Imagine Live. 2023 will see us implement several of our most promising initiatives. Our primary focus is on developing a larger customer base in areas such as Europe. This year, we are expanding our operations to include a new office in Romania.

What other industry events does the company plan to attend this year?

Digitain presence in almost all major Industry events and awards ceremonies is part of our strategy this year. Industry prospects can expect to meet us during upcoming major events organized by IGB, SBC, and Sigma in Europe, Latin America and other continents.

We will continue improving the product portfolio and innovative functionalities and aim to bring something new to the attendees every time we are involved in the show.

Source: Yogonet

Digitain Group R&D Director Peter Nolan speaks to Gambling Insider about the company’s future in the US, the LatAm market and Luís Figo playing football on an Armenian roof.

Where is Digitain right now in the market and where does it want to be?

It’s in a good state. We’ve just come out of a good conference. We’re looking to expand our global footprint in regulated markets; that’s our target. We’re building sales teams in Latin America and Asia to help support that, and the general sales team has doubled in the region in the last 18 months. We’ve got some good products; in particular, we launched the new platform called Centrivo in the summer and it has had a big impact – so we’re in good shape platform wise. It’s got some really good verticals, support and a lot of tools for the operators: like CRM and an integrated payment gateway, content management system, etc. We bumped up the tools and the whole stability and flexibility of it, where people can quickly change the website and mobile sites to suit their brand. That has been successful so far.

What about the core products?

We upgraded our sportsbook, which is our hero product. Digitain started out in this industry with shops in Armenia and a sports betting B2C. Sports betting was our original business, so we have a large team of traders and risk management people, with algorithms – we’ve upgraded that recently so it’s ready for the World Cup. Also, we launched our online casino studio in the last few months and have signed up over 50 partners on the live casino. That’s a completely new studio built in our Digitain headquarters, which is a state-of-the-art building housing over 2,000 people now. We’re also building another studio so we can offer some more bespoke services to clients.

In terms of sports betting, how interested are you in the US market right now?

It’s on our radar at some point in the future. There are certainly plenty of opportunities there as the various new regulated markets open up. Right now, we have plenty to do, plenty on and are focused on Central European, LatAm and Asian markets. Looking at it, there’s a fight going on in the US, people spending a lot of money in terms of operations, while most people are cutting down on that to save money. However, we’re confident we will achieve growth there over time.

So LatAm is a bigger focus for you in the near future, then?

Yeah, but we want to go into the regulated markets, too. I worked in Brazil for a couple of years, so I know it quite well. We have a couple of good people that work there for us, who are talking to the regulators a lot in Brazil and Argentina. We want to get our products certified for these areas; that’s our aim. However, right now, we’re focused on getting more visibility.

In terms of visibility, it must be great for the brand to have Luís Figo as an ambassador, which Gambling Insider exclusively revealed back in July.

Yes, that’s a big statement for us and our B2B suppliers, as well. Obviously, you get a lot of B2C people with advocates and footballers. So, for our B2B supplier to get him was a big statement. It’s a bit like our show at ICE London: every year it’s a bit bigger, a bit better and represents the confidence we have in the business.

Digitain’s new Group COO, Armine Sirunyan, speaks to Gambling Insider about her new role within the business and the company’s plans for 2023 and beyond.

Congratulations on your appointment! What was your first thought when you found out you were going to become Group COO?

Excitement! There is a great deal still to achieve and I’m so looking forward to working with colleagues from across the organisation to ensure our continued success. I’m also very thankful to be given this opportunity to continue my journey with this progressive organisation in such an important role.

What is your biggest target as Digitain COO?

There are many and all of them are big and undertaken with strong determination. I would outline, that I am strongly committed to driving continual improvement in how we serve our partners and how we support our teams in ensuring that we deliver the very best standards of customer experience. I would also highlight balancing efficiency with effectiveness – ensuring that all systems and processes across the business are optimised – especially those “moments of truth” that make the real difference to our partners.

How has working at Digitain changed since you joined the company?

We see the advancement of technology in an enormous speed every single day and across all the aspects of our life, which is as well reflected in our work. Saying this, we are now integrating and using machine learning and AI across all our products and services.  Our global footprint has grown significantly as we expand our geography and move into more regulated markets. This in its turn drives us to furnishing our products and services with more market specific functionals and solutions.

Another significant change to me, as to a person who has spent with the company around a decade, is the size and the scale of the team. It used to be a team of few hundreds, and now we have a workforce of over 2000. And it is not only the numbers that matter. I am very proud to see that we have built a diverse and multifunctional team covering various professions, talents and new directions. Another change I would highlight, is the complexity of products. Digitain used to be a sportsbook-oriented provider-sportsbook being the first product it introduced to the market. Now we are a multi-vector business, offering wider range of products and solutions and continuously heading towards new business directions.   

Finally, what are the company’s biggest goals for 2023?

We follow through our goal to enter more regulated markets globally and expand our geographical presence. This, in its turn, drives us to constantly developing our product base – including live casino, sportsbook, payment gateway and RGS.

We are very much focused on creation and development of our in-house products, and ensuring that those are equipped with constantly evolving, top-notch and competitive features.  Some of our in-house products have succeeded to an extent that they have grown into stand-alone companies and are creating their own success path.

As a client- centric company, we are committed to putting our best effort, our in-house expertise and knowledge to facilitate the sustainable growth and development of the business of our partners. We keep on being innovative and taking every opportunity to delight our new and existing partners with new offerings that will reinforce their competitive position in the market. And last, but not the least, we have an ultimate vision to grow the technical skill base in Armenia (as a centre of excellence) via company initiatives such as M1TQ.

Digitain’s Zohrab Karapetyan talks exclusively to G3 magazine about the company’s expectations of the 2022 FIFA World Cup and his plans to deliver a special sportsbook experience.

What opportunities does the upcoming World Cup present the sports betting industry?

We expect betting levels to significantly exceed those seen in the 2018 tournament. If you look at the betting history of the World Cup, the betting turnover has grown over every tournament since Italia ’90 and we do not feel this pattern will change.

It has been estimated that the total amount of bets placed globally on the 2018 World Cup Finals exceeded €130 billion, an average per match of €2.1 billion, with over €7 billion being gambled on the France v Croatia final. That is spectacular and just underlines the popularity of football across the world.

Since then, a number of significant new markets have been regulated and interest in football continues to grow, so we are confident that, despite this tournament being the first one to be held in winter, the 2022 World Cup will beat all records for betting handle.

Excitement for the Qatar World Cup has been comparatively muted, namely due to the human rights abuses committed in the region, the excessive cost of travel and tickets, a disrupted domestic calendar, and the sweltering heat that is likely impact on the quality of matches being played. Nonetheless, does the tournament have the potential to still be an engaging and entertaining betting experience?

We’re confident that this year’s tournament will deliver some great viewing and betting experiences, with regular bettors on premium football switching to betting on the tournament.

There could be some impact on the dynamic nature of the games, given the heat of Qatar, even at his time, but I think the levels of excitement of watching the world’s best teams will overcome any potential obstacles. It’s going to be a wonderful spectacle, in my opinion.

Do you anticipate greater betting engagement rates than Russia four years ago? 

From a Digitain perspective, our partner network has grown significantly since the last World Cup, so we will obviously see much higher volumes being processed through our platform than previously. However, as stated above, we still feel that our World Cup 2022 organic growth with be significant over the previous competition.

How will overall betting spend on the tournament be impacted by the cost-of-living crisis? As mortgage payments continue to rise, energy bills soar and with Christmas around the corner, how will sports betting handle be impacted? 

Traditionally, sports betting tends to be recession-proof to a large extent, although the global economic picture this year may test that theory.  However, I think the World Cup is such an iconic tournament, with high-profile games coming thick and fast, that the overall spend will still increase over previous tournaments.

 It would not be surprising if this year’s World Cup generates over €250 billion in stakes, with football fans ignoring the controversies surrounding the event and focusing on the spectacle.

How have operator partners approached the winter tournament differently to a traditional summer event? What have been the biggest hurdles with the different timing?

The games are being played at 6pm and 11pm locally, which is reasonably attractive from a European, African, Asian and even North and South American betting fan’s perspective, fairly similar to current domestic league timing – so our partners are not expecting too much disruption to their normal operational processes.

From a partner perspective – there will be an obvious impact on the expected betting handle on the domestic football leagues, especially the key European ones; the Premier League, the Bundesliga, Primera Liga and Serie A, that all plan to take a six week break when the World Cup is on. However, this should balance out as the postponed games will be squeezed into an extended season ending later than usual at the end of May 2023.

What betting trends are you anticipating for this World Cup? Are we likely to see a greater focus on outright betting or bet builders? 

Outright betting is always popular on football tournaments, particularly the World Cup where you see lots of “patriotic” bets, especially if the team have a successful run in the competition and the nation and media get behind them.

From an operator perspective, the key period for revenue in the tournament is the Group stage where we they will see the most money bet per day, due, of course, to the number of games being played. As the tournament progresses the games become more spread out and there is less daily betting activity. 

What features, products and innovations have you lined up to coincide with the World Cup?

We understand the importance of the World Cup for our partners, so we have been busy preparing some new offers, promotions and additional content for them to ensure their players remain engaged and loyal for the duration of the tournament.

We have developed a World Cup Predictor game that operators can customise to suit their marketplace and can reward their players with prizes or free bets.

As well as this, we have launched a new World Cup Player Tournament application, allowing our partners’ players to participate and win prizes based on their skills in predicting and betting on the competition results.

We have a wealth of new bonuses, bet boosters and promos dedicated for the competition – one of my favourites is our “2 Goal Early Pay-out” offer, where we will settle bets as winners if a team goes ahead in a match. It applies to both singles and multi bets – so is bound to be a winner with players who like to re-invest.

Finally, your pick of this year’s winner…

I think England will have good tournament despite recent form, but France may find it is very difficult to defend the trophy –it hasn’t been done since Brazil in 1962.

Belgium at 16/1 and Croatia at 50/1 a are good each-way bets, but I might have a small bet on Argentina at around 7/1 to win – they always turn up at the big tournaments.

In the latest edition of Intergamingi’s Magazine, Digitain’s Research & Development Director, Peter Nolan, shares his thoughts on the key elements that need to be in place in order to build a successful sports betting business.

What are the major challenges when building a sports betting platform?

 I think it’s easier to discuss what I believe you have to get right in order to develop (and by the way, continue to develop) a successful sports betting platform.

I won’t go into the technology stack required, someone more informed is best covering that, although aspects such as speed, security and stability are obviously paramount. From a customer perspective there are a number of key things that have to be delivered if you want a sportsbook to be successful and these include the effectiveness of on-boarding, the range and quality of the sports betting content, the overall user experience and the comprehensiveness of the payment solutions provided.

A lot of marketing money gets spent in acquiring customers, so it’s important that the first experience a user has is an excellent one, so the registration journey has to be seamless, logical and quick. Verification, depending on the local regulations, has to be as painless a process as you can make it, and communication to new customers needs to be as clear and reassuring as possible.

It goes without saying that content is king for a sports betting platform, so a comprehensive range of global sports betting opportunities has to be delivered. A full range of betting markets and competitive odds to go with these opportunities are also required, plus the trading skills to deliver sustainable revenue stream for your partners is pretty important too.

Live betting is the hero product, and this has got to be delivered instantly and accurately, along with other supporting content via, in our case, our Live Match tracker, to ensure the best experience for the customers. In our case AI technology as well as a suite of algorithms, as well as our large team of traders, are used to ensure our in-play service is among the best available.

A recent YouGov research article regarding the Champions League final indicated that for bettors, user experience was the main driver in their selection of bookmaker. Odds, especially in-play, can be commoditised, so user experience delivered is paramount. This includes many factors including delivering intuitive navigation, ease of bet placement, market availability and speed of bet settlement. Also includes ensuring all the above is fit for purpose for a range of international markets.

Finally, payments. Customers have to be able to transact effectively with the operators so providing a wide range of methods is a key capability.  Processing deposits AND withdrawals quickly and securely is pretty obvious but are clear “moments of truth” for the customers.

Developing a platform which allows your partners the flexibility to provide a localised solution, no matter where they are in the world, so that they can successfully differentiate their offering is also a massive requirement. The challenge here from a provider perspective is to do this for all your partners on your network while maintaining and developing the overall technology to handle the change management and deliver the always-growing product roadmap.

How do you streamline your pre-match, live odds and live data services?

We have a large team of odds compilers, traders and risk managers involved in the process, who use a range of AI tools and feeds to manage this process. On average we supply around 90,000 live betting events each month to our partners, so speed and accuracy are obviously very important, and technology plays a large part in making this happen.

We have a very comprehensive Live Match tracker which combines a multitude of data feeds from 15,000 leagues and competitions globally, providing users with lots of useful stats and an interactive overview of live events.

What is the role played by digital marketing and gamification tools?

Not really my area of expertise, but I believe that having an effective digital marketing strategy and the capabilities and people to optimise it is a key strategic requirement for any sportsbook operator. Brand marketing is also important in order to gain trust and awareness for new ventures. However digital marketing (which is pretty multi-faceted) is most important for recruitment and retention of customers, via known approaches as SEO, paid search, social marketing. An effective CRM solution, where operators can develop a longer-term relationship with customers is another important requirement that needs to be part of the digital marketing toolbox.

Gamification is an interesting point. For a lot of customers, a sportsbook is a destination site – they arrive having a clear view what to bet they want to bet on, so the operator’s job is to make that an easy journey. Making the experience of placing a bet more gamified, or perhaps more entertaining – is an interesting discussion point. For me the entertainment delivered by having a bet is when watching the event, not in the transaction. However, I know that gamification is an area of interest for a lot of users and operators, and I hear lots of noise coming from the US about how this can be better introduced. Be interesting to see if there is any innovation emerging soon.

Where do affiliate systems and risk management fit into the picture?

Separately I’d say!

Affiliates are a vital part of the iGaming marketing ecosystem, generating new customer traffic streams for sportsbook operators, and even, in some cases, helping the long-term retention of customers. An effective affiliate system, where these partners are helped in the promotion of your business, and where communication and reporting of affiliate performance is available, can be an important part of the overall marketing strategy.

Rick management falls under the Trading umbrella. Provision of a wide range of sporting events, markets and competitive odds, as discussed above, is absolutely required if a sports betting business is to attract customers. An effective risk management team, and their supporting systems, is required if you want to have a successful, sustainable and profitable business.

In which markets does your company currently operate?

Digitain’s partner network of over 150 operators is mainly located in Europe, although we have partners also in Asia, Africa and Latam.

As the company continues to grow, which new markets are you looking to venture into and why?

We are building up our international sales team capabilities currently and are looking especially at new regulated markets, in Latam and elsewhere. We believe that we have the experience, technology and knowledge, as a business that started off as an operator, to be able to help new business be successful in these new emerging markets. Our flexible platform and our fantastic product and technology teams allow us to get our partners to market quickly, with a highly competitive offering, whatever the regulations require.

Why do you believe your company resonates with bettors?

As mentioned, we started off as operators ourselves, before becoming B2B suppliers. I think we understand well the operators needs and challenges, and we have built a business to ensure that our partners’ success is our success too. We have developed a highly effective and profitable sportsbook, delivered via Centrivo, our new fully featured iGaming platform which provides everything required to build a sustainable sports betting business. On top of that, we support our partners through the whole process, up to launch, with licensing, payment processing and marketing strategy guidance.

Where do you see the industry headed in the next year?

The economic challenges with cost-of -living increases globally are a concern, although, historically, sports betting business have been recession proof in the past. So, it will be interesting to see if there will be any reduction in consumer overall share of wallet for betting or recreational purposes.

On a positive note, innovation generally emerges from challenging periods, as business seek to be either more effective or more efficient – with the customers, hopefully, the main beneficiaries.

At Digitain, we have a team specialising in developing additional AI and machine-learning solutions to make our products even more advanced and more attractive to our partners.

Improving the speed and accuracy of sporting and odds and data, to improve the overall user experience seems to be a clear trajectory for the industry – as operators look to grow the live betting part of the business. Streaming will be focused upon, improved and made more immersive, with additional sports discovered.

Source: iNTERGAMINGi