When it comes to developing microbetting verticals, does SportGenerate believe that quantity is the best approach for customer acquisition & retention?
Our whole approach is about quality over quantity, we are developing highly sophisticated and in some verticals niche products. To us it is never about quantity, I have had this discussion many times over my career. When someone says, “our competitor does not have this bet market, let's develop it so we have a USP.”
My answer is always the same, analyse the data, if it shows – for example – bet type takes 30% of the total bet amount and then there are two more domineering bet types, what evidence is there that this will create extra revenue. To me I do not want to stifle innovation and sometimes it is worth a punt on creating something new. However, it needs to be well thought out and have business acumen behind it. I do not see the purpose of developing 10 new bet types that, well, generate a minimal amount of turnover on the product.
I believe instead on focusing on getting the product to highest level of quality. To do this we are focusing on AI model for prediction and our AR overlay. So, to me it is always quality over quantity. This is shown – and forgive me for going off piste here – but our Cyber Masters Cup product has provided 18% of events to our biggest customer but delivered 53% of the turnover at a good margin.
Players betting on table tennis can now bet on which part of the table the ball will land on. Where did the idea of offering this vertical come from?
The idea, I will be honest, came from others doing it and SportGenerate believing we could do it better. Additionally, it was a product enhancement we wanted to deliver to our customers and the only way to deliver it was to do it in house. We are proud of the product we have developed and we truly believe in the short to mid term it will become a market leader in its field.
We see the opportunity to not only enhance our market leading Rocket Master’s Cup tournament but to resell the technology to other companies to help enhance their products.
Have you found that there is a clear and identifiable market for this - or is it more being offered in the name of a USP?
Forgive the rant, but putting my old commercial hat on, I have always argued true USP do not really exist. To me it is about benefit-based selling, showing the benefits of your product to potential customers and showing how these benefits can solve a problem for them as well as grow their business.
If there was a true USP out there, the World would be a very dull place as everyone would be using the same platform or provider
I truly believe in horses for courses and a benefit-based approach.
There is a market for the product and it aims to do two things, one is to grow engagement for existing players, the other is to drive retention and deeper player engagement. On the flip side it can be used as an acquisition tool, it is a young, fresh, clean product that we believe can attract a new player base to our clients’ operations.
When we spoke most recently, you detailed that this technology could lead to possibilities of a table tennis Roulette product - can you tell us any more about this?
I think at this point, the idea is in my head and it is product I would like to develop. I did something similar in a past life turning Spot the Ball into a roulette game and it garnered a large amount of interest with customers. For now, we are focusing on getting the AI model as accurate as it can be, we are currently ahead of where we thought we would be in ensuring the AR features are finely tuned. Maybe, enthusiasm got the better of me and I let something slip – but at least when we do launch the product you can claim the exclusive!
Table tennis saw an exponential boom during Covid, how big is it for betting compared other sports now?
Yes, it did, as it was one of the few sports that could actually be played during lockdown. Following Covid we have seen the product grow from a need to have product, pre-Covid, to a must have product post-Covid. All products go through life cycles, and we are now going through another circle of product development and innovation to ensure – as I said earlier – player retention but also player acquisition.
We believe the fast-paced nature of table tennis coupled with AI, AR and micro betting will really expand table tennis and guarantee its place as a must have product in any sportsbook
With the possibility of table tennis roulette, table tennis could become an acquisition tool to bring sports players into casinos and vice versa.
Overall, how do you reflect on the work you have done on your table tennis products over the last 18 months - and how do you think it could influence your other Esports & live gaming products moving forward?
With the three-pronged approach of Sport Generate, our first aim was to fine tune existing product to maximise potential revenue streams. This is where the focus was for our Rocket Master’s Cup and Cyber Masters Cup product. A lot of effort was made improving the level of athletes introducing multi-tiered fraud protection measures such as polygraph testing, improving the studios, increasing event coverage, improving streaming and also improving facilities for our athletes. We achieved all of this and we are looking forward to the opening of our new studios here in Yerevan in the very near future.
Additionally, there was a lot of hard work done behind the scenes in the product department, in creating new back-office tools, scouting system, AI models and AR overlay as we look to the future of the product. So, we did very important work on ensuring the viability of the product in the market place and looking to the future and defining the space with our market leading product.
