Pragmatic Play: Uncovering the nuances of a shifting global market

We developed the content management system to allow us to do more with our sports content, and achieve greater flexibility and efficiency for operators. Ultimately, operators are free to configure their sports pages however they like, but we provide vital input into that strategy.

In Europe, for example, speed and ease of navigation are crucial to consumers and our Quick Links, Featured Events and Search modules get a lot of traction, allowing users to navigate to their preferred event or selection in an instant. In Asia, sportsbooks tend to be more in-play dominant, so a typical sports landing page will load tens, if not hundreds, of concurrent in-play events. In Africa, the business mix is different again, dominated by high volumes of pre-match multiple bets. There, a homepage would need to cater for that by displaying a longlist of pre-match football events, allowing users to easily build multiple bets. It’s almost replicating the traditional retail coupon view.

Finally, the modular system also allows us and operators to showcase and drive revenue into new products. A good example is our pre-populated Bet Builder component. With this, users can choose from a variety of pre-published Bet Builder selections direct from the homepage. We are seeing very good engagement with this module already.

When it comes to odds data, how do you ensure it remains reliable?

At Pragmatic Play Sports, we are proud of our relationship with official rights holders, many of whom pay a premium to guarantee the reliability of their data. Through a central contract with Pragmatic Play Sports, operators can benefit from the efficiencies of official and reliable odds, and incident data.

As the provider of the sportsbook platform, we monitor and assess many KPIs that ensure the reliability of data. This is not an exhaustive list, but we focus on the number of pricing errors, market and event uptime (i.e., the amount of time an event is available for betting), bet settlement speeds, accuracy of price changes (relative to what’s happening in an event), rejected bets caused through price changes of market, event suspensions and more. Friction caused by these and other such issues is significantly reduced using reliable and official odds data. This benefits the operator and their customers, ensuring a better overall experience for both.

How can you tell a reliable data source from a non-reliable data source?

The simplest answer is latency. A non-reliable data source will be highly latent

Odds, price changes, scoreboard and general incident data (goals, cards, VAR checks and any other events that dictate the betting odds) will be delayed in relation to what is happening in real time.

For the operator, this means more pricing errors, delayed bet settlement, high volumes of rejected bets and, for customer support teams, the need to resettle or void bets and deal with unhappy customers.

The real impact is on the consumer. They are much more likely to be faced with longer in-play bet delays. Scoreboards and match trackers will be delayed, which could lead to misinformed betting choices. They will also experience a higher volume of rejected bets as operators will have to impose controls to deal with the latency. Overall, it adds a significant amount of friction and pain to the sports betting experience.

There has been an increase in bans on greyhound racing around the world. As a brand offering both a sportsbook and virtual greyhound racing, how do you feel greyhound betting will change?

Greyhound racing has been in the news recently following a ban in Wales, although the UK Government was quick to remind us that there are no plans to ban the sport elsewhere. Ultimately, greyhound racing is a legal sport in the countries where we provide betting and, while this remains the case, we strive to offer a market-leading product on racing in those territories. Many customers enjoy the thrill and excitement of betting on greyhound races, which has been the case for over a century. I don’t see this news having a material impact on greyhounds as a product offered from the UK.

The governing bodies of UK greyhounds, like any other sports around the world, take measures to ensure their sports are regulated and run responsibly. This is important to us as a provider of these products.

For the operator, it is another reminder to diversify and not be over-reliant on a single product. Our sportsbook offers betting on tens of thousands of different sports events globally each month, so I would hope this recent news has little direct impact on the operator and their customers.

What other regulatory changes do you feel will impact the sports betting market?

We have already seen a raft of regulatory changes hit many territories around the world, most notably the UK, where operators have had to pivot their entire strategies to embed regulatory measures into their DNA. This has involved deposit limits, responsible gambling checks, affordability checks, restrictions on marketing advertising and more. My guess is that other countries around the world will pivot to similar measures, if they haven’t already. A good example of this is Brazil, perhaps the biggest newly regulated online betting market of them all.

At Pragmatic Play Sports, we were proud to launch major brands in the regulated sports betting markets of Spain, Germany and the UK. These launches required huge collaboration, not only between compliance teams within our business, but also on the operator side. Launching our product in multiple regulated territories is pivotal to our strategy – and you can look forward to more news on this front soon.

How are the needs of players changing and how does this reflect in your products?

Operators and their customers will always have an eye on new ways to bet

In recent years, we’ve seen a shift towards bet builder (same-game parlay) products, player markets and stats-related betting opportunities. We recognised this trend early, hence our addition of a football player markets product announced in 2024. I see obvious growth this year and beyond in micro markets, offering users the ability to bet on instant betting selections that appear and are settled in very quick time.

I’m a big advocate of free-to-play games as a low-cost acquisition and retention mechanic for operators. These are fun to play and are much more impactful to many than the receipt of a free bet. I think these games are underused in many territories and can add to the enjoyment and thrill of sports betting.

Features will come and go, but consumers will always demand a fast and reliable sports betting site where navigation is seamless from one page to the next

I never see this changing. At Pragmatic Play Sports, we place an emphasis on ensuring our products are as fast and reliable as possible, while keeping up with the modern-day demands of sports betting customers when it comes to bet pattern changes, like we’ve seen with player markets.