Sportsbooks get social

Tell us all about Rebet.
CH: I am Carson Hubbard. I am the CEO of Rebet.
BG: I’m Bella DiGiovanni. I’m the CMO at Rebet and we’re super excited.
CH: At the heart of what we are, Rebet is a first-of-its-kind, free-to-play social sportsbook where fans can connect, share and celebrate their love of sports together. I think one of the most interesting things about Rebet is our founding story. Because it’s not every day that you see a company like this being founded by a bunch of 19, 20-year-olds.
Rebet was founded by four Dartmouth undergraduate college students and our development was driven by our shared love for sports, and this realisation that there was a huge void in the current sports betting experience. Our team’s got diverse experience in economics, technology, entrepreneurship and software development that converged at the Dartmouth Tuck School of Business startup incubator, where we were able to hone this idea into a more feasible business model. Over the summer, we got out and raised over seven figures in funding from various private investors. The vision was to build a platform that would bring the social and communal aspects of fandom to the forefront of the sports betting experience. That’s ultimately what led to the birth of Rebet.

Could you break down what Rebet is and how you set yourself apart?
CH: You’ll see in the application we have two different currencies. We have Rebet Coins and Rebet Cash... Rebet Coins are the currency users use for fun. Users get 100 Rebet Coins every day and can place picks with these coins. Through the accumulation of these coins, players can climb social leaderboards and earn status within the Rebet community. But this currency is just for fun. It can’t be redeemed for real prizes.
Rebet Cash is our other type of currency. This provides entry into our promotional sweepstakes and can be redeemed for real-money rewards. One unit of Rebet Cash can be redeemed for $1. Rebet Cash is always free to claim; it can’t be purchased. Once won through gameplay, it can be used to enter more sweepstakes or be redeemed for real-money rewards.

It is interesting that social media elements aren’t inherently present in sportsbook apps with the number of young people coming into sports betting. CH: The sports betting experience is inherently social... You’ll see that, through this approach, there is no more disconnect in the environment. Everything can be done on one platform. There’s no more screenshotting your bets and sending it to your friends via iMessage. Everything can be done on one platform.

I’m looking at the app and I’m seeing elements from existing sportsbooks and social media platforms. I’d like to know where you draw your inspiration from.
CH: We drew inspiration from different social media sites we love. You can see similarities to something like Instagram. And you can see other similarities to DraftKings, FanDuel or traditional sportsbooks. We tried to merge the best of sportsbooks with the best social media so that you can do everything in one application... By using similarities within the app, we’re creating a user experience that people are already used to. They don’t need to learn an entirely new user interface. They are familiar with this type of layout already.

How do you make your app accessible?
CH: We are opening the doors for anyone to use Rebet, even if you’re not someone that consistently makes picks. One example I love to share is about my grandma Pam. She loves to use Rebet and it’s just so that she can go on and see what picks me, my dad and my brother are on [so she can] cheer on those teams...
Our mission is to create a fun and inclusive environment. We have easy-to-read lines; with one click of a button, you are going to transform your entire platform into a language that anyone can understand. Instead of seeing a spread as minus two, you see the Patriots need to win by more than two points. Instead of seeing money line, you see it says game winner, and instead of seeing traditional odds, you see what the payout would be for a wager of 10 Rebet Cash or 10 Rebet Coins.
BG: Easy-to-read lines feature really quick. There’s a lot of insight as to what inspired us with that feature. It came down to research we did on the beginner bettor market. There’s this huge group of people that haven’t been introduced to the sports betting space, and can’t understand complex terminology and odds since they’re new, creating this barrier.
Within that beginner bettor market, there’s a huge untapped group of the female population. We did some gender research throughout this process and it’s no surprise that this industry skews male. In total, 80% male, 20% female. But of the surveying and research I’ve done from females, I found that there’s equal enthusiasm coming from females towards the sports betting industry and towards sports in general... they want to be involved. But they don’t understand that terminology.
As a female, it’s pretty daunting to enter a male-dominated space when you don’t quite understand it. I think feedback from beginner bettors and females specifically really drove the creation of that feature; to make this platform as inclusive as possible and accepting of all types of users, no matter the skill.

You’re a young person entering the industry. How do you navigate that?
CH: I think the sports betting experience has stagnated. There’s not a lot of innovation within the space. What we’re seeing right now is a very crowded space among traditional sportsbooks. We’re seeing more and more social sportsbooks emerge but they’re all taking the same approach. The way they’re all competing for new customers is ‘who’s gonna give the biggest bonuses? Who’s gonna give the biggest sign -up rewards?’ That’s not our approach at Rebet... We think the reason people will use Rebet and continue to use Rebet isn’t because we’re doing crazy promotions, which is the reason companies like DraftKings and FanDuel still aren’t profitable.
It’s really exciting to enter into a space and see a bunch of 19, 20, 21-year-olds take on industry giants and say, no, this isn’t what our generation wants. Our generation wants something new. Our generation wants something social because that’s the generation we live in.
GB: To your point about being young in this space, we’ve talked about this a lot as a team, but we see that as one of our biggest advantages. Being this young, being in college, we’re able to hit the demographic we’re a part of, along with many other demographics... We have passion for this project. We work on this every day. This is our lives.
We’ve been able to empower other people in our age group as well, who share that same passion for this project as we do. For example, within the marketing department, our content creators are the same age as us, dropped out of school to be professional videographers and we’re helping them achieve their passion.

Rebet is a social sportsbook. Social media apps have to add new things to keep people coming back. What do you want to add next? CH: We have an entire year-out roadmap of new features we’re planning to add. Everything from live score tracking to live match tracking, to the ability to stream your games within the platform, are all features we’re looking to add in the coming months. What we’re looking to do is continue to build these new and innovative features, new social media features, especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence. It adds the ability to do a lot of really cool things in the social media feed; where we can create new communities, new friendships and relationships within the Rebet platform.

Social media isn’t always the nicest place. How do you safeguard your users?
CH: I think a lot of the problems that arise out of social media, especially on Instagram or Snapchat where you’re seeing what people are doing every week, come from a sense of insecurity. Rebet takes a different approach. Your whole social interaction is based around something that anybody can do. It’s not something that’s gatekept or that only certain people can do; it’s about building people up together and trying to create an experience where people can cheer on with one another, not against one another. GB: I definitely echo that statement because I feel that all of our main social features have some sort of element where you’re bringing another person into it. Whether that’s posting to your feed, or allowing your friends and followers to like, comment or react to your bets. When you place a peer-to-peer bet you’re inviting another user to bet with you. When you send a direct message, you’re inviting someone to have a conversation with you. It’s fostering all of these different communications with other people, and that element of community is very much at the forefront of the platform.

Can you comment on anyone’s feed? Or is it just if you’re friends with someone?
CH: Currently, we have it so that anybody can comment on anyone’s feed. We do have plans for the future to have private profiles added, then only your friends would be able to see. But through the Rebet platform, users are able to report any comments that may be offensive or they may have concerns about, so that our team internally can review those comments and take them down if needed. Because really, at the forefront of our mission is to ensure there’s safe game play for all our users; and that it’s a safe and inclusive environment where people feel accepted and welcome.

Finally, what are your goals for the end of the year?
CH: We are so excited to get out there and show the world this new user experience. It’s something that our team has been working on for the last year now, day and night. It’s been blood, sweat and tears getting this project together while being full-time students at an Ivy League school. Our goal is to go out there, provide the best user experience possible and see what our users think. See what innovations our users would like to see and just continue to innovate, to give our users the best possible experience.