Betly
Interview with GAMING1’s David Carrion: “Our objective is to be competitive locally, with a global product.”
GAMING1 is already known as one of Europe’s most successful gaming and sports betting partners, as well as for its recent entrance into the EGR Power 50 for its exciting in-house operator brands.
However, the last two years have also seen huge growth for its Betly brand across the US – in partnership with Delaware North, which now spans Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia and Ohio.
To get the latest on the company’s huge success in North and South America, we thought it would be the perfect time to sit down with David Carrion, Chief Operating Officer Interactive at GAMING1, to learn more.
The last two years have seen huge growth for GAMING1 in the US, including the launch of Betly, your joint venture with Delaware North, in Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia and Ohio. How is it going so far and what are your key learnings?
The USA market is different than Europe in terms of Sports betting. The customer has a history of fantasy sports, which are sports betting based on individual player combinations. Historically players created teams that mixed their favourite players across multiple teams. This is a key difference to the history of the European online betting customer, who normally follows a team before a player.
This has created the development of a way of betting called single game parlay, where players can combine bets of their favorite players, together with a team to win for example. This creates a significant adjustment to risk and pricing models as well as the actual offer of such product.
The summary is that Sports betting in USA is different, and we continue to learn and evolve our offer. By the launch of American football season in September, we will have a more competitive product and will be able to assess better the future.
We have also learned that the distance and the time difference make things more difficult, that our cultural differences require attention and that it is a very competitive market in terms of marketing spend.
The biggest learning so far, is that we should be very strategical on the states where we decide to operate, as our partner is very well placed for success in some of the states, like Arkansas or West Virginia, while other States are not as interesting so far, like Ohio or Tennessee (this part of our learnings).”
GAMING1 has previously showed strong interest in the Casino vertical given your success in South America as the first to go live in Colombia. How is this area developing for you and in which US markets do you see having the most potential growth?
We are a Casino-first company, it is the dominant share of revenues in our verticals and is our DNA. Our loyalty, club, CRM and rewards approach has been our staple as a strong Casino operator, together with our own offer of proprietary games in our core markets.
As we expand into new markets, we aim to leverage our tech and our approach, as we learn to adapt to each market, starting with the content offer but also with nuances to our core platform. Our objective is to be competitive locally, with a global product. That takes time to develop, and our entire tech stack is being developed with that in mind. Our operating model is also evolving to support this approach. We are very excited about our current trajectory and the immediate future.
In regard to the USA, we prefer to be very strategic in our choices of states. Taxes, the size of the market, the number of competitors, are all considerations to keep in mind before jumping into the void of launching on a new State. Mistakes can be costly and miscalculations in strategy can set you down in time. For now, we lean on the strengths of our partner Delaware North and their current presence in Live Gaming that can be leveraged where iGaming is also regulated.
How do you expect the current emphasis on responsible gaming in the UK and Europe to affect US regulation going forward? How do you stay flexible to the demands of various state regulators?
Europe is having an influence in the early stages of development of the USA iGaming industry, but we can already see strong local trends in terms of player preferences for example. Regulators are new to our industry, but they learn fast, and I think we already see a very dynamic market. In summary, yes, we already see adoption of similar rules, but I would expect USA to be fast in adapting and to take full control on their approach and its development.
What trends and betting behaviours have you observed in your US players and which verticals are really taking off for your brand?
Big companies, big marketing spenders, fast and high-quality products. That seems to be the strategy of the top 4 or 5 companies in USA. The main behavior we observe is that if you are not one of those, you get 4th hand, or 5th hand customers. Customers who are mostly seeking the value of your offers are not that interested in staying, unless your product is incredibly superior, which is very, very hard to do, if not impossible. We see a lot of trial and error and very hard to achieve good retention in the competitive markets.
In contrast, player value seems attractive, and adoption is impressive, so the future is bright once this initial stage of dominance through massive advertisement budgets is over – which enables a new equilibrium where we can all find our realistic competitive positioning.
Last but not least, after a massively successful 2022, what are your hopes for 2023 and do you have your sights set on any new markets?
We continue to grow strong in our Central European markets and we remain confident of our future in USA. This year has been all about getting to market in time, while we continue to consolidate our operating model. A lot of groundwork has been put in this year – work we will now be able to leverage on 2024 across multiple markets. We look forward to a 2024 where we make significant progress in our product and our quality, where we break through with our improved architecture and new capability teams and where we consolidate our talent and people to continue our pursuit to reach unstoppable momentum. It’s certainly an exciting time for us!