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HOW AUTOMATION WORKS FOR SPORTS BETTING PROMOTIONS? THE SMARTICO METHOD

Published

5 years ago

May 20, 2021

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Pass it to Maradona! It was an incredibly successful football strategy in the 1980s. Sometimes, even the God apparently lent a hand to the strategy’s success!

Similarly, ‘pass it to the machine’ must be an equally fruitful marketing strategy of our times. It basically means to automate the whole customer relationship management (CRM) process.

But how do you actually pass it to the machine?

Well, here is how it works. If you are not quite well-versed with the CRM and marketing activities, first let us quickly have a run down on how the marketing process works in a betting company’s CRM division. Then we will see how it is automated with Smartico’s platform.

A word about the platform before we begin. It has three major parts:

Real time marketing application
Gamification tool
Real time business intelligence (BI) module

Sportsbook Operator’s Conventional Promotional Method

The CRM division of every major Sportsbook works super efficiently to attract maximum players to punt on the games that they promote.

Let’s take a look at how the CRM division works before a major game of European football. The CRM division sends all sorts of promotions and intimations to players in their databases.

Promotions can be in the form of any format, mainly the following:

Emails
SMS on their phones
Messages on their social media feeds like Facebook or Twitter timeline
Push notifications to the app users
Pop-ups on the website

The operators have to get the text needed for emails and message notifications, videos and graphics for social media promotion for each game separately and schedule their sending on appropriate timings on CRM software.

Then there are the categories of players, or buckets as they are sometimes called. For example,

one bucket of regular, loyal customers,
another comprising occasional customers,
yet another having only newly joined customers,
another bucket comprising dormant customers and so on.

For each bucket, the promotional feature has to be customized. That is, different versions of emails, social media graphics and messages are ideally required for each category of players. Some clusters of customers will also need some kind of bonuses or offers to spur them into punt for this game. So the CRM operators have to add information about such bonuses manually too.

As you can see, it involves cumbersome manual work and there is a good chance that the intended message still may not reach the right player.

Automation can make the process easy and ensure that each player receives exactly the right kind of messages and intimations.

Inside the Automation Process with Smartico

Smartico’s three-pronged software application makes life easy for CRM operators.

The operators need to get the various kinds of creatives done as previously – text, graphics, video and all that. They have to create at least one template for each mode of communication too: for email, SMS push notification, social media posts and so on.

That’s all. The software will take care of the rest.

It uses special dynamic tags to deliver the right kind of content about the right match to the right players through the right channel by leveraging the real time BI module that churns live player data.

The CRM operators can select the games from a list of upcoming games across leagues that they want to promote. The software will initiate an automated marketing campaign at a scheduled time before each match.

One of the software’s most useful features is the Campaign flow builder, which allows the operators to create the flow and order of sending various modes of communication. For example, first send emails, then push notifications or SMS, then social media promotions and and finally show a popup when the player logs in to the website or app of the sportsbook.

Each of the communication will contain two kinds of creatives:

Fixed
Dynamic

Fixed communication will be the text, graphics and video that are intended to persuade the players to sign in and place bets.

Dynamic communication refers to the text and graphics that provide the information that keeps on changing from match to match: such as the names of the competing teams, the league, stadium, date and time of the match and such like. If the communication offers bonuses or special offers, the text and graphics depicting the bonus or offer are also will be part of the dynamic communication.

The software will automatically populate the dynamic elements in each communication based on the real time data of player behavior data and preferences. For this the software makes use of something called dynamic tags.

To sum up, the work flow of the operator changes as follows:

Create the templates of email, messages, graphics and videos
Choose the matches that need to be promoted
Select with the targeted population of customers (That is, the operator can opt for promoting Bundesliga matches just to the players who routinely bet on Bundesliga matches only)
Set the starting time for the campaign – how many day, weeks or even months before the match (even if matches are postponed or get cancelled for some reason, the software will alter the communication schedule accordingly)
Insert bonus offers, wherever needed.
Pick the order of communication modes through Campaign flow builder
Sit back and watch the results

This way, the operators can think about improving the overall quality of the marketing campaigns and look for innovations, rather than running hurriedly to tick each boxes of the communication mix.

The software saves time, delivers better results and better streamlines the operations.

So, pass it to the machine!

5WPR

Sports Betting Spent $1.42 Billion on TV Last Year. It Spent $90 Million on PR. That Needs to Change

Published

55 minutes ago

April 20, 2026

GamingAmericas.com

sports-betting-spent-$142-billion-on-tv-last-year-it-spent-$90-million-on-pr.-that-needs-to-change

By Matt Caiola, CEO, 5WPR

The numbers are now documented. The U.S. sports betting and online gaming industries spent $3.9 billion on marketing in 2025. Television advertising received $1.42 billion. Celebrity and athlete partnerships received $520 million. Earned media and PR received $90 million — 2.3% of the total. Responsible gambling programs received $60 million.

Those last two figures are the ones that matter most to anyone thinking seriously about where this industry is headed. The two channels that build long-term brand credibility, regulatory goodwill, and investor confidence are receiving a combined 3.8 cents of every marketing dollar. The channels that build reach — which this industry no longer has a shortage of — are receiving the rest.

This is the central finding of the Gaming Trust Index, 5WPR’s inaugural annual study of marketing spend allocation and brand credibility outcomes across the top U.S. sports betting, online gaming, and land-based casino operators. The data is sourced from Kantar Media, MediaRadar, iSpot.tv, and public operator financial disclosures. I want to make the argument directly.

The Market Has Matured. The Budget Hasn’t.

The case for heavy advertising spend was legitimate in 2019 and 2020. Legal sports betting was new. Awareness was the genuine primary challenge. Television, performance marketing, and celebrity campaigns were the right tools for that phase.

That phase is over. Thirty-eight states have legalized. The top five operators — FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars, ESPN Bet — control 78% of handle and are household names in every legal market. The competitive question is no longer who consumers have heard of. It is who they trust, who they return to, and whose license applications sail through regulatory review in the states still considering legalization.

Those outcomes are determined by credibility, not awareness. And credibility is built through earned media, executive visibility, responsible gambling communications, and the digital content infrastructure that shapes how your brand is described when people research it. Not through a television spot or a celebrity deal, however well executed.

The Celebrity-to-RG Ratio Is a Problem

The specific figure I want every CMO, CCO, and board member in this industry to sit with is the ratio between celebrity endorsement spend and responsible gambling investment. In 2025: $520 million on celebrity partnerships, $60 million on responsible gambling programs. Nearly nine to one.

I am not arguing against celebrity partnerships. They drive awareness and short-term acquisition metrics that matter. The problem is deploying that spend at a 9-to-1 ratio over responsible gambling in an industry with active legalization fights in California, Texas, and Florida, with ESG analysts scrutinizing every line item of publicly traded operator balance sheets, and with state gaming commissions and legislative committees watching how operators present themselves on player protection.

The operators who change that ratio — even modestly, moving from 9:1 to 5:1 — will be in a materially better position in every regulatory conversation over the next decade. The ones who do not will find that ratio cited against them at precisely the moments it is most costly.

Online Gaming: The Window Is Open and It Closes at Legalization

Online gaming — iCasino and iPoker, currently legal in seven states — generated $12.8 billion in GGR in 2025 and receives the lowest communications investment per revenue dollar of any segment we analyzed. New York, Illinois, Indiana, and Virginia are in active legislative consideration.

The 2021 Michigan launch established the pattern: operators with pre-existing earned media presence in the state achieved faster initial user acquisition than those who arrived with advertising budgets alone. The window to establish that presence in the next four expansion states is open now. It closes the moment those markets legalize and every operator arrives with a TV buy.

Building earned media infrastructure takes time. The operators who start now will have something no late arrival can purchase.

The Land-Based Casino Search Problem

One finding in the Gaming Trust Index that the sports betting conversation tends to miss: the major land-based casino brands — MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, Wynn Resorts, Hard Rock International — generate millions of monthly branded searches and have not built the owned and earned content to shape what appears in those results.

As AI-powered search tools become the primary channel through which consumers research brands, operators who have not invested in digital content infrastructure are ceding their narratives to third-party review sites, financial coverage, and regulatory reporting. The operator that moves first to own its search narrative will have a compounding advantage. Every quarter the others wait, the gap widens.

What a Reallocation Actually Looks Like

Three to five percentage points of the total $3.9 billion budget. That is $120 to $200 million redirected toward earned media, executive visibility programs, responsible gambling communications, and digital content strategy. It would not show up as a meaningful variance on a quarterly earnings call. It would show up in regulatory conversations, ESG analyst coverage, brand sentiment data, and the search results that determine how the next generation of gamblers first encounters these brands.

The gambling industry has built the most visible advertising ecosystem in American consumer marketing. The next five years will determine whether it builds the credibility infrastructure to match it. The operators who move first will define what the mature market looks like.

Matt Caiola is CEO of 5WPR, one of the largest independent PR firms in the United States. The Gaming Trust Index 2026 is available free at https://www.5wpr.com/research/gaming-trust-index-2026/

The post Sports Betting Spent $1.42 Billion on TV Last Year. It Spent $90 Million on PR. That Needs to Change appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.

creator-economy

Red Bull runs one-day Balatro speedrun event, Boss Rush, on April 17

Published

2 days ago

April 17, 2026

Wladimir P.

red-bull-runs-one-day-balatro-speedrun-event,-boss-rush,-on-april-17

Eight creators compete across five timed stages with eliminations, broadcast on Red Bull’s Twitch and YouTube channels.

Red Bull will stage a one-day Balatro speedrun competition, Red Bull Boss Rush, on April 17, 2026. The event brings together eight creators for timed runs in the roguelike deckbuilder, with viewers able to follow via individual creator POV streams and a central hub broadcast.

The competitor lineup includes Red Bull Player Ludwig, plus The Spiffing Brit, FrostPrime, Feinberg, Adef, Yahiamice, mbtyugioh and dreads. Red Bull said live commentary will be provided by esports host Yinsu ‘Yinsu’ Collins, card-game specialist Blake ‘Rarran’ Eram, and DrSpectered.

Boss Rush is structured as five 30-minute stages, with players ranked by completion time. Red Bull said the opening three stages use a shared random seed with unlimited resets, and points are awarded by placement each stage; the bottom four are eliminated after stage 3. Stage 4 determines the finalists, followed by a final winner-takes-all matchup.

The event also includes a downloadable Red Bull Boss Rush mod featuring a custom-branded deck and new Red Bull-themed Jokers, Bosses and Skip Tags. Red Bull highlighted additions including ‘Witch’, ‘Princess and Frog’, ‘Zebra’, Old Dog, ‘Pirate’, ‘Genie’, ‘Prince Charming’, and ‘Jester’, each designed to alter scoring or run economics.

Red Bull Boss Rush will stream on twitch.tv/redbull and Red Bull’s YouTube Gaming channel. Scan is supplying gaming PCs for the competition, according to the company.

Relevant data as follows:

Red Bull Gaming on Twitch; https://www.twitch.tv/redbull Primary broadcast destination for the event.
Red Bull Gaming on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/redbullgaming Secondary broadcast destination cited in the release.
Red Bull Gaming: https://www.redbull.com/ Official Red Bull site for event context and confirmation.
Balatro on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2379780/Balatro/ Authoritative reference for the game featured in the competition.
Scan Computers: https://www.scan.co.uk/ PC supplier mentioned as providing systems for the event.

The post Red Bull runs one-day Balatro speedrun event, Boss Rush, on April 17 appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.

Argentina

Blask data shows LATAM casino lobbies diverge beyond Pragmatic Play’s baseline

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2026

Wladimir P.

blask-data-shows-latam-casino-lobbies-diverge-beyond-pragmatic-play’s-baseline

Brazil stands out for crash-game visibility, while Argentina fragments across 15 providers, according to Blask’s review of five markets.

Blask has published new data on casino lobby distribution across five Latin American markets—Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru—finding a shared baseline of Pragmatic Play dominance but sharply different secondary content patterns by country.

Across all five markets, Pragmatic Play “consistently dominates the top 30 most-distributed titles,” accounting for up to 16 positions in each country, Blask said. Beyond that layer, Blask argues there is “no single playbook” for how operators and aggregators build lobbies.

Brazil is the clearest outlier for mechanics, with crash-style titles such as Aviator and JetX appearing in the top 30, while similar formats are “largely absent” in the other markets analyzed. Blask also points to Brazil as the only country where Pocket Games Soft holds a meaningful distribution share, driven by its Fortune series.

Mexico shows the opposite pattern: the highest concentration of Pragmatic Play titles and a thinner secondary layer. Blask flagged Endorphina as an example of a provider appearing in Mexico’s top 30 but not elsewhere in its dataset.

Argentina is described as the most fragmented market, with 15 different providers represented in the top 30—more than any other country in the analysis—and broader visibility for live and table content. Chile “closely mirrors Mexico” structurally, Blask said, but includes a single non-Pragmatic title with near-ubiquitous placement across operator lobbies. Peru, meanwhile, spreads remaining top-30 positions across 12 providers, including studios not seen in the other markets and “legacy European brands such as Novomatic.”

Blask’s conclusion is that operators should not assume a winning lobby mix in one country will translate regionally. “Beyond the dominant layer, performance is defined not by regional trends, but by local player behavior and demand signals,” the company said.

The post Blask data shows LATAM casino lobbies diverge beyond Pragmatic Play’s baseline appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.