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Entries Open for the World’s Oldest & Most Valuable Sports-Writing Prize
Entries are now open for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2023. Authors, journalists, athletes and publishers are invited to submit their work for the world’s most valuable literary sports-writing prize which has a winner’s cash prize of £30,000.
The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award launched in 1989 and is dedicated to rewarding excellence in sports writing. Now in its 35th year, it is the world’s longest established sports-writing competition.
Last year saw a record breaking 158 books entered by athletes and authors alike including Patrice Evra, Anyika Onuora and Claire Shine. Jeremy Wilson was crowned winner with judges praising his book ‘Beryl: In Search of Britain’s Greatest Athlete’ for its exhaustive research and superb writing.
Organisers are encouraging authors, journalists, athletes and publishers to submit their books as early as possible so that the reading panel have as much time as possible to consider each entry. Last year, many of the longlisted books, including the eventual winner, were early submissions.
Following a rigorous judging process from a panel including journalists, authors, sportspeople and industry leaders, the longlist will be announced in September 2023, with the shortlist unveiled in October.
The overall winner will be revealed on 30th November 2023 at an official awards ceremony held at BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London. As well as the winning prize, all shortlisted authors will each receive £3,000 and a leather-bound copy of their book.
Book review panellist and renowned sports broadcaster, Matt Williams said: “The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is the most respected prize in the industry, and it is an honour to have the chance of reading every single book entered.
“Once again, we’re encouraging all authors, agents and publishers to enter their titles as early as possible as the process to find our next champion begins as soon as we receive our first entry. All the books are read by humans, not algorithms and therefore we urge writers to submit their book before the rush begins in the summer.”
“For more than three decades, the Award has played a leading role in championing excellence in the sporting literacy world, providing authors with a platform to showcase and promote their books – and following a stellar year of entries in 2022, we’re incredibly excited for this year’s competition.
“We’re keen to see the exceptional creative minds and writing talents across a diverse range of subjects, so no matter what the sport, whether it’s football, cricket or surfing, if you’ve published or scheduled a book for publication from 2nd September 2022 – 1st September 2023, we want to hear about it.
“It’s not all about whether the book is a best-seller, it’s the writing we’re interested in – and our ultimate winner will always be an over-achieving, richly deserving sporting literature champion.”
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King Billy Casino, launched in 2017, has had some impressive players wins during the “reign of King Billy”. A few of them include Live Game winnings of €135,223, daily winnings from 2 or more slots of $164,000, and €250,000 won on a single spin. However, the latest win by a King Billy Casino player dwarfs every big win that has come before this. Actually, it’s bigger than all previous big wins combined for the operator!
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The post Huge Jackpot at King Billy Casino: C$3,658,306! appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
Play’n GO, the world’s leading casino entertainment provider, has today announced its latest US operator partnership, with Resorts Digital Gaming, in the state of New Jersey.
Resorts Digital Gaming was acquired by Boyd Interactive in September 2024, and this announcement sees the group’s players on the www.resortscasino.com and www.mohegansuncasino.com brands in New Jersey gain access to a multitude of classic Play’n GO game titles, such as the legendary Book of Dead, Rise of Merlin, and Rise of Olympus.
Play’n GO entered New Jersey in September 2022, shortly after first launching in the US via the state of West Virginia in July of that year. It has since seen its games live in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and most recently, Connecticut.
Magnus Olsson, Chief Commercial Officer at Play’n GO, commented “New Jersey has been of crucial importance to our US operations for over two years now, so it is with great pleasure that we make this announcement in conjunction with Resorts Digital Gaming.
“The company joins together two instantly recognizable operator brands, and the addition of Play’n GO’s games will be of enormous mutual benefit. We confidently describe ourselves as the world’s leading casino entertainment provider, and partnerships like this one are of great importance to us in establishing that idea. We’re excited to see this partnership flourish.”
Jim Ryan, Chief Executive Officer at Boyd Interactive, added “The whole Resorts Digital Gaming team is excited to bring Play’n GO games to our players. Play’n GO is one of the world’s leading iGaming brands, and we’re confident that our players are as excited as we are to see those Play’n GO titles on both www.resortscasino.com and www.mohegansuncasino.com.”
Match Hype has just won two industry competitions. Talk us through your product.
Match Hype brings engagement from social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram into the sportsbook. Our technology automatically turns raw sports data into short videos full of sports and betting insights. We have the capacity to create up to a million videos daily in more than 30 languages. We also provide hosting and streaming of the videos, and we track everything in the video thanks to our own player. The high level of video experience and the scale make us unique in the market, and we believe that this innovation is extremely needed in the industry—and the judges in the competitions probably agree with us.
What technologies are you leveraging to deliver such a cutting-edge tool/product?
We have more than six years’ experience in developing dynamic video solutions for clients like Microsoft, HBO, and SAP, and a decade in high-end video production for similarly well-known clients. Match Hype is the essence of this. We have developed our own robust cloud infrastructure that enables us to work on a huge scale. We can also leverage the integration of third-party solutions that help us make the video content rich and engaging. The AI boom came at the right time to help us make the experience for the viewer even better.
Who is Match Hype aimed at?
We focus mostly on sportsbook operators, where we think we can bring the biggest value. But we also have clients on the affiliate and media side. Our “competition” at the moment are creative professionals who are able to create one video at a time. To cover hundreds or thousands of events daily, you need huge manpower. With Match Hype, you don’t need that—it’s all automated. Anybody who appreciates this level of efficiency will benefit.
The end users are any sports fans who enjoy engaging videos. So basically everybody.
Has this industry been slow to embrace video content and unlock the potential it offers? If so, why?
It’s hard for us to talk about the whole industry, as we haven’t been part of it for that long. But iGaming feels like a conservative industry where only truly meaningful innovations make it. Fingers crossed for Match Hype being one of them. We are confident because of our track record in other industries, and mostly thanks to the results of our dynamic videos that are already used by significant igaming industry players.
What makes video content so effective at customer acquisition? How can Match Hype be used in this regard?
People just love video content. In the last review, TikTok said that the average user spends around 90 minutes a day on their platform. Platforms like Spotify used to be music and podcasts only; now they are full of videos. You just can’t ignore that. Video killed the radio star, and a static sportsbook is next to die.
And what about retention? How can it be used to keep players engaged and coming back for more?
Imagine that a 30-second video gives you the exact insights to help you make a betting decision without spending dozens of minutes on different resources to gather all the information. People don’t want to read anymore. This is probably an even bigger strength of Match Hype than user acquisition.
What can we expect from Match Hype in the coming months?
We will establish Match Hype as an industry standard for dynamic video content. We’ll bring many more sports like tennis, basketball horse racing and. We are preparing real-time video use cases—for example, half-time updates in football—and new distribution channels like integration directly into streams. The potential is huge. Stay tuned.
Any final thoughts?
For the last year, we have talked with literally hundreds of iGaming experts, investors, and executives. Almost every one of them sees fan engagement as a huge topic in the upcoming months and years. And video will definitely play a key part in it.
Video says more than a thousand words. Give it a go—watch one of our 30-second videos and see for yourself.
The post Exclusive Q&A w/ Radek Pšurný, CEO at Match Hype appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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