Simon Trim is managing director of Sporting Solutions. He began his career at William Hill before moving to Ladbrokes. He first joined the Sporting Index Group in 1998 and, after a succession of trading roles, was made trading director in 2006. He became managing director of Sporting Solutions in October 2011.
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GETTING THE INSIDE TRACK ON IN-PLAY
As in-play continues to shake up the industry, eGaming Review speaks to betting heavyweights Sporting Solutions, Betting Promotion, Kambi, SBTech, Sportradar, INTRALOT and GTech G2 to get the inside track
n-play betting has transformed the online sports betting sector and is driving growth and revenues at the major operators. In such a dynamic area of the egaming industry, with mobile pushing forward further change, it's vital any operator remains on top of this constantly evolving area of the business. We’ve gathered a host of industry leaders to discuss the development of in-play, how it continues to be a gamechanger, and look at how the sector will continue to develop over the next 12 months. eGaming Review (eGR): How has the rise of in-play affected the strategies of sports betting operators? Simon Trim (ST): Firstly, from a recruitment and retention perspective, in-play has increased opportunities for customer engagement. Betting opportunities stretch throughout the day, keeping customers ‘on site’, which increases cross-sell opportunities of verticals such as casino. As a result, marketing strategies operate at increasingly granular levels. Secondly, in-play requires increased investment in technology. System latency must be minimal, bet placement must be quick and data and/or broadcast is required to bring alive the in-play experience. Finally, operating strategy is shaped according to whether an operator provides in-play themselves, or outsources it to specialist suppliers, such as Sporting Solutions. Outsourcing is now very popular as it provides ?exible, cost effective access to specialist in-play services, allowing operators to focus investment on areas of strategic priority.
Robert Wintersteller, product manager, has a degree of science in applied physics and electrical engineering and BA of electrical engineering. Robert has seven years of experience in software development and algorithmic trading in sports betting. He has worked for Betting Promotion since 2006.
Erik Lögdberg is chief business development officer at Kambi and has been with the company for eight years. Previously Erik was responsible for Kambi’s (then Unibet) In-play product and has followed the development closely ever since the start of the in-play growth.
Itai Zak is the CEO at SBTech. An online gaming veteran, Itai previously served as an executive vice president of egaming products at Spiral Solutions and as the general manager and executive vice president of egaming products at Spin3, the mobile division of Microgaming.
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Erik Lorenz joined the Sportradar Group in October 2008, coming from German Bundesliga. As managing director of sales, he is responsible for the operational and strategic sales and marketing activities for Sportradar’s core brands Betradar and Scoreradar.
Nikolaos Konstakis is INTRALOT’s group head of trading. Nikolaos has been at INTRALOT since 2001 and has the overview for several betting operations worldwide.
Paul Mears is vice president of Sports Betting at GTECH G2. He has been at GTECH G2 since 2005 and has driven the firm's sports betting offering from strength to strength with the continued development of MarginMaker, the industry leading sports betting product.