Summer break: How firms are making the most of a quiet summer of sport

International football tournaments can make or break an operator’s quarter – or even year. Kindred, for instance, last year reported revenues of almost £20m during Euro 2016, with profit margins of 14%. William Hill likewise generated revenues of £16.5m, helping to save the bookmaker’s profits in an otherwise rough quarter.

But what goes around comes around, and as Q2 rolls into Q3, listed operators are going to find to find themselves with some tough comps. So how do those operators keep shareholders happy, and how can the smaller firms use the quieter sporting calendar to catch up?

Interestingly, the defining characteristic of 2017 appears to be the relative inactivity from some of the sports betting giants, and the subsequent opportunities that affords smaller rivals.

Paddy Power Betfair, for instance, has put a hold on all product upgrades on its Paddy Power sportsbook while the technology is integrated onto a single PPB group stack.  Elsewhere Ladbrokes Coral (LC) has also seen a major slowdown on major product upgrades thanks to the ongoing integration, with group CEO Jim Mullen admitting recently the firm had a “slight product deficiency”.

It means there are opportunities for more nimble firms to improve and shout about its own product features while these giants are otherwise engaged. Brighton-based Marathonbet is planning to take advantage of the relatively quiet sporting schedule to introduce its cash-out functionality.

“In April we had about 30,000 live events which is more than pretty much every competitor except bet365, so that’s an area we’re keen to keep pushing,” Michael Rasmussen, head of digital marketing at Marathonbet, explains.

It’s a similar story over at Amaya’s sportsbook BetStars, where the team is scrambling to perfect its product over the summer before major marketing campaigns are launched all over Europe before the new football season.

“The key for us is localisation,” says BetStars MD Zeno Ossko. “A lot of sportsbook products around Europe are UK products that have been transplanted to new markets without much adaptation.

“But those places also have strong existing operators, so customers have learned behaviour in terms of what events and bets they want to see and how those are presented on the betslip for instance. We want to try and take the best of both worlds and make a great local product, so that’s our focus this summer.”

Full steam ahead

Other operators who are more comfortable with their product, see the summer as a genuine chance to grab market share, with operators like PPB and LC otherwise engaged.

“This summer will be business as usual in terms of strategy and budget,” says Alistair Gill, sportsbook commercial relations at Kindred.

“Our trading teams and tech teams are two separate departments, so we don’t really see it as a quiet summer and a chance to regroup. We’re not taking our foot off the gas.

“For us, football is still going to be the main plank. We’ll target World Cup qualifiers, Under 21s, the Confederations Cup and even the pre-season friendlies, which are actually massive turnover games for us.

“In terms of other events it’s also very good. There’s a lot less event clashing than usual, so we can focus on things like Wimbledon and we don’t really anticipate too much of a drop in turnover compared to tournament years.”

It’s a similar story over at Sporting Index, where Wayne Lincoln, a senior trader, says there are plenty of events to keep traders busy, including the Lions tour, the ICC Champions Trophy in the cricket, and the UK General Election.

A chance to be heard

The summer also offers a marketing opportunity for smaller operators, who can find themselves drowned out by the advertising frenzy surrounding big football tournaments. Marathonbet says its summer will be focused on launching a new brand campaign to familiarise UK punters with the firm.

“We are going heavy on sports betting and teaching people about our prices and low margins which is not something we’ve emphasised heavily in the past,” Rasmussen says.

“We expect our competitors to go hard on cross-sell to casino then attack the sports market again from August. Which is why we want our brand campaigns out in June, so we can be top of mind by the time we get to August. We are kind of starting the season two months earlier than our competitors. For us it’s a way of being clever with budget because we know full well how much money our competitors have in this space and they aren’t shy of spending it.”

Take care of your own

Another opportunity for firms is the chance to take a closer look at its own database and leverage some CRM tools to reactivate lapsed customers and keep active customers betting. Marathonbet says it will be focusing on mobile messages and push notifications in an effort to reach ‘out of office’ and ‘out of work’ customers who otherwise wouldn’t respond to messaging.

“We are going heavy on sports betting and teaching people about our prices and low margins” – Michael Rasmussen, Marathonbet

Sky Bet is another company focusing on its own database, introducing a new feature that seeks to keep punters active and engaged, in the form of its new Bonus Builder.

The feature is an extension of the Free Bet Club, so that every week customers qualify for their £5 free bet, they also add £5 to their bonus builder, which is then paid out in full at the start of August. Not only does the concept keep punters betting over the summer, it gives them an added incentive to get stuck into the new football season as well.

Cross-sell to the rescue

For casino-led firms, the lack of a major football tournament also offers some upside thanks to their inherent cross-selling advantage and the fact the casino is ‘always on’.

As LeoVegas’ head of sportsbook Andreas Bardun puts it: “I do not think anyone is benefitting from a slow sports summer, but there is no doubt that since we are casino-led in many countries, the impact of this is a lot less than more sportsbook-oriented companies.

“Casino activity is very high during summer months and by having customers already active on site, it makes it easier to get them active in sportsbook as well. We see a huge benefit during this period by having a very strong casino product, I think an even bigger impact comes from the strength of our mobile product since people are more out of home during the summer period but always carry their mobile with them.”

LeoVegas will also be pivoting towards tennis for the summer, launching a major campaign called the ‘Summer of Tennis’, which will launch on 11 June, to coincide with the start of the Mercedes Cup – an event sponsored by the Swedish firm.

“The reason for this is that tennis is at its peak during the summer, while our tennis players are also the ones which have strongest cross-over to our casino and vice versa,” Bardun explains. “Tennis is at the core of LeoVegas since we offer many quick markets like bet on the next point which is very similar to the casino experience.”

While that campaign is going on, the Swedish firm will still have some extra manpower compared to a typical summer, and says it will be using the time to implement its Sportsbook 2.0 platform, with a focus on creating the “best sportsbook in the world for the 2018 World Cup”.

It seems then, that the (relatively) quiet summer of sport is something of a blessing in disguise for the sportsbook industry as a whole. While no firm will want to see revenues slow down, as inevitably will be the case, there are plenty of long-term benefits to be reaped.

For giants like PPB and LC, it gives them a chance to carry out their major tech projects without missing too much action. For smaller sportsbook-first firms like Marathonbet, it can offer a chance to build brand recognition and reach product parity with some of the larger operators.

And for the casino-first brands like LeoVegas, it’s a chance to pinch some market share by leveraging their cross-selling expertise. And of course for the long term thinkers, the Q2 2018 results, padded with a World Cup, will look all the better by comparison.