A closer look: BetVictor

BetVictor has seen its mobile usage grow by 200% during 2013 and now has the majority of its revenues coming from the mobile channel. But what are the secrets of its success?

While most of the attention in mobile sportsbook has been on the likes of William Hill and Paddy Power during 2013, it’s arguably been BetVictor that has posted the most impressive performance this year. The headline numbers are startling: 200% growth in active numbers, 240% growth in bets and 63% of users on mobile. And unlike most of the sector, it has already succeeded in pushing the mobile cross sell with 40% of its casino revenue coming from mobile. But perhaps the most impressive thing is that it has done all this with just one app.

Although it launched its HTML5 mobile web product in December 2010, it was the launch of its iPhone app in December 2012 that proved the turning point. This was primarily a mobile sportsbook product and was backed by the now famous TV ads featuring comedian Paul Kaye and Victor Chandler himself. The ads tend to have a Marmite effect on viewers, but the combination of humour and the clear value proposition has proved compelling.

According to BetVictor’s director of mobile Turlough Lally the ads have been transformative for the firm.“The overall message in those ads is a price-driven one and that is what has transformed the brand this year; in conjunction with that has been us getting the product right. Really it’s the general message of price and quality of product that has driven everything this year,” Lally says.

The marketing began with a paid downloads campaign at the start of the Premier League with an above the line push followed with a number of free bet offers helping in turn to drive organic downloads. Perhaps its biggest in-store coup though was around the Grand National where it was the number one ranked app in the App Store for users searching for the race. “I want to do it again next year so I’m not going to tell you how, but from an ASO point of view that was the golden egg,” Lally says.

The success of the iOS sportsbook app has seen the firm shift its development resources towards native with a roughly even 50/50 split between native and html5 development at BetVictor. The native app was built from scratch by BetVictor’s in-house team in a three month turnaround and was followed by a tablet app in February 2013. More products are due early next year, again developed in-house, with both sports betting and casino an area of focus.

Unlike many of its competitors, however, BetVictor is not reliant on gaming to grow revenues in 2014. Due to an innovative approach to its first app the firm already has mobile cross-sell numbers that would make many a CEO choke on his morning espresso. “We’re currently at 40% of our casino revenues coming through mobile, and I know some of our competitors are talking about achieving that in one or two years,” Lally says.

Single app, multiple opportunities

The solution to cross sell was simple: have casino and sports betting in a single app. There are three buttons at the top of the BetVictor app, one says sports, one says in-play and one says casino. Users can simply flick between the various options by clicking on the tabs with no need to switch between apps. “It’s quicker and easier to browse those tabs than on the website,” Lally says. “You can go in and play casino games and move back to the sports to check the score and then move back.”

It’s a completely seamless experience that has led to huge numbers of sportsbook users moving over to casino. Lally says the cross-sell was immediate and at the same level as they see on the web.

“One of the things we set out to do at the start was get sports betting and casino on one app, as cross sell has always been really important. A lot of our competitors are making noise about lack of cross sell on mobile and we basically solved that problem on the native app. You can play a game, move back to sports and you can move back to the same place in the game. That is an even better experience than you can get on the web,” he says. “A lot of our competitors are happy they have the sign-in sorted, but if the products were all together they would be in a better place.”

But despite its success, the days of a single app are about to come to an end at BetVictor. The firm is preparing to launch a number of new apps including pure casino apps with live casino and slots the most likely first out of the gate. The idea is simply to have more real estate in the store and to reach the type of customer who isn’t traditionally interested in sports betting.

“It’s about discoverability,” Lally says. “It’s about potentially launching apps that are a little bit lighter and appeal to an audience that is just interested in playing slots. There are segments of the market you want to target, and we want to give our consumers who are not interested in sports the opportunity to play with us.”

Sports focus

BetVictor remains sports-focused, however, and the firm is preparing a new sports betting app for launch by Q1. Although Lally wouldn’t be drawn on details he said it would be the “quickest and easiest way of placing a sports bet”. Once again the key aspects of usability, simplicity and convenience come to the forefront. “It will be a very simplified, very easy sports betting app,” Lally says.

There are also expected to be a number of updates to the core iOS app, with an increasing development resource attached to it. Personalisation is high on the agenda, with BetVictor looking to use more intelligently surfaced content in the app relating to its players betting habits and preferences. “We know that generally people don’t configure things and what they like to do is let us configure it for them,” Lally says.

But once again it’s about avoiding complication. “Next year it’s also about simplifying the navigation, getting rid of really long lists and making things easier to find. That’s the most important thing our customers want. They want to find things very simply,” Lally says. But that’s not to say the app will be simplistic, with Lally keen to stress the advantage of native over html5 is the richness of the user experience.

“Native for me gives such a better experience and the feedback from our customers on its slickness, speed and the look and feel it is what users expect from a modern iOS app. Maybe a year ago you could get away with an html5 product, but they are a lot more savvy now and they are starting to understand the difference. “Everyone expects Android to make a massive impression on the gaming market next year so you have to have both. But I’m more excited about native as that is an area we can exploit next year.”

Talking big numbers

It’s been a pretty spectacular year for BetVictor. In October Lally says the firm had 63% of users on mobile with 50.3% of revenue in sports and casino. And he clearly thinks the only way is up. “I don’t know if any of our competitors are earning more on a percentage of revenue than we are on mobile,” he says. “My predictions are 80% by the end of next year.”

And he insists there is no secret formula. Facebook has been strong in driving converting downloads, but aside from that it’s been TV advertising, paid search and display ads. Nothing revolutionary. But Lally says that is the point.

“What we find on our app store review is pretty much great prices and slick app. When you bring it down to a basic level we give players great prices and a good app that doesn’t crash,” he says. But despite catching some of the bigger firms napping in 2013, next year is going to be a lot tougher and more competitive. Lally, however, is already looking at the next stage.

One step is international, with an html5 product in Germany and an Asian product being actively looked at. But another is tablets. “Laptops are dying and they are being replaced by laptops. We’ve had conversations about cheaper tablets for a few years now, but we’ve never seen them appear as significant amount of users before. But that will change.”

And BetVictor is already preparing for the move to tablets. “It’s very important you customise it for the tablet user. For us it’s still quite a bit behind mobile, but next year especially in the Android space that is going to grow quite significantly.” And don’t bet against BetVictor being a major part of that tablet growth. If 80% sounds like an ambitious target then you probably haven’t been paying attention so far.