Back to business: Matchbook’s interim CEO Hayley Geraghty on rebuilding the UK customer base

For betting exchange operator Matchbook, 2020 was a year of not only battling the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic but also making a comeback in the UK market. Matchbook owner Triplebet had its UK licence temporarily suspended by the UKGC in February 2020 due to failings in its social responsibility and anti-money laundering practices. However, six months later, the exchange operator was back in business in the UK after making significant improvements to its compliance procedures. One of the biggest overhauls was the creation of an independent trust arrangement in June 2021 ensuring that UK and Irish customer funds are held at a high protection level. The last two years have also seen some notable executive changes at the top with Mark Brosnan stepping down after 16 years as CEO of Matchbook. He was succeeded by CFO Farzad Peyman as interim CEO in May 2020, who was later replaced by current COO Hayley Geraghty in October 2021. Here, EGR Intel talks to Geraghty about the changes she has seen since assuming the top job and how Matchbook aims to stand apart from its competitors by pushing its pure-exchange proposition out to customers.

EGR Intel: You took on the role as interim CEO four months ago. What have your main priorities been?

Hayley Geraghty (HG): We have been working hard on a new business plan and shifting our focus from recovery and reactivation to a period of growing the business and improving our market offering in response to direct feedback from our customers about what they value most.

EGR Intel: What compliance changes have you introduced at Matchbook since your UK licence suspension was lifted in August 2020?

HG: We are proud of the work we have put into improving our compliance framework, which we believe should give our customers confidence in the integrity of the Matchbook exchange. The most notable customer-facing improvement is the rollout of our high protection trust, which ensures all customer balances are protected no matter what. But behind the scenes, there has been a complete overhaul of our compliance framework, with the creation of an independently chaired compliance committee which oversees the operational compliance of our entire business. Exchange customers are a diverse audience and we worked hard to design a compliance process that identifies individual customer needs. We understand that our customers bet elsewhere and use the exchange as part of a wider strategy, so our compliance checks take this into account. We want customers to choose Matchbook because of the strength of our compliance practices. As a peer-to-peer platform, it is our responsibility to carry out compliance checks on behalf of our customers, so when customers take their winnings from the exchange, they are confident that these winnings are generated from legitimate sources and not from individuals who are vulnerable to the harms associated with gambling.

EGR Intel: How did you go about attracting customers back that you had lost when your UK licence was suspended?

HG: A significant number of our customers returned immediately as they had missed the service we provide, but we had to rebuild trust with others for sure. We did this through clear communication of the compliance improvements we have made, along with the introduction of high funds protection. Our customer service team has been instrumental in rebuilding the relationships with our customers. The biggest reason for our customers to return and new customers to join has been the improved quality of our markets, deep liquidity and ultra-competitive pricing.

EGR Intel: Eric Hegarty has just been promoted as CMO. What are your plans for scaling up your marketing activity and sponsorships as well as increasing brand awareness through this appointment?

HG: Eric has been with Matchbook for six years and has an excellent understanding of the business and our previous marketing activity. Having seen a couple of years of investment in marketing followed by a period of little to no above-the-line activity due to the pandemic, he has seen it all. He appreciates the position we now find ourselves in and the opportunity it presents. We are now taking a more aggressive approach to growing our customer base through sponsorship activity and partnering with external content providers on top of our in-house content, which has been hugely successful, particularly the Matchbook Betting Podcast. We believe we offer a fantastic alternative for any sports bettor conscious of price and liquidity. We intend to get the Matchbook brand in front of this audience wherever possible in 2022 and onwards.

EGR Intel: How is the Matchbook Betting Podcast going? Has it been a useful acquisition and retention tool? Do you have plans to expand your content strategy?

HG: We pride ourselves in producing quality, original and engaging content that informs and educates existing Matchbook customers while raising awareness of the brand and product to a new audience. We were the first exchange to market with a weekly podcast back in 2017 and since 2019 we livestream each of our recordings on our social media channels to make our content more accessible to a wider audience. We have recently added a brand new interview series called Matchbook Meets, where once a month we interview different personalities about betting and their specialist sport.

EGR Intel: Betfair has attracted a fair share of criticism lately on social media among users who see the Flutter-owned operator as not doing enough to grow liquidity. How can Matchbook capitalise on this frustration?

HG: It’s difficult for these organisations to focus on the exchange with so many other balls in the air, so we feel we can make a difference and offer a serious proposition for exchange bettors looking for an alternative. We are solely focused on our exchange offering and exchange customers’ needs. For this reason, we are constantly onboarding new market makers to increase liquidity and looking for and listening to feedback from our customers to improve our product. Our size means that we can give customers our time for direct feedback to engage in conversation and be dynamic in our response. Finding market makers for more niche sports and markets is always a challenge, but if there is an audience, we will do our utmost to make sure they are liquid.

EGR Intel: For a number of years now there has been Betfair, Matchbook, Smarkets and Betdaq. Is there enough demand still for four exchanges?

HG: I believe there is. Exchanges are fundamental in maintaining a fair market for bettors and ensure sportsbooks don’t get away with adding an unreasonably high margin to their prices or ‘factoring’ winning customers forcing them out of the market. Plus, the fact that all of the other exchanges mentioned are attached to sportsbooks gives us an opportunity as the only pure-exchange proposition out there for customers right now. The demand is there for existing exchange users; our challenge is to make enough noise to let them know we are here as a really strong alternative. It is also my belief that there is a lot of indirect demand within a section of the sportsbook customer market that hasn’t experienced an exchange and is yet to make the switch. We are investing in our evergreen betting strategy section of insights.matchbook.com in order to help people use the exchange to its full potential and also educational videos to help the conversion journey for first-time exchange users.

EGR Intel: How much is education still an issue when it comes to trying to attract recreational bettors to Matchbook?

HG: Education will always be a challenge for customers unfamiliar with the exchange concept. Even for savvy recreational bettors and those who understand margins and overrounds, exchanges can seem confusing for a first-time user not familiar with the layout, so that’s the starting point for education. We’ve been working hard on our educational content and are in the process of delivering an educational hub within our content platform, insights.matchbook.com, which will hopefully help make the transition easier.

EGR Intel: Have you been working on any new products or innovative features?

HG: Our product and technology teams have been working mainly on enabling us to scale in 2022/2023, automating legacy manual operational processes which will allow us to add more sports and more markets, as well as compliance improvements which allow us to welcome a wider audience onto the exchange. The fact that we have proprietary technology allows us to be dynamic with our development as customer needs and wants evolve.

EGR Intel: Do you have any plans to enter the US market?

HG: We have invested significant resources into product development for the US market and we are very confident that we have a product offering that can be successful there. We have a strong belief in the future of betting exchanges in the US and know from conversations we have had with various parties that there is significant demand over there for an independent exchange product like Matchbook, but we are still waiting for the right time and the right market entry point before making our move.

EGR Intel: Are you looking to launch in any new markets besides the US?

HG: We are always monitoring regulatory developments for new market opportunities which will help to grow the Matchbook exchange. When the time is right, we will be ready to execute on these opportunities, but our main focus is currently on growth in the UK and Irish markets.

EGR Intel: What’s next for Matchbook in 2022?

HG: Our market offering, both pricing and liquidity, will constantly be improving along with increased marketing activity to make more exchange users aware of the quality service that Matchbook offers. We are confident that we have a fantastic product and encourage anyone serious about their betting to come and take a look.