eGR Power Affiliates 2012 - Sports Betting

The past 12 months have been some of the most challenging in gaming with Black Friday topping the list of hurdles affiliates have had to overcome.

Not only that, revenue share deals are constantly being squeezed while uncertainty surrounding who will win out and how newly regulated markets, such as Spain, will perform are putting affiliates under more pressure than ever before. However, many have invested in other niches or diversified in order to find more traffic.

It is these that have made the grade in this year’s eGaming Review Power Affiliates.

Last week we brought you the top bingo, casino and poker affiliates, but today we focus on sports betting.

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Derren Maggs (pictured), general manager, Oddschecker

Domains: oddschecker.com/.es/.de; oddschecker.mobi; confrontaquote.it, bingo.oddschecker.com; casino.oddschecker.com; poker.oddschecker.com

Dominant force in the UK odds comparison market. Signed white label partnership in Australia with News International-owned newspaper titles building white label website branded ‘Oddsscanner’ for the group.

eGaming Review (eGR): How have the past 12 months been?

Derren Maggs (DM): We have seen unique users grow in excess of 40% and revenues rise by more than 35% year-on-year. International expansion has led to our business becoming a 24-hour operation.

eGR: What have been the highlights and the areas you are looking to improve?

DM: Research has highlighted that we need to improve our brand awareness. It’s surprising how many gamblers are yet to use our odds comparison service. Oddschecker currently comprises 4-5% of traffic for the online betting industry so there is ample opportunity for us to grow. Last year, we ran two successful bursts of TV advertising to build awareness among the betting community. Consequently, we’ve built an effective TV model that pays back for both us and our partners.

A key objective of this was to re-target our core users, moving away from racing to the more casual football punter. Our biggest achievement to date is the working relationships that we have built with the bookmakers. We now work in a far more open and collaborative environment, where transparency is a key component.

eGR: Australia has been a big move for you, what are your plans there?

DM: It is early days, but Australia represents an exciting opportunity to expand. Our strategic approach, as it is when entering all new territories, is to partner with a sizeable incumbent media player. We’ve built a technical solution that will allow us to deploy a full white-label solution in any language within a matter of weeks.

eGR: What does the next 12 months have in store for Oddschecker?

DM: During the spring we’re looking to freshen up the site and deliver more personalised options and account services for our users. We aim to become more than just an affiliate to bookmakers and become more of partner over the next year. There is an absence of real performance insight in the betting industry.

We are currently consulting all our partners about a new business intelligence product that will help them benchmark their performance in marketing, trading and operations. We believe this will be an invaluable service as the data comprises of everyday gamblers, transacting in large volumes and can be shown in contrast against their competitors. International development and in-play are two areas for us to grow and improve, but the major focus over the next year will be on mobile and tablets.

Sports betting affiliates:

Asian Bookie

Founder/Principal: N/A

Domains: asianbookie.com

Established in June 1997 in Hong Kong. Launched website to extend to Asian market in September 2000. Asian handicap betting portal covering all major global football leagues such as the English Premier League, Italian Serie A, Spanish Primera Liga and German Bundesliga.

At the Races

Founder/Principal: James Singer

Domains: attheraces.com

Website of the horse-racing TV channel owned by UK racecourses. Operates through a joint venture partnership between BSkyB and Arena Leisure ““ more than to 650,000 unique visitors every month.

Best Betting

Founder/Principal: Mark Locke, Brian MacSweeney

Domains: bestbetting.com

Site that spawned Betgenius, now a 300-plus employee odds software business that recently acquired McSweeney’s Boolabus. Affiliate site, being relaunched later this year, run by odds acquisition team in Tallinn in Estonia. Also white labels platform to 45 other sports betting affiliates, including Betrescue, Punters Lounge and bookies.com.

Betbrain

Founder/Principal: Ebbe Groes, Alex Teodorescu

Domains: betbrain.com

Founded in May 2000 in Denmark as a spin off from a Danish web business. Odds comparison giant with strong presence across Europe. Groes took over the business in 2004 as part of a management buyout. Also spawned the EveryMatrix gaming software business.

Betting-directory.com

Founder/Principal: Danny Campbell

Domains: 100+ sites including: casino.betting-directory.com, poker.betting-directory.com, bestonlinebookmakers.co.uk, supersoccertipstersteam.com; bettingkingdom.co.uk.

Campbell, owner of multiple domains, has been an affiliate for more than a decade and is one of the top earners in this category. More recently diversified into poker and casino.

Betting Pro

Founder/Principal: Matthew Glazier

Domains: 50+ sites including livestreamingsport.com; live-tennis.com; cheltenhamfestival.net; cheltenhampro.com; european-championship.com

Twenty full-time writers. Recently launched livestreamingsport with strong focus on acquiring players via social media with 25,000 followers on its tennis page alone. Site relaunches in next few months.

Covers

Founder/Principal: Paul Lavers

Domains: covers.com; covers.co.uk

US-facing sports betting information site driving traffic mainly to offshore sportsbooks. Has UK-facing site but this redirects to its football page with content mainly aggregated from other sites.

OLBG (Online betting guide)

Founder/Principal: Richard Moffat

Domains: 15 sites including olbg.co.uk, olbg.com (and European trademark approved); affiliates.valuechecker.co.uk; valuechecker.co.uk; grand-nationalguide.co.uk; cheltenham-betting.co.uk; punterslounge.com; freebetsgalore.com

Europe’s biggest sports betting community site. Grown to 17 staff in the last year but focusing on moving away from being known as an affiliate to being a recognised brand. Examining PR and larger sponsorship opportunities in order to do this, as well as engage more serious punters via social media.

The Racing Post

Founder/Principal: Mark Renshaw

Domains: racingpost.com

The free and paid-for expertise available to punters via the website of the UK’s leading racing newspaper generates high traffic and player values.

Ruedesjoueurs.com

Founder/Principal: Vikash ’24’ Dhorasoo

Related domains: mastr.com, ruedesjoueurs.com, transfert-foot.net, lotostat.com

Provides independent information, advice and player guides to French poker, sports and horseracing punters. Founded by former French football international Vikash ’24’ Dhorasoo.

Sporty Trader

Founder/Principal: Tony Goncalves, Renaud Lasselin

Domains: sportytrader.com; sportytrader.co.uk/de/fr/es/pt/it/nl

Pan-European sports betting portal localised in seven European markets, also driving traffic to poker, casino and backgammon sites.

The SBRmarketing network (NEW ENTRY)

Founder/Principal: N/A

Domains: sportsbookreview.com; sbrforum.com; forum.sbrforum.com

Largest offshore-facing affiliate network. Two million unique visitors and 16.5m page views; 70% traffic from US. Sportsbookreview acts as a resource for player dispute resolution, with unique content including reviews and rating guides for the offshore industry. SBRforum has more than 10,000 registered members and offers a points system where users can exchange them for prizes.