eGR Power Affiliates 2013 - Sports betting

LiveSport Media

Founder/Principal: Martin Hajek, Rene Gabriel, sales manager

Domains: Oddsportal.com; FlashScore.com; Resultados.com; Scoreboard.com; MyScores.ca; AsiaScore.com; CricketScore.com and more than 20 country-specific domains under the FlashScore brand

Live odds and comparison giant crossed the 30 million threshold for unique monthly visitors on FlashScore.com and its network in December. Moved into Asia and North and South America in 2012.

Q&A

eGaming Review (eGR): What are your main markets?

Rene Gabriel (RG): OddsPortal has a lot of Asian traffic, but FlashScore.com is essentially a European

website with some US and South African traffic as well. There are also local websites for the UK (FlashScores.co.uk), Germany and other countries ““ there are 22 different websites targeting specific countries and their local traffic, while FlashScore.com is the global and most important one. There are also a number of other websites using the FlashScore.com live scores platform. We add as many sports as we can ““ currently we’re at 23 sports at FlashScore.com and a little less than that at OddsPortal.com.

eGR: How important is it to localise your offering in different markets?

RG: As you go by country there are different top sports in each country and that’s something we look at as well. One needs to know a lot about local traffic and about the local players and sports and so on, so you can accommodate your local website. Whereas OddsPortal.com is global so you just go with the main sports.

We like to communicate with local players in each local market we enter, so basically we use their feedback a lot because they know the country and the local sports much better. This is also why we have a partner in each country who knows that market well and we get feedback from them and use it to hopefully improve our offering.

eGR: What challenges has regulation posed?

RG: We have got a number of websites in regulated countries such as Italy, France, Spain and Denmark where all bookmakers are required to go by a licence. Obviously we do follow all industry news and a lot is happening with regulation across Europe, and that’s clearly the way it’s going to go. More and more countries are regulating, which is why it is vitally important for us to have a website in each country to accommodate the demand much quicker. It’s quite hard when you have a global website only if 50% of your traffic comes from one market which then regulates.

Also the bookmakers must have a licence to be featured on our websites, and others maybe don’t do that. Whenever there’s a UK facing website like FlashScores.co.uk it’s got 85-90% local traffic, and it’s pretty much the same with MisMarcadores.com in Spain and so on.

eGR: How much have you done on the mobile front?

RG: Mobile is definitely something we are looking at as we speak. We’ve got a mobile version of the sites and are looking into applications. It is something everyone is doing and something everyone must do. It’s going to add a bit more to what we’ve got already so we have all bases covered, and what we offer on mobile will have to be a lot more specific than the bookmakers’ mobile apps. This means we have to fine-tune it, and it comes down to time and resources as well, but we’re looking forward to being able to do a lot with mobile.

Power Affiliates ““ Sports betting

Asian Bookie

Founder/Principal: N/A

Domains: AsianBookie.com

Long-standing affiliate catering to the Asian market, whose basic site has barely changed over the last decade. Prices offered are mostly for Asian handicap football betting on major European league, while presence of WAP offering rather than smartphone app reflects preference of punters in its target regions.

AtTheRaces

Founder/Principal: N/A

Domains: AtTheRaces.com

The product of a BSkyB/Arena Leisure joint venture, AtTheRaces offers exclusive video content online and on a newly launched iPad app. Was purely horse racing focused, as is its satellite TV channel, but added mobile casino games this year via Locus Gaming tie-in.

Best Betting

Founder/Principal: Mark Locke, Brian MacSweeney

Domains: Odds.BestBetting.com

Predecessor to the Betgenius software company of which Locke is now CEO. Offers odds comparison services for more than 50 sports as well as specials such as politics and TV.

Betbrain

Founder/Principal: Ebbe Groes, Alex Teodorescu

Domains: BetBrain.com

Site which spawned EveryMatrix is available in 20 languages and offers a translation service for those not listed. Claims to provide access to more than 150 different bookmakers.

Betting-directory.com

Founder/Principal: N/A

Domains: Betting-directory.com

Has a good grasp of social media with regularly updated Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages. Signed up former professional footballer Steve Claridge as an ambassador for the 2011-12 football season.

Betting Pro

Founder/Principal: Matthew Glazier

Domains: More than 50 sites including bettingpro.com and livestreamingsport.com

Redesigned site carries more social media integrations, while sports news now takes pride of place on homepage. Network has a number of full-time writers and a comprehensive live streaming calendar.

Covers

Founder/Principal: Paul Lavers

Domains: Covers.com; Covers.co.uk

Focuses primarily on US sports and drives traffic to North American and European-facing operators. UK-facing site for aggregated content and odds from its dot.com portal.

Oddschecker

Founder/Principal: Derren Maggs, general manager

Domains: oddschecker.com/.es/.de/.dk; oddschecker.mobi; confrontaquote.it

BSkyB-owned comparison site remains one of the leading affiliates in the sports betting arena. In the last 12 months it has redesigned its site and added the ‘bet basket’ feature for bettors to find the best odds for accumulators. Oddschecker.mobi site is optimised for Android and iOS, while racing app launched in the iPhone App Store.

OLBG (Online Betting Guide)

Founder/Principal: Richard Moffat

Domains: 15+ sites including those under olbg and valuechecker brands

UK’s largest sports betting community with a popular forum and more than 5,000 Twitter followers, while last year it sponsored a race at the Cheltenham festival for the first time.

The Racing Post

Founder/Principal: Mark Renshaw

Domains: RacingPost.com; Soccerbase.com

Leading source of tips and racing news, while Soccerbase domain caters to football punters. Provides form guides and content within a number of operators’ mobile apps.

Rue des joueurs

Founder/Principal: Vikash Dhorasoo

Domains: Ruedesjoueurs.com

French-language site set up by former international footballer Dhorasoo caters to all products regulated in France: sports betting, horse betting and poker. Drives traffic to dot.fr sites and hosts a forum for sports and poker discussion.

SportyTrader

Founder/Principal: Renaud Lasselin; Tony Goncalves

Domains: sportytrader.com and various country-specific domains

2012 brought about an increased focus on southern European markets, while SportyTrader also launched a multi-language app for the Android marketplace and iTunes App Store, in more than 25 different markets.

The SBRmarketing network

Founder/Principal: N/A

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

Brings in plenty of traffic from US and lays claim to being largest offshore-facing affiliate network. Forum allows players to accumulate loyalty points to boost engagement, with regular contests for members and the opportunity to spend points in the SBR store.