Sky Bet socialises mobile betting with picture sharing functionality
Operator uses iOS Share Sheet to enable customers to easily share bets within WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger
Sky Betting & Gaming (SB&G) has unveiled a new feature enabling customers to easily share their bets with friends via popular social media channels and mobile messaging apps.
The latest iteration of the Sky Bet app allows punters to share screenshots taken within the app through the iOS native Share Sheet on platforms including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Customers are prompted by a screen pop-up and ‘share screenshot’ button that appears immediately once a screenshot has been taken anywhere within the app.
The feature is currently available via iOS-only but will also soon be integrated into Sky Bet’s Android product.
Joe Mirtaheri, senior product manager at SB&G, told EGR Intel he was confident the new feature would prove more successful than previous attempts by bookmakers to socialise betting.
“We noticed a trend where users wanted to talk about their bets and share them but traditionally people have looked at building a function within an app or a product to share them internally,” Mirtaheri said.
“All these conversations are happening on things like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and what better way than to make it really easy for users to share via those platforms.
“We are not a messenger app, so why would we want to create a whole messaging function? It’s better to use the things that do it really well, hook into their ecosystems and utilise their APIs and technology that would allow us to do it really easily.”
According to Mirtaheri, previous testing has indicated that WhatsApp is by far the most popular platform for customers to share their screenshots.
He added: “You have those closed groups where you might not necessarily want your Grandma to see on Facebook that you’ve just won £6,000 on a six-fold accumulator, for example, but you might want to tell your mates about this great price that you’ve got.”
SB&G is also planning to utilise the same integration for its Crowd Boost accumulator by making it easier to share a selection so that a certain price increases.
The operator’s crowd-boosted accumulator feature sees the odds on a selected acca grow as more punters become involved.
