At your customer’s request

With the new football season underway, the battle between operators to sign up new customers and retain valuable players will be as fierce as ever, each looking for a competitive advantage.

While many sportsbooks will opt for new and creative marketing campaigns, along with new offers to entice end users to part with their cash, ultimately product innovation will lead the way as the most effective tool to keep players engaged.

None more so than request a bet style markets. The popularity of these markets has grown exponentially in recent seasons, particularly with millennials who are highly active via social media channels where operators are most likely to take these requests.

However, what is currently on offer to players falls someway short of the true potential these markets can provide both in terms of the markets on offer and the incremental turnover they can provide for operators.

But with proper use of technology, the request a bet revolution is set to take-off into the mainstream, with more markets on offer than ever before.

Effective pricing

Many operators have realised the potential of these request a bet style markets, actively inviting their customers to request bets via social media channels. However, one stumbling block they currently face is their ability to price these markets quickly and effectively, in addition to the manual effort required to input and settle each market.

Despite technology driving the industry forward across various business areas, requested bets are still priced manually by the trading teams, which severely slows down the process and therefore restricts the volume of markets they can offer to the customer.
Furthermore, this approach also leads to players missing out on the opportunity to place their desired bet, as traders simply can’t keep up with the number of requests coming through.

One solution to improve the efficiencies of these markets is to lean on technology, which has the power to analyse big data sets and apply sophisticated calculations and algorithms as part of the odds compiling process, all in a matter of milliseconds. The end result is a system which can analyse each customised bet or accumulator created by individual users to generate a price instantly.

Greater markets

Come 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, recreational punters are glued to their TV or mobile devices to find out the latest scores and discover if their accumulator has won or bust. Accas are very operator-friendly, given the higher margins embedded in the pricing, while players love the jackpot-style betting experience they provide.

However, while accumulators remain popular, there’s been a lack of innovation to improve the offering and boost the volume of markets available to players. Data and algorithms are already empowering operators to provide a more personalised experience, with the increased knowledge at their disposal meaning they can offer players what they want.

Innovations such as Digital Sports Tech’s Quick Pick Accumulators (QPAs) face the challenge of request a bet markets head on, providing operators with an opportunity to significantly scale the markets available, while more importantly enhancing the overall user experience around this type of betting activity.

The industry has only scratched the surface with how technology can improve the sports betting experience for punters.