How can bookmakers reap the rewards of a digitally focused world?

Every year, online channels are responsible for an increasing part of a bookmakers’ revenue. Therefore, the largest players constantly invest in modern IT solutions and functionalities for players. The trend in which mobile is the most essential segment of a company’s sales is also strengthening within the industry. Digitisation and mobile solutions attract new players. Hence, they should allow all bets on offer to be placed and also enable exactly the same functionalities as a standard website.

What strongly attracts customers to bookmakers is the broadcasting of sporting events and the opportunity to bet on their results at the same time. The broadcast offer and its availability on mobile devices are of key importance here. The live offer has already become more popular than pre-match betting, which is the result of changes such as digitisation. For example, every month on STS TV there are live streams of up to 5,000 events including football, handball, volleyball, basketball as well as tennis, hockey and many others. In addition, they are expanded to include events that are very often available to only a few TV broadcasters – e.g. Copa America, Final Four or NBA. These streams can be followed on the website and via the mobile application. Streaming is vital for our business.

Another aspect of digitisation is the emergence and professionalisation of an entirely new discipline – esports. Esports are definitely one of the most promising industries for bookmakers. Every day there are a lot of events around the world which make the choices in betting very extensive. This applies to both pre-match and live betting. After all, esports is already in the top 10 of the most popular sports that our punters place their bets on. Hence, our goal is to make us more and more recognisable among fans. Many operators have even signed contracts with esports teams. In the future, we should expect more large contracts that will increase the involvement of bookmakers in esports.

The growth of esports

Revenues from esports are rapidly growing year by year with revenue percentage increases being in the three-figure mark. There is currently no other discipline that could consistently boast of such results year by year. Of course, because it is a new category, it is not of the same significance as football or tennis. But it’s already in the top 10. Five years ago, not many bookmakers had esports in their selection. Since then, the capital expenditure in this sector can be expressed in millions. As a result, igaming companies have become one of the most recognisable sponsors among esports fans.

What distinguishes esports from other types of bets is that punters often bet on games being tied, especially in CS:GO. In addition, esports offers a wide range of special bets, which are mainly specific to the League of Legends game.

Thanks to technology, bookmakers can also provide an efficient payout system. In our company, the STSpay service is available to users of sts.pl, m.sts.pl and the mobile app. Transfers to 12 financial institutions, including the six largest banks in Poland, are finalised within 15 minutes on average. The service is available 24/7 and STS does not charge any commission for payouts. A self-owned payouts system constitutes an innovation not only in Poland but also on a European scale. This enables a faster crediting of the funds to user accounts and provides independence from third-party providers.

Technology is of key importance for companies in the industry because, for example, in STS 80% of revenues are already generated by online channels, the largest of which is a modern mobile application. A functional and transparent application makes this sales channel dominant, and the number of customers using it is increasing. In 2020, we will continue to observe this phenomenon.

Mateusz Juroszek, CEO of STS

Bio:

Mateusz Juroszek is a graduate of the Faculty of Strategic Management at the Kozminski University in Warsaw. He majored in Management and Marketing, specialising in Strategic Management. Since 2012, he has been the CEO of STS. Juroszek also holds the position of the chairman of the Supervisory Board of ATAL S.A.