Two of the leading suppliers to the igaming industry have picked Turkey as a team to watch ahead of their Euro 2020 opener against Italy in Rome on Friday.
As a follow up to this exclusive roundtable on fan engagement, player acquisition and the impact of home advantage on pricing, we put our interviewees on the spot by asking them to name their tournament winner and surprise package.
“If France can get out of Group F, then you would have to fancy them to go all the way. It is the toughest group though, as it also includes Germany, Portugal and Hungary,” said Pronet Gaming’s Sportsbook and Trading Director Thomas Molloy.
“Group A is interesting, but I can see Switzerland and Turkey surprising us. Italy are group favourites, but the Swiss took points off Germany, both home and away, and from Spain in the Nations League.
“Turkey are in good form too, having put 11 goals past the Netherlands, Russia and Norway in recent months. Both have an outside chance of getting out of their group.”
Meanwhile, we also heard from Pinnacle Solution’s B2B Marketing Specialist Sam Wright further to his company’s expert analysis on trading practices for the tournament.
“I fancy Turkey to make the latter stages,” agreed Wright. “Pushing France all the way in qualifying, they’ve got a strong spine that’s arguably benefited from the year delay, and you wouldn’t expect any of Italy, Switzerland or Wales to overly faze them in the group. For that reason, I like them at 5.5 to win Group A.”
As for a possible tournament winner, Wright acknowledged the strength of Les Bleus but came to a different conclusion. “It’s hard to look past France and easy to look past England, but I’m putting my money on Germany this time around,” he added.
“Yes, they’ve had a few shaky results of late, they’re in the ‘Group of Death’, and they had a shocking Russia 2018, but it’s Germany after all. It’s Jogi Low’s last hurrah, they’ve got a deep squad with a mix of youth, pace and, importantly, experience of winning on the international stage in their ranks, which can’t be said about many of the favourites.”
If Wright’s Germany pick was a bit of a hunch, Betegy CEO Alex Kornilov found that his company’s data models favoured the French. He said: “We started out with data analytics and predicting results – and still have a large chunk of our business related to outcomes.
“Our models are fantastic, and we usually occupy the top 2-3% of correct global predictions made. According to Betegy’s algos, we predict France, with Belgium and England remaining as serious contenders. Personally, I’ve got my fingers crossed for Ukraine as a dark horse!”
Finally, Aspire Global’s Head of Sports Morten Hauge suggested that a former Premier League star can fire Belgium to final glory at Wembley on 11 July.
He shared: “Unfortunately, Norway didn’t make it to the Euros…again. But Belgium has a really strong squad, they look good. Eden Hazard is one of the most gifted players in the tournament.
“His fitness is a slight concern at the moment, but if he can get back to the height of his powers before it kicks off, they’ll be hard to beat.
“Although they never seem to be able to take that last step, hopefully this year will be different. It is certainly going to be a tournament like no other, especially since every nation is going to experience it slightly differently to the way they usually would.”