From skateboarding to surfing, Digitain has ramped up the number of Olympic sports it is supporting for its sportsbook partners during Tokyo 2020.
We spoke to Zohrab Karapetyan, Digitain’s Sportsbook Product Manager, about launching new initiatives to meet the growing Olympic betting appeal and mitigating the impact of time difference on turnover, particularly in Europe, before looking slightly further ahead with bonuses and markets for the new football league season.
SBC: The Tokyo Olympics is now well underway; what do you expect to see in terms of betting activity on the Digitain partner network?
ZK: We’re expecting a lot of interest from customers across our network on a range of our betting markets. Betting on the Rio Games was significantly greater than we saw on the London Olympics, which I think was due to growth in live betting across more of the sports, more new customers being engaged and wanting to have a recreational bet, and also the continued growth in smartphones.
It will be interesting to see if the time difference between Japan and Europe impacts the turnover numbers, particularly for live betting, but we have plans to help our operators mitigate this potential situation.
SBC: On a general level, how important is it to continually improve your sportsbook, particularly with new functionality and content around the biggest sporting events?
ZK: It’s clear that the number one “hero” product for Digitain is our sportsbook. In terms of user experience, our content is among the best available anywhere, covering 100 sports, 15,000 leagues and offering more than 3,000 betting markets. We’re also now offering odds on 70,000 live events each month, a 100% increase over 2020.
Flexibility is one of the core requirements of a sportsbook, enabling operators to differentiate themselves in their target markets – our sportsbook, whether delivered via a turnkey platform, or via API, is a stand-alone fully functional platform, with a comprehensive range of supporting services.
We ensure maximum flexibility for our partners. Many aspects of the sportsbook can be configured to meet the needs of our operators. A full menu of widgets is also available for the operator to further differentiate their offering to customers – including data feeds, banners and promotions.
We can also integrate multiple API content and odds feeds, as our partners require, to ensure a high degree of localisation. Our partners can also configure the odds feeds and profit margins they want to operate at – enabling more differentiation.
SBC: Going back to Tokyo 2020 more specifically; what new sports for betting should we look out for on the Digitain partner network?
ZK: For these Games, we have extended the number of events we are supporting, for both pre-event and live. We’re betting on at least 30 sports this time – including skateboarding and surfing – a great effort from the team.
SBC: And what about new initiatives around these sports for betting? Have you rolled out any key new markets or bonuses for this Games?
ZK: Glad you asked!
At Digitain, we believe in kaizen. That is continually improving our sportsbook’s features for the benefits for our partners and their customers’ experiences.
Just in time for the Olympic Games, we have added some exciting new initiatives that we think our customers will love, including our new Pre-Match Combo Markets – these are great and fun markets for the true sports fans.
SBC: We are also fast approaching the new football season; how important has it been not to get distracted from that while preparing for the Olympic Games?
ZK: Yes, so while we have just launched some exciting, new bonuses for the Games, the same goes for the new football season, including an Accumulator Bonus where customers benefit from the best of both worlds. If their bet loses, players receive the Ultra Cashback Bonus, and if they win, they get the winnings PLUS our Multi Bonus.
We have also developed a Bore Draw bonus, great for early stages of football tournaments, where a consolation bonus kicks in if a featured game result is 0-0.
And in some cases there has been crossover with development plans for both the Olympic Games and new football season. For example, we were excited to launch our new Fast and Furious Football markets in time for the Olympics. Customers can bet on what will happen first in the next five minutes, such as a free kick, a goal kick, or a penalty.
Even more fast and furious are our Next Minute markets, where bettors can choose if a particular event will, or won’t happen, including options such as a penalty, a throw in or a card. Exciting for our customers and also for our Traders managing the matches too!
Let’s hope for an exciting Tokyo Games, even without spectators, and roll-on the start of the new football season too.