African Affiliate Spotlight Part 2, Trust and Regulation, Interview with Charles Herisson, CEO, Betadvisor

After speaking with Charles Herisson, CEO of Betadvisor in part 1 of this extended Q&A its clear that there is a great potential for the affiliate market in Africa and not just with football content either.

In this second part, we dive deeper with Charles and explore the business development side of the sector. Ensuring you have the right partners, keeping working standards high and giving extra value to your clients is just as important as the opportunity itself. Read on to hear why.

What are some of the ways you are supporting operators who have a heightened need to build their online audience due to the landscape?

“We found a very interesting new position through Covid in terms of a B2B offering to the operators that wanted to switch their customers from the shops to online.

We actually gave the operators Betadvisor coupons for a heavily reduced price so they could offer to their customers. They could give these coupons to their customers in their shops and create an opportunity to have their customer online under their affiliates. The owner of the shop can essentially become the affiliate and push their customers online.

They were telling their customers to register online and get a EUR 100 free coupon with Betadvisor.

Betadvisor becomes a tool for the operators to quickly switch their customer base from offline to online. This is one of the best solutions we found to arise from Covid.”

Trust issues have always been prevalent in this region, what advice would you give future market entrants for sourcing the best partners to work with?

“You should focus on finding the best operators for your geo, for your audience, and for your communication channel. You have to create a relationship based on trust.

The affiliates should encourage the operators to understand their customers as much as possible and help them with new ideas.

Innovation usually comes from small companies, from this small group of people that can go beyond the borders and can be creative, they can think outside the box, and they can change the status quo.

Usually, you cannot find this kind of person in big companies as they have very different infrastructures and strict rules.

The affiliates can give this power to the company through a strong relationship with the affiliate manager.

My suggestion is for the affiliates to try and think of new options that don’t fall in the normal rules, try to experiment with new things.

For example, across Africa, SMS campaigns are working very well. From my perspective, building relationships even with mobile network operators has been very interesting and a good option.”

Affiliate association RAiG has proposed a licensing framework to be created for European operating affiliates to help improve industry standards. Do you think something like this could work in African markets? Are the current regulations sufficient or are there any improvements you think need to be made?

“The future will rely on regulation. I think as operators of this very important industry, everyone should be aware of the importance of customer protection.

I’m very happy when is see regulation and believe that it’s a huge opportunity for everyone.

When Betadvisor started to speak about tipsters 10 years ago, we were one of the first platforms worldwide to start to offer this kind of certification service for people that wanted to become a tipster.

As the market grew, we saw a lot of self-proclaimed “King of bets” and “Tipsters that always win” which were often fake.

People that operate badly can destroy the reputation of the other people that are working responsibly.

As a company that wants to work with world-class people, I believe that it’s very important that the industry moves forward with regulation. I’m very happy that there’s attention on consumer protection and everything else that comes with responsible gaming. I think it’s a very important factor for the world industry.

We used to say at Betadvisor “We Tip You Win” because we wanted to give the sense of community and victory

But then we decided to make a big change at the company. We now say “Be Safe, Be Responsible, Be Betadvisor”

We want to give the idea of what you have to be. We didn’t want to speak on winning, we wanted to speak about something much more important; being responsible.

Betting for us is something very important for the core social culture. It’s an opportunity to share your passion for sport with friends through betting together. We strongly believe that betting is something good, but you have to do it in a safe environment. All of these regulations are there to help us build this kind of safe environment. So I think it’s very, very important.”

Editor’s Note: It’s clear, from Charles’ perspective that success in this sector heavily relies upon regulation and partner trust. Some African countries still have a lot of progress to make in these departments, but as the market grows, so will the regulations that evolve from it.

Charles believes that rather than a limiter, regulation is an opportunity for sustainable growth as it encourages trust and transparency, providing a great foundation to build a successful affiliate market on.

The future for this region is very exciting, a sector to keep your eye on in the near future.