Sportsbook Front-End: Unlocking the Opportunities of the Limitless Sportsbook
Nicolas Linde, Chief Product Officer at Shape Games, examines the importance of front-end expertise as the scale of the sportsbook expands.
There can be no denying that the scale of the sportsbook offering is expanding.
The greater depth of AI and algorithmic trading, as well as the increasing sophistication of bet builder technology and accompanying increase in combinability, is significantly enhancing the number of options at a sports bettor’s fingertips.
At Kambi’s Capital Markets Day in January, the Group expanded on the concept of the ‘limitless sportsbook’. Increasingly, end-user behaviour is focussing on products that essentially only complex algorithms and AI are capable of delivering. And this move to algorithmic trading will massively increase the size of the sports betting menu.
Historically, the number of offers available has been limited by what a trading floor can reasonably price, and risk manage. Algorithmic trading, true automation, removes those limitations — while enabling human expertise to be leveraged more efficiently. Delivering the limitless sportsbook has major implications when it comes to front-end delivery and how the sportsbook is ‘packaged’ for the end-user.
From the advent of online sports betting, the manner in which the UI is presented to the end-user has remained broadly static.
Traditionally, bet offers are displayed in a spreadsheet format, a search-based experience with hundreds of potential betting options viewed in a list.
Algorithmic trading lifts such restrictions, and will thereby fuel both combinability and the creation of new sportsbook products. But this also heralds its own set of challenges as the menu of options expands to a point where the aforementioned UX is no longer fit-for-purpose.
With sportsbook content and scale offering continuing to grow, presenting this content in more engaging, entertaining and seamless ways to the bettor will be crucial to ensuring a satisfying consumer experience — one that is not beleaguered by complex menus or overwhelms the bettor with a mind-boggling panoply of too many options.
The importance of front-end expertise has never been greater, than it is today. An operator ignores this as their peril, and leaves themselves at risk of playing catch-up in the battle for long-term customer retention.
Harnessing the advantages of scalability
Put simply, the days of differentiating largely through marketing are coming to an end. The increasing scale of the sportsbook has accelerated the need for operators to deliver enhancements in the way the offering is packaged for end-users. The product needs more focus on personalisation and engagement features than ever before in order to both attract players and retain them over the long term.
Shape Games’ heritage in delivering technical solutions for leading consumer brands around the globe–including Red Bull, Apple and Ikea–has furnished the company with an excellent foundation of experience on which to drive best-in-class front-end solutions for iGaming and sports betting operators, including Danske Spil, Bally’s and BetWarrior.
The fully-native nature of the technology means it can cater effectively to operators’ intensifying demands across areas such as differentiation, personalisation and empowerment. Furthermore–with regulation expanding across the globe, and the need to meet an increasing number of different local regulations and player expectations–this means that a front-end which can offer high levels of flexibility and customisation, localising individual markets, will be increasingly crucial.
The combination of Kambi and Shape Games means that, where previously operators had a need to choose between a bespoke or turnkey solution, the possibility now exists to have the best of both worlds.
Shape’s front-end development capabilities lead the market. And, combined with the scale of data generated by the Kambi network, it will continue to deliver even greater innovation to shape the front end of tomorrow.
