Betby: Bridging the gap between casino and sports betting

What exactly is SlotBets, and what makes it different from conventional slots?

Well, to answer this question, I think it’s fair to take a step back and answer what type of problem we’re trying to solve.

In the industry nowadays, we like to categorise players. We like to categorise players as casino players, sports players and so on, but in reality, the player is one person. If you serve them the right content at the right time, they can probably do both.

We are trying to create software for the most dynamic demographics, and I mean the demographic of, let’s say, 18 to 36, because we also see from our statistics that these are the demographics that are more engaged.

These types of people have grown up with a lot of digital products in their lives. Some of us here have been told that these people used to have 20 apps open on their phone at any given time, and all these apps are fighting for the same attention.

In reality, we see our software, Betby as a company, not competing with other sportsbooks, but competing with all these other digital products that are on the market. Keeping that in mind, we try to create products that are fast, visual and entertaining, and that apply to this specific niche.

SlotBets is exactly like that. It’s at the intersection between sportsbook and casino.

We’ll have a chance to talk more about it, but the idea behind this is that we are trying to create a highly engaging product which can actually create the appetite for users to combine both the casino UI and UX – the user experience and user interface from a casino perspective – together with the sports action, with sport actually deciding the event itself.

We are a sports company and this is the core of our business. We always feel that sport itself should drive the result.

That’s why we didn’t want to create a traditional slot. We wanted to take the UI and UX of the slot, connect it with sports dynamics and sports mechanics, and create basically SlotBets.

Can you walk us through a 15-second round?

Sure. Let’s imagine a slot game with three different reels. We’re having a 15-second round in total, with five seconds for each reel, and this is happening on a real game. So imagine a real basketball game. Imagine 15 seconds within the game, with the three reels being divided into three sections of five seconds each.

We are translating the different actions within the game into different symbols. It can be a two-pointer, it can be a three-pointer, it can be a miss, it can be nothing – you can also win if nothing happens – it can be a foul or any other action.

Then, depending on what will really happen in the game – not some RNG engine, but what will really happen in the event itself – the first reel, the second reel and the third reel will be decided.

Based on the pay table that we have, you may win or not. We have an RTP for this product of approximately 93-94%, so it’s a product that returns a lot back to the player. It’s a high-volatility game, so you maybe don’t win it so often, but you can win really big. You can get even an x500.

There are bonus rounds involved and there are different elements involved. As I said before, if we want to resonate with this younger audience, this type of high-volatility game is exactly what we need.

It’s high-volatility and highly visual as well, right? And why is real sport the engine rather than simply the visual theme?

Well, as I said, we are a sportsbook company.

Sportsbook has one major advantage that casino will never get: the emotional connection with the fan base.

When you watch your favourite team or when you watch your favourite sport, there’s plenty of entertainment around sport. There’s the NBA, there’s UFC, Formula 1, the World Cup – whatever you want – and all this creates an emotional connection.

So we want the player to feel connected to the brand, and only sports can do that.

Casino has to create all this ecosystem, but sports already has it.

Chris, from the platform side, what value does this create for an operator?

From our perspective, first of all, at Cubeia, I represent Cubeia. We are an iGaming and crypto platform, first of all, and we have a lot of operators using our software. We also have a great partnership with Betby.

Normally, we either have sportsbook or casino players, but this creates a bridge between them, which makes it very interesting. A lot of our clients are asking for innovation in general, and this is something unique to the market. That’s why I think it’s so interesting to see the performance once this goes live.

We know that once these products are delivered and we’re going out with them to our clients, they think it’s very exciting.

It’s a unique thing, so that’s why I think it’s so interesting.

How important are integration and deployment flexibility when bringing a product like this to operators?

When you’re telling your clients about certain products, the first thing they’re asking is: how do we get this? Do we need to do a new integration? What do we need to do?

So that’s the crucial part, basically. 

Years ago, they needed to do a lot of adjustments themselves, whereas right now it’s a configuration they can get up and running on the same day. So flexibility is a crucial part of really getting these types of products to perform.

From the vantage point of a platform provider, where do you see SlotBets going next? What does it mean for the future of sports engagement?

It’s a bit speculative, but how do you see this?

I was a little bit into it in the beginning, but of course a lot of our operators target customers in different groups when they’re looking to acquire new customers.

Hopefully, this can open up more doors to not just be a sportsbook or casino, but also a mix of different types of games we can offer.

Chris, we were talking a couple of days ago and you were mentioning that this is one of the first of many. You’ve got a lot of new products in the pipeline at the moment that you’re planning to release. Do you want to say something about the next products, what they will touch on, their names, features or mechanics?

I won’t reveal too much, but a little bit, yeah. I think actually we are releasing this product officially today, and we already have some data. It’s live with selected partners and the results are very interesting so far.

But this is just one game. Right now it’s for basketball. We will release it in many more sports, and we have a lot of prototypes that we will be releasing over the course of the next few months.

At the same time, I think this product is important in terms of how we are going to position it.

In a sports frame, there are a lot of areas, and most of them are covered either with some visuals or odds. If you think from a business perspective, the areas that are covered purely by visuals, like a live match tracker for instance, don’t generate any revenue, either for the operator or for the provider.

So, we think that this product could also sit at the intersection between a live match tracker and a unique casino-style game proposition.

We think that we could even partially replace the live match tracker with products like this, where we have the pitch, we have the statistics, and we’re able to spin again depending on the real action. So, there are a lot of ideas.

We’ve made, I think, a bit of a name in the industry for always being an innovative and forward-thinking company.

As I said, the people driving all this are our users in the end. We see what they want, so we try to deliver it.

One of the challenges that I can see this is designed to address is the sometimes limited cross-selling between sportsbook and casino audiences. How do you see the product fitting into an operator’s wider sportsbook and casino strategy? What role can it play there, specifically?

Very well. As we said, the new generation of players, and the generation of players that drives engagement on the internet today, are players who are used to fast entertainment. I don’t think the fundamental desire of the player to bet has changed. They want to bet in order to win, but what has changed is the way that they consume this entertainment.

They want it to be fast, visual and to the point.

That’s why, not only with SlotBets, but we offer a lot of other similar products, like micro-betting, fast markets and prediction-style markets. All this is available with Betby.

SlotBets is another step towards this direction. It’s a fast game. It brings the casino UI and UX, so it looks like a slot and is more familiar to the casino player. Sometimes, you know, it’s hard to cross-sell between casino and sports. So, it brings the UI, the feeling and the UX of the casino slot to the sports betting board, and it’s decided by real sports action.

Because, eventually, what drives the engagement of the sports player is the real result. They’re betting in order to see the game evolving and being decided. We think that this product can be successful either within the sports betting ecosystem itself, but the way we have designed it is as a widget, which means that it can be placed on any other page.

It can be placed on a casino page, on a homepage or on an affiliate landing page. So, there’s plenty of opportunity for that.

We’ve seen this challenge of cross-selling as an age-old one in the industry. We’ve seen that bridge built a little bit in recent times with gameshows, and gameshows have really made a comeback. Did this tap into that momentum, and did the growth of gameshows give you even more optimism that this can really be a success?

Yeah, I think it’s a good point, but I think the main difference is that game shows are normally not for sports fans. I think here you can combine both those who like the excitement of the casino and those who are into sports.

When I look at the product and so on, it’s good action as part of this. This product is, even for those who like quick action and sports, very exciting. And I would add, you know, let’s face it, if you remember how sports were 10 years ago and compare it to now, you see a clear evolution towards being simpler, more visual and easier for the user.

In the past, users were ready to open a sportsbook and it looked like a betting catalogue. They would search a lot for the right bet, the right market and everything else. Maybe they would do some kind of homework to understand what’s good for them and what’s not.

But now, people want things to be easy.

This actually takes a lot of work away from the user. It’s easy, you can spin, so that’s why casino games traditionally perform so well. Casino content in general is much bigger than sports content in our industry. It can be six, seven or eight times more.

With this type of product, we can get a little bit of both. Mother is casino, father is sports, and they have babies.

You’re targeting the younger generation with 15-second reels, and you’ve got the demographic of slot players. Do you think you’ll bring in more of the 18-30 crowd with the short, sharp format?

This is the demographic that is most dynamic in the industry right now, and not only right now, but they are shaping the industry for tomorrow as well.

So, we need to make content that’s relevant for them. As we said, I think the main thing is being able to serve them the right thing at the right time, serve them the right bet at the right time, and make it easy for them.

They’ve been used to an environment where, let’s face it, the attention span of the average 25-year-old or 30-year-old user is getting shorter. It becomes harder and harder for some people to focus on complicated concepts and so on.

So, this product is filling that gap exactly.

I don’t want to get into too much detail, but I didn’t quite understand how the slot actually works with the terms that are showing up. Do the players see which live event is happening, or what the foul or whatever is deciding? What happens actually when nothing happens on the field? I mean, this is 15 seconds – there’s a lot of things not happening in 15 seconds. I just want to understand where I see the live betting, or where I see the connection as a player to betting.

Yeah, it’s a very good question, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to clear it up. First of all, if nothing happens, you can also win. So, it’s not necessary that something will happen.

Imagine again a real basketball event, because it’s being played within a real basketball event right now. It’s a basketball game, so we’re talking about basketball only right now. There will be more sports.

Imagine a real NBA match or whatever – Celtics play the Thunder, for example. Within these 15 seconds, there are a lot of things that can happen in the game.

From the beginning, it may not look like it, but within 15 seconds, you can have a shot, miss it, take the rebound, shoot again and then have another miss. Or have a foul. So, already you have four different actions. We shoot, we miss, we shoot again, we take the rebound, we miss. This can happen very quickly in a basketball game.

So, it’s being decided by the real event, by the real action that’s taking place in the event itself. The first reel is going to be decided by what happens in the first five seconds. You can see it there as well. The second reel is going to be decided by what happens in the next five seconds, and the third reel will be decided by what happens in the last five seconds. So, in total, we have 15 seconds: five seconds for each reel.

In the first five seconds, you can have a three-pointer, or you can have a miss. It will be an action and it will be recorded there. Then it can be another miss, a rebound, a two-pointer or whatever. You don’t have to have three three-pointers in 15 seconds to win. If that happens, you get x500, so you get a lot of money, plus bonuses and so on.

But even if you have, let’s say, two-pointer, miss, two-pointer, you will win x a lot and so on.

How much?

At the same time, we try to make the round a maximum of 15 seconds because we want to make it engaging.

We have to remember, as I said before, the RTP for this game is around 93-94%. So, there is action happening and returning money back to the user. It’s not a game that will never return something back. It may be a high-volatility game in general, meaning that you don’t win so often, but you can win a lot.

But that’s exactly what players in our niche are looking for.

Is there a timeframe for when other sports may be involved with this?

I have the CPO here in the front row, so I don’t want to commit to something before agreeing with him. He will look for me afterwards. But I think, realistically speaking, within the next six months there will be at least another two or three games.

Three months?

Three months.

Basketball is a very fast-paced game, so you have events happening all the time. How hard is it to adapt the system to other sports? Is that a challenge? How do you approach it?

It’s a very good question.

If you think of taking the exact same mechanic and trying to put it in another sport, it may not work. As you said, every sport is different. Some sports are organised by points or goals, like basketball or football. Some others are organised in sets, like volleyball or tennis.

All the mechanics are different, so it’s not one-size-fits-all.

There will be different concepts, but the main idea around it will be high volatility, high engagement, good visuals and quick games.

So, it’s not going to be exactly the same old games.

You’re talking about basketball. Is it going to be just NBA games? And when can people start playing and winning with this platform?

It will be live with all the basketball games that we are offering in our sportsbook, which is basically everything that exists, more or less. So, no, it’s not only NBA. NBA was just an example. It’s live with all real basketball games.

You’re presenting it today, so when can people actually start playing?

Some of our clients have already rolled it out. Some others are in the process. Anyone else who doesn’t have it yet or isn’t a client yet, please come to the stand. We’ll be happy to have you as a client.

But it’s live. It’s already available.