eGaming Review December 2013 | Page 63

SPORTING SOLUTIONS SPONSORED EDITORIAL SPORTS BETTING FOCUS Don’t take your eye off the ball during the World Cup Simon Trim, managing director of Sporting Solutions, the market leading B2B software and data services provider, explains how sportsbooks need to manage their resources during next summer’s World Cup to make sure they don’t neglect other sports T he World Cup is going to be the biggest betting event of all time. The kick-off times are attractive to a European customer base, with games scheduled at 5pm, 8pm and 11pm BST, and we estimate that England qualifying will boost turnover by roughly 30%. It is a huge opportunity for sportsbooks of all sizes, but also one of the toughest challenges. Smaller operators need to throw everything at the tournament just to try to compete with the big boys, while the larger operators will also be investing heavily to try to outperform their competitors. Resources will become increasingly stretched as the tournament nears and sportsbooks will require assistance to make sure they are not missing out on other opportunities while their focus is on the World Cup. The growth in the number of betting markets across an ever increasing range of sports has been quite staggering in recent years, especially in-play. For many operators there has had to be a significant change in the way that they run their businesses to deal with such a product-led expansion. In particular, many no longer try and undertake everything themselves and increasingly outsource large areas of their trading functions. Sporting Solutions is the undisputed market leader when it comes Simon Trim is managing director of Sporting Solutions. He began his career at William Hill before moving to Ladbrokes. He first joined the Sporting Index Group in 1998 and, after a succession of trading roles, was made trading director in 2006. He became managing director of Sporting Solutions in October 2011. www.egrmagazine.com to the provision of quality pricing and trading services. The smaller sportsbooks need to compete on the core World Cup football business – something that Sporting Solutions offers, specialising in growth areas like player markets and specials such as bookings and corners – and although the bigger firms will have the World Cup covered internally, they will need expertise on other sports with the majority of their resources tied up. They can’t afford to miss out on the England versus India Test series, Wimbledon and Royal Ascot, and this is where Sporting Solutions can help. Although it’s not really the case anymore, big events like the World Cup and European Championships were traditionally when sharper punters used to step in on other sports because they knew the majority of the trading team was focused on football. Those days are gone, but it still underlines the importance of quality pricing during the busiest periods, or firms run the risk of getting picked off by shrewder customers. In recent years many companies have shed their trading expertise and copied the market price in an attempt to reduce costs. This 'spray and pray' approach is not only flawed but unsustainable as the subsequent commodity pricing has led to margin erosion as firms aim to guarantee a profit rather than maximise it. The inevitable introduction of point of consumption tax in the UK is only going to make matters worse for these operators and they need to act quickly or face the consequences. Pricing, trading and modelling excellence has always been the cornerstone of Sporting Solutions’ business. Our investment in market-leading models means we are able to offer our partners the widest coverage and the deepest set of markets, while maintaining and enhancing their yield; the importance of which can’t be overestimated during a World Cup summer. Furthermore, this September we launched the Trading School of Excellence, a first of its kind collaboration with the University of Salford. The po stgraduate course enhances the professional development of our traders and will maintain the reputation that Sporting Solutions has for employing the highest quality traders in the industry. With just over six months to go until the start of the biggest betting event on the planet there is no need to panic. Sporting Solutions is best placed to assist with the core World Cup business for those that need it, as well as managing the other summer sports for the bigger operators, giving them the opportunity to focus fully on making Brazil as successful and profitable as possible. 61