iGaming Business magazine iGB 111 July/Aug | Page 13

iGaming Business 111
In numbers
Betfair and Sky Bet top mobile rankings
In late June, the Australian parliament approved a ban on
lottery betting which will come into force on 1 January, 2019
and will apply to all sites that accept bets on the outcome
of lottery draws. The federal government was persuaded to
take action following a long-term campaign by newsagents,
pubs and clubs that feared losing lottery ticket sales.
CEO of the Australian Lottery and Newsagents
Association, Adam Joy, told the Sydney Morning Herald
that this would “protect Australia from synthetic
lotteries” and called on all operators “to do the right
thing by Australians and cease offering these
products immediately.”
Ever bullish Lottoland Australia CEO Luke Brill was
however adamant this “does not mean the end of
Lottoland Australia”, and that it was “well advanced”
with developing other ways it can offer services to
punters in Australia. So a mere body blow rather
than a fatal one, according to Brill. We’ll find out if his
confidence is misplaced soon enough.
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Leading tipster site Bettingexpert.com’s exlusive deep
dive for the iGB Intelligence Centre in July evaluated the
mobile betting platform and app offerings of 26 of the
most popular bookmakers, assessing 10 factors including
size of app download, availability of live streaming and
mobile cash-out to iTunes rankings and reviews and
languages available, to arrive at their rankings.
So who was crowned king of the bookmakers for
mobile functionality? Betfair and Skybet edged this one
ahead of Bet365 in third place. Betfair ranked highly for
its overall iTunes rating of 4.6, placing it third among the
bookmakers assessed, and for the number of reviews
given, nearly 19,000, the second largest volume among
the 26 bookmakers. The brand also ranked eighth in the
iTunes sports app category. In terms of app size, Betfair
rated in the middle of the pack at 46MB, while ranking in
the top third for the number of languages its app is available
in, with 11, also offering a downloadable Android app.
Sky Bet mobile betting took a share of the spoils based on
coming in second behind Bet At Home for the highest iTunes
average rating, with 4.8, and fourth in the total number
of reviews given, with approximately 5,300 at the time of
collecting the data. Sky Bet also ranked number one among
the 26 bookmakers when it came to its iTunes sports app
category ranking, appearing as high as seventh in the
sports app category which also includes non-gambling
brands. Like Betfair, Skybet ranked middle of the pack
in terms of app size at 41MB. Only being available in
an English language option however prevented it from
being crowned the outright winner.
Awareness raising around diversity and inclusion is
enjoying some serious momentum in igaming at the
moment. Not only has iGB launched its first Most
Influential Women feature (starting on page 76),
celebrating the talent of 10 of the industry’s top female
leaders, but the All-In Diversity Project is poised to
publish its All-Index, benchmarking diversity across
the industry.
The initiative, which was established by gaming
consultants Kelly Kehn and Christina Thakor-Rankin,
promotes the business case for building more inclusive
workplaces. Its forthcoming report will grade participants
on a simple scale, enabling them to start benchmarking
their progress in diversity and inclusion.
The report will also contain recommendations on
corporate governance, recruitment practices, equal pay,
employment legislation, and unconscious bias.
Despite it still be relatively early days, the project has
already attracted support from a range of top tier operators,
suppliers and other interested parties, most recently
partnering with youth gambling education charity YGAM.
iGamingBusiness | Issue 111 | July/August 2018
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