iGB Intelligence reports Social Gaming report | Page 19

PART 2 - SOCIAL MEDIA AND SPORTS BETTING That feeling of togetherness Alpago mentions is now almost exclusively being conducted on mobile. In fact, more than 80% of Twitter’s users are now using portable devices to access Twitter, usually via the app, which correlates with the inexorable evolution of sports bettors into mobile sports bettors. Many leading operators report that mobile is now clearly the primary channel as desktop continues to take a back seat – particularly with sports bets. Ladbrokes recently announced that mobile accounts for 71% of sportsbook stakes, which was almost identical to the 70.4% recorded at Coral for Q1 2016. And it was a similar story at rival Paddy Power, where its mobile sportsbook represented 66% of online stakes and 76% of sportsbook revenues in 2015. For today’s sports bettors, the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are usually never more than a few taps of a smartphone screen away from a betting app. Case study WantMyBet Described as the eToro of betting (the social trading operator says it enables its traders to win, be followed and generate ‘copy’ trades. eToro claims its model is fundamentally different to other financial platforms because it wants its users to win), WantMyBet is the brainchild of entrepreneur Olly Joshi. In essence, it’s a social platform enabling people to find sports betting advice, leave tips of their own and place bets with sportsbook partners (Ladbrokes, Boylesports, Betway and William Hill) without leaving the site, making it an alternative breed of affiliate. The goal from the outset was to build a product as simple and as user friendly as possible, while avoiding esoteric jargon that could intimidate or deter betting neophytes. Meanwhile, the leaderboard displaying tipsters’ wins, average win amount, top returns and how many followers they have accumulated helps foster a competitive and community spirit among tipsters. “People love to be proved right,” says Joshi. “If you predict anything through a crowd and it comes in you feel good and you have that social gratification. As human beings we are quite competitive and we want to rise to the top, but if you don’t quite make it and slide back down that spurs you on even more.” Another priority was to allow users to bet directly from the site, drastically reducing the length of the conversion funnel. Gaining access to betting partners’ backend technology to facilitate this type of affiliate arrangement was a “pretty long slog” but necessary in terms of UX. “We really tried to think about it from a user’s perspective. I don’t want to make 10 million clicks, go to a bookmaker’s site and then find the selections all over again to place a tip in the same way tipsters’ links on Facebook and Twitter just drop you on the Ladbrokes landing page. So I have to sign up, which I might not want to do. Or I could get bored and click elsewhere. Then I have to find the markets and bets across different leagues. “When a user shares a tip with us, providing they have already signed up and have money on there, they can literally place a bet with one click. They can also deposit and check their balance from our site.” Despite limited marketing spend, apart from a launch video that went viral and at one point was tending on Twitter in the UK, WantMyBet is still averaging about 400 new signups per week. The user return rate is some 65% while an average session time is six minutes, which is particularly high for a social platform. “It shows that people are engaging with the content.” iGaming Business Social Media & Mobile Betting Report 15