Ahead of SBC Summit Canada, Formula 1’s Head of Betting sets out how live data, operator partnerships, and product innovation can transform F1’s wagering footprint.
Formula 1 commands a global audience of hundreds of millions, yet accounts for just 0.4% of worldwide betting handle – a gap that Mark Wrigley, F1’s Head of Betting, is tasked with closing.
Ahead of his fireside chat at SBC Summit Canada, Wrigley spoke to Insider Sport about F1’s data-driven betting product, its emerging operator portfolio, and why the lessons of golf and tennis point toward a significant revenue opportunity for sportsbooks willing to invest.
Read the full interview below.
F1 only accounts for around 0.4% of global betting handle despite its scale. Where do you see the biggest opportunity to close that gap?
“The biggest opportunity for F1 is to grow the engagement with our global fanbase through innovative product developments, giving them a proposition they can interact with in a meaningful way. We have been proactive in understanding our fanbase, how they view betting, how they would like to see the product and the features they would engage with.
“Additionally, we have worked with traders and product owners from global sportsbook operators to help build the markets they would like to see. This has led to us, alongside our partners ALT Sports Data, to create a really exciting betting product launch with live and micro betting opportunities.
“This has helped created more relevant markets, more competitive odds, and more opportunities to bet over the course of the race weekend. This will lead to more engagement to grow the global betting handle which would reflect the size and scale of our sport more broadly.”
You’ve described F1’s data as “limitless” – how are you turning 700 data points per second into markets that fans actually want to bet on?
“Our sport is a data led sport and therefore we’ve created vast amounts of data to service all aspects. The data team at F1 has been working extensively with ALT Sports Data to help understand, contextualise, and model all the data points that we can provide so that we can provide the most accurate, reliable and engaging betting proposition to the fanbase.
“As mentioned before, we extensively surveyed our fans to understand what they would like to bet on, how it would mirror the stories we are telling in the broadcast, and the betting markets seen in other sports.
“We will continue to test and learn from all the markets we are providing through detailed feedback from our sportsbook operators and fans to ensure we are building not just quantity but quality of markets for them to bet on.”
You’ve partnered with Betway in March, and more recently FanDuel. What does building an operator portfolio look like from here, and what do you need from partners to deliver on the product vision?
“We’ve partnered with two excellent Tier 1 betting operators who are aligned in our vision of what the experience of betting on F1 should be. They are committed to integrating the product into their sportsbook and promoting it to their customers to grow engagement.
“They are also providing detailed feedback to ourselves and ALT Sports Data to consistently refine the product to maximise the engagement from their customer base.
“We’re building a select operator portfolio on a non-exclusive and territory basis who believe in the opportunity to grow betting in F1.”
In-play and real-time markets are clearly central to the strategy. What does an innovative F1 betting experience look like in practice – what should operators be building toward?
“Operators should be building towards integrating the ALT Sports Data F1 odds feed either directly or through other third parties who have mapped the feed. This will give them access to the leading live and micro betting product which also has additional features such as Same Game Parlay and Cashout.
“The betting experience is also aligned with the F1 broadcast as the markets will also align with the stories we are telling there. These could be midfield battles, overtake situations, pit stop strategies, etc.
“We will also continue to evolve the product outside of live and micro markets as we look to add other engagement tools to bring it in line with the standard market offering. This may include front end visualisations for example.
“The beauty of our sport is that there is so much at our fingertips and the quantity and quality of our data rivals all of the top tier sports that have millions of betting users, so there is so much potential to shape that data and insight into new and exciting products and experiences for fans.”
F1 has been deliberate about responsible growth – no trackside advertising, no odds on the broadcast. How do you scale the betting proposition without compromising the fan experience you’ve built?
“We have been deliberate about working with our operator partners on promoting to their customers and our fanbase predominantly through digital activations. This is to ensure they are promoting the F1 betting experience rather than using our large fanbase as a billboard to convert into other sports or alternative products.
“It’s not to say we couldn’t add in trackside advertising or alternative betting promotion in the future in a responsible and tailored way, but our focus in the near term is on engaging the audience with the product itself and building a core user base incrementally.”
You’ve done this before with tennis and golf. What’s the one lesson from those journeys that operators in the room should take away for F1?
“That the quality of the product can really change the level of engagement with the sport. We are aware of the low levels of engagement that F1 has had in the betting sector previously and that was similar to Golf for example.
“However, as operators invested in the product and integrated it into their sportsbooks, there was proven revenue growth for them over time with users finding that it added to the overall experience of engaging with the sport.”
