Abios is sponsoring Betting on Sports 2017, the second edition of the largest international sports and betting trade conference at Olympia Conference Centre in Kensington.
Ahead of the 12-15 September event, we spoke to the company’s CEO Oskar Frรถberg about what he is looking forward to at #boscon2017, his perfect sporting event, and how sports and betting can work better together.
SBC: What are you looking forward to at Betting on Sports?
OF: Abios is very excited to attend and exhibit at Betting on Sports due to the fact that we will be able to network and connect with a lot of people in the industry. Even though Abios is an esports live data and statistics provider, we still look forward to connecting with the regular sports betting industry.
There are not only many leading companies attending, but also the several key people within the industry of esports. We hope to be able to meet both existing and potentially new customers in order to enhance and build long-term relationships, but we are also really looking forward to the several speakers and exhibitions. Abios will not only be exhibiting but I will also be speaking on the Data Panel for esports which we look forward to!
SBC: What are you promoting at Betting on Sports?
OF: Abios is a world leading B2B provider of esports data and live scores. Founded in early 2013 and based out of Sweden, Abios now works with companies and clients from all over the world focusing on everything from betting to media. The Abios API offers the most detailed statistics and broadest coverage of matches, suitable for any and all data needs.
Abios has everything from basic data to play-by-play granularity of match events and statistics. We currently offer three different data packages along with tailored solutions. Since the esports betting industry is growing tremendously, our live esports data is a great contribution to every sportsbook who decides to expand into esports. Abios can be used for different needs such as enhancing the content around esports or simply for odds calculation.
SBC: Where can betting work together more closely with sport?
OF: Since Abios is solely focused on esports, we would like to see a closer connection between the actual games (sports) and the betting. While we understand the challenge and unwillingness for many of the game providers/developers to work with betting due to the general bad reputation of the industry, we still think that the data accessibility should be improved.
There are infinite possibilities with regards to what one can do with the data in esports due to it being digital in nature. While the game developers most likely will not endorse betting in the near future, we still firmly believe that the data from the matches should be widely available to everyone and open for all of us to dig into. An even more open landscape for data in esports would of course help Abios in continuing to build great products and APIs on esports data.
SBC: What sports betting partnership has stood out in the past 12 months?
OF: There is so much happening in the esports scene and esports betting is still in its early stages which makes it hard to single out one single partnership in the past 12 months. We would however like to generalize and mention the partnerships between game developers and tournament organizers.
For every year that passes, we see a huge improvement to the production value and professionalism of the esports tournaments, which in turn improves the foundation for betting. The continued assurance of high quality tournaments and matches is a huge enabling factor for the betting industry to enter into esports.
SBC: Describe your perfect sporting eventย ย
OF: Since Abios is working in the esports industry and everybody in the company are devoted gamers, we would ideally be going to one of the biggest esports events such as The International in Dota 2, worlds in League of Legends or the Majors in CS:GO.
We enjoy attending large esports tournaments around the world, watching the matches live, interacting with the community and meeting up with many professionals and companies. Seeing as most of esports is watched, played and consumed from home and in front of a computer, it is always a great reminder of how amazing the community is to come out and attend the large yearly events!