Betting on Football will be kicking off in a few days at Stamford Bridge, and Helio Gaming are down to sponsor the event. In the run up to the conference, we had a chat with Richard Mifsud, CEO of Helio Gaming, to discuss regulation across both the sports betting and lottery industries, and how there needs to be a multi-faceted approach from operators to offset the impacts that increased regulation can have.
#bofcon will take place from 19-22 March, and will host six tracks and specialist forums to discuss topics that affect the industry at the minute. With over 2,000 senior executives and c-level attendees, this year will be the sixth edition of the conference.
What are you looking forward to most at Betting on Football?
It’s our first time as a sponsor at Betting on Football so it’s all very new to us! Having so many operators and fellow suppliers there under one roof it is a great opportunity to get our name out there to a wider audience. We hear a lot about omni-channel in our industry, but I suppose we could put ourselves into the ‘omni-vertical’ bracket.
We’re a lottery supplier, which wouldn’t seem to have much relevance to people at Betting on Football on the surface, but we have developed a series of exciting games that are a great complement to any operator’s sportsbook or casino offering. We are bringing lottery into the modern era and the good news is it is open to anyone and everyone.
What are you looking to promote at the event?
People know us for our Lotto Hero product, which is the first lottery game that guarantees a million Euro prize fund each hour, on the hour, 24 hours a day. But we have added a whole suite of game to this in recent times.
We’re now providing daily, weekly, and even event-based draws, which can be branded by individual operators to engage a large number of customer demographics. We also offer betting on big international lotteries, which is proving to be very popular, and we will shortly be unveiling our own live lottery product. We think this has the potential to be as successful as live dealer has in online casino.
Who are you looking to get in touch with at betting on football?
We’d love to hear from decision-makers at operators and aggregators who are looking for something different, a new product that their customers will know yet may not have experienced in the format in which we can provide it.
Lottery is one of the oldest forms of gambling in the world and has universal appeal. Until now, however, it’s not really been re-invented for the mobile age or younger generation. Sportsbook has been very good at adapting to hand-held devices. From a product point of view much of the recent developments have been geared towards small stake, big win opportunities.
That is exactly what lottery is, with aspirational, life-changing prizes on offer. As a result, it is a great complementary product to sportsbook operators and can be used for both acquisition and retention. We can also tailor sign-up and bonus offers to giving players free entry into frequently occurring lottery draws. Imagine having a risk-free opportunity to make a player an instant millionaire with a free bet offer?
Which part of the conference agenda has caught your eye the most?
We’ve heard that the speaking tracks at Betting on Football are particularly good, so we are looking forward to hearing what people have to say about themes and trends within the industry. Anything retention and acquisition-based is always of interest, but I think we now have a suite of products that can really help with that.
Regulation isn’t getting any easier in many jurisdictions, so we need together as an industry to see how we can help each other off-set these headwinds. We’re also very keen to hear about best practice when it comes to compliance. Players protection is very important to us at Helio Gaming.