InBet Games is sponsoring Betting on Football 2018, the fifth edition of the largest international football and betting trade conference at Stamford Bridge, the home of Chelsea FC.
Ahead of the 20-23 March event, we spoke to the company’s Business Development Director Pavel Korolev about what he is looking forward to at #bofcon2018, which innovation he expects to capture the most attention in 2018, and who he is backing to lift the World Cup trophy in Russia.
SBC: What are you looking forward to at Betting on Football?
PK: We at InBet Games are excited to be a part of the fifth edition of the largest international football and betting trade conference at Stamford Bridge. We look forward to exhibiting and displaying our wide portfolio of gaming and sports betting solutions, as well as having multiple opportunities to network with sportsbook operators from across the world and discuss latest developments within sports and betting industries.
SBC: What are you promoting at Betting on Football?
PK: In the lead-up to the World Cup 2018, we have expanded our sports gaming portfolio through a partnership we signed with a global leading sportsbook and casino platform provider – Digitain. Their sportsbook module covers 30,000 live events each month in over 3,000 betting market. We see this partnership as a great solution to enhance our sportsbook portfolio and reach a wider segment of customers.
Here at InBet, we also share many of our friends’ and customers’ passion for football. We wanted to reinforce the Russian World Cup spirit and image, so delivered a new, dynamic, dramatic and thrilling game on the market. Our ‘Penalty Kick’ game is rich with exciting dynamics and conveys a true spirit of football to gamers. We are honoured that this game was awarded The Best Sports Themed Game title by SBC last year.
In addition, we have created a product – DAREBS – that was shortlisted for International Gaming Awards nomination of Innovative Supplier of the Year. DAREBS gives players a distinguished and unique option to bet on real events, while an event process is displayed on the screen of a betting shop in a real-time mode.
The results can be easily traced and verified through public websites. With DAREBS, gaming operators can facilitate betting on sports events, races, air vehicles routes and more. As the World Cup 2018 approaches, we anticipate a high increase of interest towards DAREBS from sports betting operators across the globe.
Also, our newly released ‘Buffalo spirit’ game, – which commences a series of skill games/nudge games available on our LIMA platform https://youtu.be/1xwjKzraFz0. A player is offered to finish a combination drawn by the drum, thus demonstrating a certain degree of “skill”, which makes the game count as not a game of chance but rather a game of skill in many countries.
SBC: What industry innovation will capture the most attention in 2018?
PK: This year, we are going to see more expansion of disruptive innovations relying on mobile devices and IoT (Internet of things) to deliver a service or a product to a consumer just in a matter of a few phone clicks. With IoT, which entails adding smart sensors to connected devices, users can do things like ask Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant to switch on and off the lights or order a food from a grocery store.
In 2018, companies will step up using APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) or software used to connect different databases and computer services. Combined with the blockchain IoT, it will soon become as easy to obtain data from sensors in a warehouse as accessing websites on our mobile phones.
This type of innovation can be beneficial to everyone in the distribution chain, as manufacturers, retailers, operators, regulators, and transportation companies will be able to access real-time data available from sensors and codes embedded on products and service ledgers.
SBC: How can your company help to improve the customer experience ahead of the World Cup?
PK: To accommodate World Cup bettors demand for convenience to make bets from any preferred location, we introduced a new feature to our solutions– Play@Home, which removes the online and offline divide. Play@Home is a new service that provides players with a tool to access and have all their transactions made through a single account. Thus, there is no difference if a player bets from a land-based shop or online in the comfort of his/her own home.
SBC: Who are you backing to win the tournament, and why?
PK: Germany and Brazil appear to be the leading contenders to be the outright winner and are likely to see the highest number of bets placed. It was impressive to see Germany win 10 out of 10 matches during the qualifying game rounds. Brazil will also see a high number of wagers made, as their team has fantastic payers that will be led by a brilliant goal striker PSG’s Neymar.
As far as our own preferences for backing, we are neutral at this point, as it is premature to make such predictions. We will have to see how the World Cup 2018 unravels, and then we will voice our opinion.