OPERATOR / AFFILIATE AWARDS 2017
- Bookmaker of the Year
- Rising Star in Sports Betting
- Football Bookmaker of the Year
- Racing Bookmaker of the Year
- Mobile Bookmaker of the Year
- Esports Bookmaker of the Year
- Socially Responsible Bookmaker of the Year
- Marketing Campaign of the Year
- Affiliate of the Year
- Best Affiliate Product Innovation
- Best Affiliate Partner Scheme
Skybet
It’s been another exceptional year for Sky Betting & Gaming (SB&G), breaking all records, and cementing our position as the UK’s favourite online betting operator. With 100% of revenues from regulated markets, and another year of ~40% revenue growth, we believe SB&G has demonstrated the growth, scale, customer focus and operational excellence to win the SBC Bookmaker of the Year award.
Bet365
bet365 now have over 22m customers in over 170 countries. With over 20 main country markets across Europe and the Rest of the World we also now have gambling licenses in UK, Gibraltar, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Northern Territory of Australia, Malta, Ireland, Bulgaria and Cyprus (further license applications pending).
For the rapidly expanding mobile market we have developed a bet365 widget that is available on all iOS devices. This allows customers to view both pre-match and in-play Tennis and Soccer prices, outside of the bet365 mobile app and even when the device is locked. The widget enables a one click bet user journey.
Over the past 12 months we live streamed over 100,000 events, significantly more than any other competitor. This offering included the introduction of E-sports, which demonstrates our innovative approach to one of the most promising products to enter the iGaming industry in recent times.
William Hill
After years of hard work bringing development in-house, we are realising the benefits of controlling our own platform. In May 2016, we were facing a decline in sportsbook NGR, which we turned around to a 13% growth in turnover at the half-year stage of 2017.
Our innovative new headline concession going into the 2016-17 Premier League season is Bet Boost. The idea is simple, add a selection or multiple selections from any sport to the bet slip and boost the odds before placing the bet – and every customer gets one daily free boost. The first results have backed up the product’s potential with over 2.9 million bets boosted, across 19 sports so far.
We’ve also rolled out #YourOdds – a Twitter based, create-your-own-bet tool that has allowed us to offer an extra 40,000 markets since January on which over 2.8 million bets have been placed by more than 295,000 customers.
Unibet
In the last 12 months Unibet has continued its rapid rise in all performance metrics. Turnover has risen 27%, Gross Win is up 25% and 7 of our top 10 all time high betting events have come in the last 12 months, showing that our constant innovation, improvement and customer focus is paying off.
This year we have launched our revolutionary new stats page in partnership with the world’s most comprehensive source of sports data. In true ‘By Players For Players’ style, this gives our customers our most in depth information ever to aid their betting.
The ever popular ‘Action Betting’ has seen a 50% increase in the number of available bets, including enhancing the portfolio to include cricket in line with a number of local cricket sponsorships. Dovetailing this demand has also seen Unibet stream in excess of 40,450 events, a massive 33% increase YoY!
Pinnacle
The customer experience has been at the forefront of Pinnacle’s work this year and that’s why, in addition to already offering customers the best odds, the lowest margins and welcoming winners, several changes have been made to enhance Pinnacle’s offering as a whole.
Improvements have been made to Pinnacle’s product as a whole, including the sportsbook website, the casino platform and the now famous Betting Resources portal. Pinnacle doesn’t use incentives and bonuses to lure customers in. Instead, its volume-based business model is it built on honesty, integrity and being able to offer what serious bettors want.
Betsafe
Betsafe has dramatically increased its footprint in the UK. Following the acquisition and integration of the RaceBets platform in 2016, it became the first brand within Betsson Group to launch horseracing as part of their sportsbook portfolio.
Betsafe customers have benefited from an upgraded mobile platform, offering faster play, increased user interface and an increased focus on the UK market to include fractional odds as well as horse racing.
Strengthening its roster of premium sponsorships, the brand has made a name for itself in the combat sports arena, with boxing and Cage Warriors partnerships, event-based sponsorships such as Haye V Bellew, and most notably, the activity around Mayweather V McGregor and the recent addition of superstar fighter Conor McGregor to the portfolio. These partnership, alongside their association with Star Sixes and Manchester City Football Club, have also bolstered Betsafe’s ongoing content-led approach, with the True Players social media content series, produced and broadcast across multiple channels, recently nominated for an award.
10bet
10Bet’s premium sportsbook provides players from over 100 countries with an enormously diverse array of betting options on desktop and mobile. From football to tennis and speedway to softball, competitive odds are available on more than 65,000 events a month, across over 60 sports and more than 2,000 bet types – pre-match and live.
The past year has been the most successful yet for 10Bet, with significant increases in GGR and turnover driven by major launches in new markets including Japan and Brazil and product innovation in key areas such as live betting.
Launched back in 2003, 10Bet is one of the longest running sports betting sites out there. It is a combination of this long-term experience and a commitment to innovation and reliability that has ensured that the company has consistently retained its position as a leading choice for casual and veteran sports bettors alike.
BetVictor
Over the past year the transformation of BetVictor has continued as it moves from being a traditional bookmaker with a rich heritage in the UK into a truly international digital business which is enjoying impressive results and year-on-year growth.
A focus on technology, data and innovation allied to an unwaveringly customer-centric approach are foundations upon which this growth has been achieved. To illustrate, in the 12 months the privately-owned company continued to show growth in both GGR and EBIT, experiencing an 18% rise in monthly active players.
This growth story has been widely acknowledged within the industry; with BetVictor climbing from 21st spot in the EGR Power 50 in 2014 to 11th position in the 2016 table.
Having won awards for its headline grabbing Euro 2016 promotion, The Million Pound Goal, BetVictor is eyeing a Power 50 top ten ranking this year as it establishes itself as a global operator.
RedZoneSports
RedZoneSports.com is the bespoke British bookmaker for American Sports. We believe in creating our own lines and odds for U.S. sports rather than simply following the crowd and we’re prepared to back that up by having super-sized limits for all our customers…
- Hundreds of pre-match and in-play markets with multiple bet types on more sports than ever before
- The very best casino slot and table games, including our jaw dropping live dealers
- Our promos and rewards – and they aren’t just a bonus spin. We’ve got proper products that you’re going to love to get your hands on
- The inside line on the game. Every day, direct from our RedZoneSports studio we’ve got serious opinion from our guest experts all served up with a perfectly sized helping of trans-atlantic banter
- Cash out, fast and secure pay-outs, virtuals, fantasy games…plus a whole host of additional features
Bookee
The large betting companies in the UK address mobile as an afterthought, condensing their desktop propositions onto the small mobile screen without a thought for the unique opportunity that the interface provides. Displaying the same generic look and feel (an excel spreadsheet layout) makes for a clunky, complex and potentially intimidating experience. Originally designed for betting shops, the format is now uniformly crammed onto a seven inch screen
We saw a gap in the market. Our answer was Bookee – a purely mobile app was founded on the simple premise; to provide the ultimate mobile betting experience. Bookee is a mobile sports betting app using technology to create a simple, personal & fun customer experience. Think – ‘tinder’ for betting. We curate bets for the recreational gambler and provide a single instinctive binary action for each bet – swipe right to approve or left to reject.
LV Bet
During 2017 LVBet cemented their position as one of Poland’s premier sports betting brands, a major player in Germany, and made an exciting entry into the important UK market.
Building on their already extensive sponsorships of popular Polish football teams, LVBet also sponsored the 2017 European Men’s Volleyball Championships, resulting in significant brand exposure both at the venues and through television and internet coverage.
LVBet’s impressive land-based operations in Poland further expanded, resulting in a total of 57 betting shops operational nationwide. The summer saw record breaking new sign-ups at LVBet, and the introduction of Virtual Sports betting.
2017 has truly been a breakthrough year for LVBet, with their entry into the pivotal UK market being supported by dramatic growth in the Polish and German markets. The team is now committed to replicating that success, and building the same excellent reputation for value, excitement, and service in the UK.
Betster
Since day one Betser has continued to show growth in key areas and is fast becoming a household name in the Nordic sportsbetting environment. Betser delivers a world class product and by SBTech’s admission Betser is the fastest growing sportsbook they have seen for many years with over €75m in real money bets in just 9 months. The hype started long before the launch and the trend has continued after nine months of operation, helped along by a bold and creative marketing campaign, including a much talked series of TV commercials.
The new brand Betser falls under the Hero Gaming umbrella which also includes Casino Heroes and CasiTabi. Betser is an innovative brand with a strong focus on gamification, taking a different approach to the traditional sportsbook by offering a permanent loyalty scheme and a league system whereby customers can measure their skills against other players!
Coolbet
Coolbet is a sportsbook and casino provider based in Tallinn, Estonia.
Founded by Jan Svendsen, Coolbet launched in May 2016 with a brand new platform and sportsbook product. Since then, the company has grown to more than 90 employees.
Coolbet’s goal is to bring transparency to the industry. We achieve transparency by displaying betting turnover at match level and by showing new bets placed in real-time by our sportsbook customers. These new product features helped us win the IGA award for “Start up of the year” in 2017.
As a new company in online gaming, we started with no brand awareness and zero customers. Between August 2016 and July 2017, we’ve generated 6.5 million website visits and now have more than 40,000 registered customers – all earned without the use of affiliate programs. This helps us provide lower margins, making Coolbet much more attractive to new customers.
Mr Green
Mr Green Sportsbook went live in June 2016 and has experienced tremendous growth in 2017. The newly launched Sportsbook 2.0 means that we now have a powerful customer-first experience that has proved a big driver of turnover. 2017 has been the year that Mr Green Sports has become a Rising Star and set itself up for further success.
Betstars
BetStars is experiencing strong year over year growth. In Q2 2017 approximately 251,000 uniques made a bet on BetStars. During the first quarter, BetStars year-over-year growth was positively impacted by the opening of new jurisdictions, increase in quarterly active uniques and improved product offering. On a sequential basis, BetStars saw growth in uniques and wagering.
BetStars offer services in more than 100 countries across the world.
Spin & Bet is a stand out product in the sports betting world, and it is unique to BetStars. It brings additional thrill and excitement to sports betting, yet is accessible to players in a simple and accessible manner.
1Xbet
1xBet is a young and quickly growing betting company what was found in 2007 began to be on-line in 2010. Nowadays we are the biggest bookmaker in the CIS-countries with over 400,000 online users daily. 1xBet includes over 1,000 events daily where players can bet on a variety of popular sports. 1xBet offers many additional markets on specific events: European handicap, Correct score, Over/Under, Run of play, for most of markets we have the highest odds. We have a great selection of markets on international games on a club and country level, number of markets achieve to 1500 types. Players may make a deposit or withdraw by 225 payment system in more than 118 currencies. For solving the difficulties players may claim by e-mail, live chat, hotline, whatsapp, viber, telegram in 29 languages 24/7.
Every sports fan and gambler will find something to their liking on our website.
Adjarabet
Adjarabet.com has been on the market for almost 20 years now, but these past three years have been the period of reformation and rethinking it’s practices and approaches. From 2014 company started to overhaul its organizational structure, via technological advancements and innovative ideas adjarabet.com has been completely reborn as the new and truly international company for its existing and potential customers. As a company, we strongly believe in the “fun” element of the gaming industry and our main focus is to offer our customers safest, innovative and fun experience via technological and ideological improvements. As a market leader company in Georgia we have set our eyes on the international horizon, in 2017 adjarabet.com entered in Armenia, through penetrating new markets, we are eager to introduce our ideas and approaches to the world and add a daily dose of fun in our customer’s lives.
LeoVegas Sports
In May 2016 LeoVegas made the step from ‘King of mobile casino’ to becoming a complete online gaming experience with the launch of its all new sportsbook – LeoVegas Sport. Since then we have really upped the game and LeoVegas Sport has seen a tremendous growth of over 450% year-on-year – a proof that LeoVegas deserves to be declared as the 2017 Rising Star in Sports Betting.
During the judging period we have managed to launch in three new major markets – Germany, Denmark and Italy.
We proudly boast the fastest sportsbook on the market – a sportsbook that has made a profound impact as LeoVegas Sport has gained industry and player confidence as a unique and innovative solution specifically built for the mobile generation. Indeed, we offer no less than 130,000 live events and our strongest USP is the instant betting features we offer on multiple sporting categories
BetBright
BetBright are focused on delivering quality, and innovation to football betting – significantly through our “Acca+1” product, our detailed stats and bet recommendations, and upgrades to in-play betting. Reaching more fans, particularly via our Jimmy Bullard fronted campaigns, we’ve seen our football actives grow to record levels.
These innovations, product improvements and increased customer reach have helped us to grow our football business by 57% YoY in H1 2017. That momentum has continued to grow through the early rounds of the Premier League, while maintaining a healthy margin of 7.2%.
Our product provides exceptional design, swift user journeys and a delightful, friction-free acca building experience. In recent months, we have delivered a fully in-house built Cash Out product for our football punters. We’ve shown we can deliver the core football product beyond any operator, and layer on top the ultimate differentiation in football betting, Acca+1.
Unibet
In the last 12 months Unibet has continued its rapid rise in all performance metrics. Turnover has risen 27%, Gross Win is up 25% and 7 of our top 10 all time high betting events have come in the last 12 months, showing that our constant innovation, improvement and customer focus is paying off.
This year we have launched our revolutionary new stats page in partnership with the world’s most comprehensive source of sports data. In true ‘By Players For Players’ style, this gives our customers our most in depth information ever to aid their betting.
The ever popular ‘Action Betting’ has seen a 50% increase in the number of available bets, including enhancing the portfolio to include cricket in line with a number of local cricket sponsorships. Dovetailing this demand has also seen Unibet stream in excess of 40,450 events, a massive 33% increase YoY!
Skybet
Sky Betting & Gaming – The biggest and fastest growing UK Football Operator in the industry.
It’s no accident that Sky Betting & Gaming’s football product has enjoyed another phenomenal 12 months, building on the strong growth achieved in recent years with a record breaking 2016/17 season.
Our customers told us that they wanted differentiation and excitement for their football bets – particularly on the biggest TV matches in the Premier League and Champions League, so it’s these marque TV games where we’ve prioritised our offering, focussing on Pre-Match and Live RequestABet™, Innovative PriceBoosts and transforming how customers track their bets.
Bet365
bet365 now have over 22m customers in over 170 countries. With over 20 main country markets across Europe and the Rest of the World we also now have gambling licenses in UK, Gibraltar, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Northern Territory of Australia, Malta, Ireland, Bulgaria and Cyprus (further license applications pending).
bet365 remain heavily focused on premium television advertising and cast territory-specific figureheads to ensure we create brand confidence with customers around the world. Ray Winstone in the UK and Travis Fimmel in Australia are good examples of this. bet365’s sponsorship of Sky Sports’ Premier League Friday and Monday night coverage is yet another demonstration of our commitment to an ongoing marketing strategy directly aligned with televised sports.
Stoke City F.C’s Britannia Stadium was renamed the bet365 Stadium last season and bet365 remain as sponsors of Stoke City, Australian cricket reigning Bulgarian champions and Europa League participants Ludogorets and are the leading advertiser at football grounds across Europe.
1Xbet
1xBet is a young and quickly growing betting company what was found in 2007 began to be on-line in 2010. Nowadays we are the biggest bookmaker in the CIS-countries with over 400,000 online users daily. 1xBet includes over 1,000 events daily where players can bet on a variety of popular sports. 1xBet offers many additional markets on specific events: European handicap, Correct score, Over/Under, Run of play, for most of markets we have the highest odds. We have a great selection of markets on international games on a club and country level, number of markets achieve to 1500 types. Players may make a deposit or withdraw by 225 payment system in more than 118 currencies. For solving the difficulties players may claim by e-mail, live chat, hotline, whatsapp, viber, telegram in 29 languages 24/7.
Every sports fan and gambler will find something to their liking on our website.
FavBet
It is all about Football for us in Favbet!
The customer experience has been at the forefront of Favbet’s work this year and that’s why, in addition to already offering customers a wide range of Football leagues, the best odds, extremely low margins and welcoming winners, significant improvements have been made to enhance Favbet’s Football offering as a whole.
Favbet’s philosophy has been always revolving around this legendary sport, while within 2017, the company managed to elevate it to the next level, in terms of player experience. Putting continuous effort on adapting to the growing demands of the market, Favbet approaches Football, not only product wise, but also from every business aspect, through regular marketing campaigns and promotions on a daily basis.
Fitzdares
Since inception in 2006, Fitzdares has offered a unique proposition, and this is no different in 2017: having been among the first to be awarded ABP status by the BHA; featuring in a number of publications, from Country Life to the FT’s How to Spend It; and successfully growing our client-base and field of operations. Our members are part of a club and experience first-class racing knowledge and unrivalled turf accountancy unparalleled in bookmaking. While harking back to racing values and principles of yesteryear, that old-school personal touch, we successfully blend tradition with innovation – our proprietary software ensures that clients have the best experience possible. Our vision is to set a new tone in the industry. Fitzdares is more than a betting platform, it is a lifestyle choice for horse racing enthusiasts. Quite simply, horse racing is at the centre of what we do, we live and breathe it.
Star Sports
Star Sports – The Gentleman’s Bookmaker literally made the headlines this year when we laid colossal bets at Cheltenham and Royal Ascot and kept on them on the right side of the ledger too. We’re also well respected in the world of Greyhound Racing sponsoring the Greyhound Derby to the tune of £350,000 this year and to be repeated next. Fronted by our charismatic founder Ben Keith, own simple aim is to be a cut above the rest. Our service is tailor made to suit our punters’ needs, be they £10 or £1000 backers, both most welcome. 2017 shone bright for Star Sports, as for 2018, just watch this space.
William Hill
We believe that William Hill is synonymous with UK horse racing, so when ITV acquired the TV rights for 2017, it felt natural that we became the sponsor. We weren’t just content to put our name in the headlights though, we also wanted to ensure that all of our customers could enjoy an industry leading racing product that cements our link with the Sport of Kings for generations to come. Over the past year, we’ve added a whole host of features and benefits to our horse racing offering.
High 5 – If your horse selection crossed the line, five lengths or more ahead of second then you received a 25% on top of your winnings. This became 2 Clear for the flat season.
ITV7 – With the added exposure that came from racing move to ITV, we were able to provide a free-to-enter weekly £50,000 jackpot competition for all William Hill members by selecting the winners of all televised races.
Boylesports
We have developed a quick, easy to use and popular racing product that features bet and watch, RP data and lighting quick results.
This year we wanted to drive awareness for BoyleSports beyond our loyal customer base through a combination of daring marketing campaigns as well as leveraging our blue ribbon sponsorship’s: the BoyleSports Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse, the BoyleSports Champion Chase at Punchestown and headline sponsorship of Irish racing on RTE television.
Not only do we pride ourselves in our racing product and promotions, we take great heart being the number one supporter financially Ireland.
Furthermore we have associated ourselves with the best of the best in racing with the likes of Joseph O’Brien and Gold Cup winner Robbie Power being two brand ambassadors in our stable.
The efforts of these campaigns have been clear to see with significant growth and lots of happy new customers. Weighed in!
Bet365
bet365 now have over 22m customers in over 170 countries. With over 20 main country markets across Europe and the Rest of the World we also now have gambling licenses in UK, Gibraltar, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Northern Territory of Australia, Malta, Ireland, Bulgaria and Cyprus (further license applications pending).
We have introduced the ‘Going To Post’ feature to complement our Horse Racing livestream offering. The popular feature enables customers to view paddock streams for both ATR and RUK races (including major venues such as Aintree, Ascot, Cheltenham and Epsom). Adjoined with audio from racecourse commentators the 6 minute pre-race stream is available completely free, with no minimum bet requirement, giving players an opportunity to view their horse prior to committing a stake. Not only has this feature proven popular with horse racing enthusiasts but with the novice bettor too.
BetBright
Over the past number of years BetBright have grown from market entrant to punters favourite, with racing fans firmly at the heart of our business.
Delivering on a promise of best-in-class product, we have brought exceptional user experience to horse racing betting. Beyond that, we delivered the most innovative and complete bet discovery tool in the market for racing bettors – “BetFinder”. This powerful tool allows customers find and discover horse racing selections, empowered by rich data with just a simple, intuitive tap.
Alongside our regular sponsorships throughout the year, BetBright were unmissable at this year’s Cheltenham festival. We received national media exposure across print, online, radio and TV alongside our own channels, and on-course branding. All this was achieved through our sponsorship of and marketing campaign for “The BetBright Cup”, giving us a presence across each day of the festival.
LeoVegas Sports
In May 2016 LeoVegas made the step from ‘King of mobile casino’ to becoming a complete online gaming experience with the launch of LeoVegas Sport, offering a wide range of sports and events to bet on. Since then we have really upped the game and LeoVegas Sport has seen a tremendous growth of over 450% year-on-year – a proof that LeoVegas deserves to be declared as the 2017 mobile bookmaker of the year.
During the judging period we have managed to launch in three new major markets – Germany, Denmark and Italy.
We proudly boast of being the fastest mobile bookmaker on the market as LeoVegas Sport has gained industry and player confidence as a unique and innovative solution specifically built for the mobile generation. Indeed, we offer no less than 130,000 live events and our strongest USP is the instant betting features we offer on multiple sporting categories.
BetBright
At BetBright we think mobile first, and have continually pursued a strategy of leading though product innovation.
We have bucked the industry norm of 3rd party platform reliance, and outsourced mobile app development. With product, marketing, and technology delivered completely in-house in Dublin, our growth strategy is based on innovation in mobile channels.
The success of this strategy can be seen in our staking. Mobile now accounts for 82% of all Sportsbook staking, up from 69% last year. A key part of this growth comes from In-Play, where 90% of our live betting is now done via mobile.
1Xbet
1xBet is a young and quickly growing betting company what was found in 2007 began to be on-line in 2010. Nowadays we are the biggest bookmaker in the CIS-countries with over 400,000 online users daily. 1xBet includes over 1,000 events daily where players can bet on a variety of popular sports. 1xBet offers many additional markets on specific events: European handicap, Correct score, Over/Under, Run of play, for most of markets we have the highest odds. We have a great selection of markets on international games on a club and country level, number of markets achieve to 1500 types. Players may make a deposit or withdraw by 225 payment system in more than 118 currencies. For solving the difficulties players may claim by e-mail, live chat, hotline, whatsapp, viber, telegram in 29 languages 24/7.
Every sports fan and gambler will find something to their liking on our website.
Unibet
As a mobile focused company, Kindred’s mobile offering has continued to go from strength to strength in the last year. Our mobile Turnover has risen 49%, Gross Win 33% and the number of bets taken on mobile has risen 29.3% on last year. We also have 7.5% more customers using our mobile offering than 2016. We are constantly developing our app to ensure it is optimal for our customers, whilst also focusing on back end developments which allow us to fully understand how our mobile customers use our products, ensuring again that they receive only the best and most relevant product developments.
Skybet
Sky Betting & Gaming (SB&G) had an exceptional year, breaking all records, and cementing our position as the UK’s favourite online betting operator. With over 80% of revenues from mobile, 100% of revenues from regulated markets, and another year of ~40% revenue growth, we believe SB&G has demonstrated the growth, scale, customer focus and operational excellence to win the mobile bookmaker of the year award. SB&G continues to lead the way with our innovative approach to mobile development. New product delivery and marketing resource is tailored towards mobile and the mobile user, translating into excellent mobile performance, testament to the fact we saw over 80% of total revenues come through mobile/tablet.
Bet365
bet365 now have over 22m customers in over 170 countries. With over 20 main country markets across Europe and the Rest of the World we also now have gambling licenses in UK, Gibraltar, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Northern Territory of Australia, Malta, Ireland, Bulgaria and Cyprus (further license applications pending).
For the rapidly expanding mobile market we have developed a bet365 widget that is available on all iOS devices. This allows customers to view both pre-match and in-play Tennis and Soccer prices, outside of the bet365 mobile app and even when the device is locked. The widget enables a one click bet user journey. We have also launched both Touch ID login and Quick Bet features on our mobile app, again both with the aim of improving user journey and encouraging players to choose bet365 based on ease-of-use alone.
Pinnacle
It has been another hallmark year for Pinnacle eSports as we launched our new eSports Hub in over 50 markets and recently passed 7.5 million eSports bets. At the current rate we will take our 10 millionth bet in January 2018 maintaining our position as both a knowledge leader and industry front runner in eSports betting. Now our final objective for 2017 is to retain our prized SBC eSports Operator of the Year Award…
Unikrn
Unikrn’s quality of product is synonymous with esports, in large part because our company is esports first: we offer odds on 11 titles, including a variety of markets, a schedule guide and easily accessible live streams of every game. In addition to fully licensed real-money betting options in the UK and Australia, we also offer in-house tokens (Unikoins) to engage the esports community worldwide, and use those tokens winnings to raffle away gaming prizes.
We’ve turned over more than a quarter billion of our current play tokens in only two years (at an accelerating rate throughout the end of 2016 and into 2017). Over the consideration period, we’ve begun the process of successfully launching an erc20 utility token built on the ethereum platform to unparalleled success in this space.
We own major teams, create hours of original content, write singular analysis, host tournaments and our book is revenue positive.
ESP.bet
ESP.bet provides a full suite of gaming products for esports fans. Since 2014 we have been completely committed to esports. With ESP.bet we can now offer a safe place for fans to play fantasy, pre-match and in-play bet and casino style games.
Danske Spil
Danske Spil has been a frontrunner within esports betting ever since we launched esports as a part of our sportsbook in January 2014. Esports betting has had a high priority within Danske Spil ever since.
In 2014 we launched our designated esports-brand eOddset, which is a sub brand to our main brand Oddset.
eOddset has grown exponentially since its beginning in 2014, and esport is now among our top 6 grossing sports within our sportsbook.
Turnover on esports has at least doubled every year – and often grown with a higher rate from year to year.
eOddset is unique with its own identity and tailored marketing and communication.
Product wise eOddset offers a wide variety of games and events. In 2016 and 2017 so far we have offered more than 18.000 esports events for betting, covering the big games such as Counterstrike, League of Legends and DOTA to smaller games.
GG.bet
GG.Bet was the first esports betting platform that offered bets on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, while continuing its efforts to support independent esports organizations.
UNIBET
At Kindred we continue to champion Socially Responsible Gambling, with player safety and providing a safe and secure environment for our customers being at the heart of everything we do. This year we have pledged substantial finances into an independent gambling therapy app aimed at supporting problem gamblers as part of our long term commitment to the safety of our players. All of our customer care agents are fully trained in offering advice and help to anyone affected by gambling. We also work closely with Gambling Therapy, an online service set up to help those affected by gambling. They offer support groups, live chat and email counselling – all for free. Kindred has also devised a self-assessment test to help players proactively identify when an issue may be developing.
LeoVegas
Over the last year, the importance of Responsible Gaming (RG) has continued to increase within LeoVegas. We have invested heavily in employee training on the topic, the development of more tools to help customers keep control of their gambling, and also sought professional help to improve and refine existing responsible gaming procedures. We’ve even extended awareness programmes to everyone within the company.
Whilst other operators have been very vocal about their accomplishments in RG, we’ve been pretty silent. We want to change this because over the past months we’ve actually exceeded what other are doing. We’ve also been socially responsible on other fronts by supporting causes which go beyond gaming; such as the Wildlife Conservation Network, the Lion Recovery Fund, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, the Malta Community Chest Fund, participated in national clean-up campaigns and also supported LGBTI+ rights.
Mr Green
A year ago we received a clear mission from our board – “Make sure our customers have control over their gambling. Make sure we understand and do the right thing.”
Green Gaming was born, our new infrastructure is a technical platform that delivers knowledge to all parts of the company from company management to marketing and customer support.
We want to gain longevity from our customers, we want them to put on seat belt and set their own cruise control. Today, we are working on analyzing customer data and combining it with the players own image of their gambling based on risk, intensity, change and volume.
Our customers will have their own individual opportunity to understand if their gaming goes too fast. We have created a tool for keeping track of the healthy game not turns into something unsightly that is no longer fun.
SportPesa
Since forming in 2014, SportPesa has been a lead for sports development across Africa and have this year introduced their CSR strategy to the UK. Starting in February with the SportPesa All-Star campaign, which saw partners Hull City send a team of coaches to scout the SportPesa Kenyan Premier League and select an 18-man squad to take on Hull City at the KCOM Stadium. SportPesa organised the event and broadcast the match live through KTN and SuperSport in Africa – inspiring a continent in the process. Then SportPesa took Everton to play a friendly match in Tanzania – making new ground by bringing a Premier League club to East Africa for the first time. SportPesa has also donated shirt sponsorship to EiTC, The Bradley Lowery Foundation and took part in a number of fan engagement initiatives to bring value to football fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh7aO1RsrH0&feature=youtu.be
Marathonbet
140 non-league football teams, millions of social media hits, Premier League legends, charitable donations and probably the best goal celebration EVER. It’s been another successful season of Marathonbet’s epic #NonLeagueChallenge (NLC).
Marathonbet, through the NLC, has been working tooth and nail to champion non-league football for yet another term. Non-league clubs are built around communities, generations of families and raw love of the game. Sometimes we think that’s missing in the mega-money world of top-level football.
Of course, we all love our Premier League, European and World Cup footballing heroes. The slickness and skill of Ronaldo to the magic of Messi and co is undeniably brilliant.
But we’re also aware that life exists outside the top flights of Europe – away from the glitz, glam and money found at the highest level. That’s where the NLC came in.
BetBright
BetBright could be found at the heart of this year’s Cheltenham coverage, across all four days of the festival. We received national media exposure across print, online, radio and TV as well as our own channels, not to mention on-course branding.
Good Morning Britain, ITV Racing, Racing UK, Sky Sports and the Daily Mail, as well as daily columns with both the Sun and The Star newspapers were among the highlights. An extraordinary amount of PR coverage was generated, for relatively low cost, at probably the most brand saturated and expensive showcase in Racing; all achieved through our sponsorship of and marketing campaign for “The BetBright Cup”.
Racing Post
To achieve the company’s strategic objectives of growing its audience and increasing betting revenues around the biggest racing event of the year – the Cheltenham Festival – Racing Post launched a new multi-channel campaign titled ‘When You Bet on Racing, You Can Bet on Racing Post’.
As we can’t compete with the budget of big operators we needed to be tactical with how we got our message through to key audiences in order to drive awareness and growth of our digital products. Through grounding our messaging in customer insights and using a variety of creative messages and channels, the campaign helped Racing Post break records in terms of the numbers of unique users and users placing bets through our products over the festival week.
BetVictor
Building on the success of its award-winning Euro 2016 promotional campaign, The Million Pound Goal, BetVictor extended the promotion for the 2016/17 domestic UK season by introducing The Golden Goal.
The Golden Goal is a weekly free-to-play competition where BetVictor asked new and existing customers to correctly predict the scorer and the minute of the opening goal in a pre-selected match; typically, the late afternoon Premier League kick-off on a Sunday.
The objective of The Golden Goal campaign was to offer genuine value to customers and to create a new and unique weekly game, capable of generating excitement and boosting customer engagement and retention levels. Leveraging its official partnership with Liverpool FC, Jurgen Klopp featured in the supporting TV-ad campaign, which ran for the duration of the season.
William Hill
The Joshua Klitschko campaign was a huge success. The main CRM campaign achieved a comfortable 21% open rate but once customers saw the offers on the table, we were able to exceed revenues for this type of communication by over 400%.
Joshua’s appeal applied to inactive customers too. The open rate for the bespoke email to our ‘Saves’ customer base was 9% higher than average. Other key stats include a 46% uplift in reactivation of our UVS6 players and an overall uplift of 33.2% in average stakes when comparing to a control.
Our Facebook ‘live workout’ event was a hit. Of the 900K people it reached, over 200K unique viewers tuned in. Impressively, 97% of viewers were organic. The combination of the right content to the right audience with our comment competition resulted in plenty of views and a large amount of engagement, culminating in over 70K ‘likes’, comments and shares.
The results were a big increase in installs, first time depositors and new accounts.
The 29th April 2017, the day of the fight, was ranked fourth in the company’s history for the number of bets placed on one day. The three days ranked higher were all on the Grand National Days.
Betfred
Stuart Pearce was the ideal fit for the campaign – a no nonsense Footballer who was extremely passionate about the beautiful game. By tapping into people’s emotions about football, and offering a helping hand in the form of a trusted face of the sport, Betfred can position themselves as the fans’ bookmaker this season, standing out with simplicity and value in what can often be a confusing marketplace.
Aside from the six new TV Adverts, there’s tonnes of additional content which will be used to leverage and support the overarching objective of the campaign. We have paired up with classicfootballshirts.co.uk to provide Betfred customers the opportunity to win retro football shirts of their choice. These have been given away in various ways, the most notable and engaging way is via our free to play Pac-Manager game, another nod to yesteryear. Pac-Manager enables football fans to relive an 80’s style arcade classic, with a slight twist – 8bit Premier League favourites chomping their way through the levels.
BetterCollective
Since 2004, Better Collective’s bettingexpert.com has grown to become the home for the best tipsters on the internet. Now, just 13 years later, bettingexpert.com has grown to over 450,000 users, with over 125,000 tips a month. With so many tipsters and tips, we have been able to devise an algorithm that determines some of the strongest betting experts around the world, encouraging our users to follow their expert advice and feel more confident in their betting.
Better Collective’s reputation of being the home of high quality tips and betting content is dependent on the engagement levels of our users. Looking at our traffic numbers for both bettingexpert.com and SmartBets during this judgement period, growth for returning visitors is 40% and 705% respectively for the same time last year.
With this increase in number, more users are generating higher content tips on bettingexpert.com. This content is helping more new members discover our platform—which is evident in our Y-O-Y 10.45% growth in overall traffic.
Catena Media
Catena Media, celebrating five years in business this October, has seen company development characterised by a rapid growth rate, an IPO followed by a change of listing to Nasdaq Stockholm Mid Cap this year, as well as expansion into new markets. All made possible thanks to a strong organisational culture and committed and driven staff.
Following an IPO on First North Premier in February 2016, a change of listing to Nasdaq Stockholm’s main market was completed in September this year, a proof of quality and a major milestone in Catena Media’s relatively short history. As a result of Catena Media’s rapid expansion, the company moved to new top modern premises in London and Belgrade earlier this year. Recently, the firm has also moved the head office in Malta and invested in its own gym and a kitchen that serves healthy dishes to the staff, free of charge. In total, around 250 people from over 30 different countries work at Catena Media.
Livesport Media
The FlashScore Network is one of the world leaders in providing live scores and other data to sport enthusiasts across the world.
The FlashScore Network offers live results from over 5,000 leagues and competitions covering more than 35 sports.
A new monthly record was set in April 2017, when 72 million users visited our websites.
Mobile apps download count has increased from 21 million to 37 million in the last 11 months.
We cover over 40 000 Live Center events per year (detailed stats) which when we compare to last year has doubled.
Raketech
RakeTech is a team of 110 employees, from 20 different countries based in Malta. We operate over 4,000 domains across Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, U.K and Spain.
Raketech started seven years ago as a poker and casino affiliate. However, over the past year, we have shifted our focus to sports betting and today operate some of the leading Nordic sports affiliate sites.
During the last year, we have worked hard to achieve substantial growth both organically and through successful acquisitions. Our focus and dedication have paid off, and the underlying business has more than doubled in size, something we are extremely proud to have achieved.
The key to this impressive growth lies with delivering a high-quality user experience, data-driven price modelling, and strong partner relationships. When combined, they create synergies that enable sustainable and long-term mutual value for us, our end customers and carefully selected partners.
EasyOdds
As the original odds comparison website, with over 10 years of history, we have always been a web based company mainly aimed at the horse racing punter. This year we have made a conscious effort to expand on the current audience that we have & move into the world of mobile & apps, whilst staying true to the brand.
With our ever expanding social media presence across a multitude of platforms the faces of Easyodds, Jake Johns and Ross Casey offer the punter a betting handbook where the betting message via our odds comparison service is ‘why settle for less?’
Checkd Media
Checkd Media has continued to grow in size and strength in 2016-17. The company consists of a range of different brands. These include FootyAccumulators, The Winners Enclosure, TeamFA, AccaTracker, HorseTracker, TheTennisTipster and newly acquired Oddschanger. A privately owned company based in Manchester, UK. Checkd Media has grown considerably throughout the last year and now employs over 35 members of staff.
OLBG
The focus for OLBG over the past year has been on packing new features and innovations into the already renowned OLBG Sports Betting Tips app. This has seen the launch of SIX brand new customer focused features; MyTipsters, MyAcca, Hot Tipsters, Choose Bookie, Hot Tips Filter and Smart Ads.
Our agile development team have achieved two industry seconds. We were the second sports betting app approved on Amazon Alexa as we seek to gain a share in the growing usage of personal digital assistants. We were the second sports betting app to be approved by google play for bookmaker advertising.
On market penetration and growth, our skills in App Store Optimisation have seen total installs reach 750,000 this year. We currently sit at No.1 in the play store for the term Sports Betting; clearly dominating the space there not just in terms of out ranking other affiliates but operators too.
Gambling.com Group
Gambling.com Group, formerly KAX Media, is pioneering, innovative and at the pinnacle of the industry. When Charles Gillespie, created the company 11 years ago, his vision was to build a market-leading brand.
Gambling.com – the group’s biggest website – comprises 10,000 pages covering every aspect of online gambling. It is the leading resource for online gamblers and one of the biggest individual gambling affiliate sites in the world.
2017 has been an extraordinary year for the company in terms of growth and success. Profits have soared, employee numbers have increased and the appeal of collaborating with Gambling.com Group’s portfolio has never been stronger. The company retains its rapport with its largest, most profitable partners, speaking volumes about its values and professionalism. Working with over 100 partners, in a climate renowned for volatility in terms of brand turnover, its biggest partners renew every month, citing excellent value and a rewarding experience.
OLBG
The focus for OLBG over the past year has been on packing new features and innovations into the already renowned OLBG Sports Betting Tips app. This has seen the launch of SIX brand new customer focused features; MyTipsters, MyAcca, Hot Tipsters, Choose Bookie, Hot Tips Filter and Smart Ads.
Our agile development team have achieved two industry seconds. We were the second sports betting app approved on Amazon Alexa as we seek to gain a share in the growing usage of personal digital assistants. We were the second sports betting app to be approved by google play for bookmaker advertising.
On market penetration and growth, our skills in App Store Optimisation have seen total installs reach 750,000 this year. We currently sit at No.1 in the play store for the term Sports Betting; clearly dominating the space there not just in terms of out ranking other affiliates but operators too
BetterCollective
Since 2004, Better Collective’s bettingexpert.com has grown to become the home for the best tipsters on the internet. Now, just 13 years later, bettingexpert.com has grown to over 450,000 users, with over 125,000 tips a month. With so many tipsters and tips, we have been able to devise an algorithm that determines some of the strongest betting experts around the world, encouraging our users to follow their expert advice and feel more confident in their betting.
For the first time ever, we now are allowing our users to automatically place bets on our strongest tipsters. This year, we are launching BetBehind—the first auto betting platform that allows users to instantly back the best tipsters in the world. With the single push of a button, our users can place countless bets and watch as their yields grow like the pros.
NetRefer
Founded in 2005, NetRefer is a leading provider of performance marketing software. NetRefer steadily grew year on year and established itself as a market leader in its field. It became widely recognised as the provider of the most complete and trusted affiliate marketing software in industries such as iGaming, Forex, Finance and Option Trading verticals. As the business is ever-growing, an organization like NetRefer must persevere in a B2B mature market. Tools and processes were adapted to penetrate such a market. In January 2016, NetRefer launched an updated client service strategy. The innovation of our product has been inspired and designed around the Operator, the Affiliate and the end-users. As we have surpassed our first decade in operation our solution has evolved and in so doing the result is a heavily integrated system that now forms part of our customers’ daily operations.
Fresh8Gaming
Fresh8 Gaming have built a suite of advertising technology products that have revolutionised the relationship between affiliates and sports betting operators while delivering game changing conversion metrics.
Fresh8 automatically builds adverts based on customer relationship, the real time betting product and offers, and content context. By powering a system from data we remove the manual burden of ad creation and distribution allowing marketing teams to market effectively and in real time.
Centralised control, audience segmentation, and real time content targeting allowing ads to be personalised to the right users at the right time without a need to talk to your media, affiliate, or programmatic partners.
Customer growth is proving our success. Since Skybet in the last year we have added operator deals with Bet Victor, Coral, Betstars, William Hill, Ladbrokes, and Safaribet, publisher deals with SportingLife, Sky Sports and The Telegraph, as well as a network deal with Income Access.
Web Analysis Solutions
SportKenya.co.ke is the first ever Kenyan social and virtual betting platform. Nothing has been done on this scale before for virtual and social betting in Africa.
SportKenya provides Kenyans with the ability to bet with virtual currency, build their balance, and exchange this balance for prizes such as mobile phones and other gadgets. SportKenya is also a social betting platform. Users can submit their virtual bets and other users can track and follow the top tipsters. The website will evolve new features such as the ability to bet virtually and at the same time seamlessly bet for real with Kenyan sportsbook operators.
SportKenya will provide much more than just sportsbook acquisition for its advertisers. Due to the loyalty that a social platform can generate, SportKenya will build strong retention with sportsbook advertisers by implementing customer reactivation campaigns via running side competitions to re-engage users that perhaps may have fallen inactive.
Setanta Sports Media
Setanta Sports Media is a unique affiliate product offering a full sports ecosystem for 14 different countries. Cross marketing between several media sources: TV, Online, Press, Radio and Offline activities and dealing with 100% clean sports traffic.
By partnering with Setanta Sports Media a betting operator is getting access to all sports media sources in one eco system. Our partners can communicate with their end users via every possible channel. Uniting every sport segment is also guaranteed by wide range of our content diversity, varying from leading live Football games to Boxing classic matches of 20th century. (EPL, La liga, Ligue 1, NBA, Formula 1, UFC, NHL, boxing…)
Thus our group and its product stand as a perfect bridge between end users (Sports fans) and betting companies dealing with clean sports traffic only.
LADbible Group
ODDSbible is the largest social-first publisher dedicated to gambling in the world with almost 2m followers across all platforms.
ODDSbible has used Instagram to engage the mobile generation of gambling fans on behalf of its bookmaker partners with video content via the Stories feature in a move that’s a first for the industry.
To date, ODDSbible’s Instagram Story content has been viewed over 10m this year.
Sun Bets Affiliates
Whilst many operators have been cutting back on affiliates over the past year, Sun Bets has been embracing them. This has led to strong results within the first year of the Sun Bets affiliate programme’s operation – with over £1million paid out in affiliate commissions across 250 affiliates.
Throughout, Sun Bets programme, managed by Digital Fuel, treats affiliates as partners. Sun Bets offers truly fair affiliate T&Cs, with no controversial “catch all” termination clauses and shares with affiliates its gross to net revenue deductions. It has developed a more robust proprietary affiliate tracking solution and an affiliate platform that provides more data than any other operator, including hourly reporting.
Sun Bets offers the highest standard commission rate in the market (30% no negative carryover) and has the highest conversion rate in the UK sports betting market. Thus, many affiliates are seeing great success promoting Sun Bets.
Mr Green
We focus on people. The Affiliate managers within our company and the people on the affiliates side. When you find a will to work together the rest tends to follow.
There was no surprise for us when Laura O´Brien won Affiliate manager Idol the other day
Every single affiliate on our program has an account manager. There is no such thing as a small account to our account managers who are available on phone, email, Skype and LinkedIn.
We are lucky to consider a lot of our affiliates our friends at this stage. We know our individual contacts’ needs and make sure that everyone has a tailor made experience with us.
Because we’re quite nerdy obsessed with numbers, chances are we’ll notice before you do if there’s been a change in how our brand performs for you. We work hard to foresee issues before they arise and be a cut above the rest.
Kindred Affiliates
Throughout the last 12 months, the Kindred Affiliates program has gone through a host of changes, from the way we operate internally, the evolution of our external communications, to the large expansion of the team to accommodate a rapidly growing database, and of course perhaps the biggest change of all, the name of our affiliate program.
Over the last 12 months, we have implemented multiple affiliate promotions, increased communication with our partners, hosted several key events and transitioned to a program with a new name and new branding, all of which were done to benefit our affiliates and, in turn, help us to support our company as the strongest possible affiliate program.
Pinnacle
The Pinnacle Affiliate team has had a number of standout successes between 2016 and 2017. Affiliate marketing through our significant global partner network is now our second biggest acquisition channel and our work in educating and growing the burgeoning eSports affiliate space is gaining plaudits every month. With a new affiliate site, new deal structure and satisfied long term partners Pinnacle Affiliates has developed into a significant presence in the betting affiliate world.
Energy Affiliates
EnergyPartners is the exclusive program that offers affiliates the chance to earn from both EnergyBet and EnergyCasino. Despite being relatively young, the sportsbook side of the program has seen very impressive growth over the past year, and has quickly earned a reputation for precision, reliability and transparency.
The success of EnergyPartners is due to a unique combination of offering an exceptionally attractive sports betting product, coupled to highly performing promotions and a truly individual approach to affiliates. The Energy team fully understand that every single affiliate, no matter their size, will have a different goals, skills and resources.
It is this understanding and the willingness to offer specially tailored content, promotions and support, plus a friendly, no-pressure outlook that helps EnergyPartners stand out, making them among the most approachable and welcoming programs for both experienced and new affiliates.