“The rise of in-play betting will continue”

Why did you decide to expand your greyhound streaming service into international markets?
 
SIS has been delivering live pictures and data of greyhound races to betting shops across Britain,  Ireland, Europe and internationally via satellite for over a quarter of a century and now an innovative new streaming service allows operators outside of the UK to share in the excitement too. BAGS has been in operation since 1964 and is one of the cornerstones of the UK betting industry.
 
International operators have been knocking on our door for some time now asking us to develop a way for them to offer BAGS to their customers and our ground-breaking SIS Stream service is the result.
 
We felt that the time was right to offer our BAGS streaming service internationally especially as with BAGS races, operators and their customers can be confident that the product they are watching has integrity, built up over more than 50 years.
 
Where lies the uniqueness of this new service you're providing?
 
This is the first time that BAGS races will be seen online live outside of the UK and Ireland and, with an all new pricing service added to our pictures and data offering, it really is the complete package for operators. Over 75 greyhound races a day from 20 UK tracks will be streamed in real time with the lowest latency in the industry.

International operators will benefit from a simple integration and a high volume of betting opportunities on a product that traditionally delivers very strong margins.

It’s a top class product and just the first of many streaming innovations to come from SIS that are applicable to both Bet and Watch as well as Watch and Bet models.

What have been the consequences to SIS of mergers and acquisitions within the retail betting sector?
 
At SIS, our focus has to be delivering the most versatile, top quality products to the retail betting sector, regardless of the brand name over the door. Any impact on SIS due to mergers in the retail sector will be due to a reduction in the total number of physical shops.
 
SIS will continue to deliver pictures, data and pricing to licensed betting offices and to our international customers as we have done for nearly 30 years.
 
However, we are diversifying our business and increasingly targeting innovation at the online sector in key product areas. The development of SIS Stream, our innovative new streaming platform, as well as our new online games are great examples of innovations bearing fruit immediately.
 
How do you see the sports betting sector evolving in the next years? How do you adapt your product offering to the changes in the industry?
 
The next few years will see even more betting opportunities, more often. We’re well positioned to deliver that through such innovations as streaming, which integrates easily with bet and watch as well as watch and bet systems. In addition to greyhound racing, we’ll be adding more content in the near future to provide betting opportunities around the clock.
 
Big and small data is key. Operators are consistently challenged with how to get the biggest bang from their marketing buck, and this year we could see the sports-betting sector make massive strides in how their data is harvested, analysed and put into practice.
 
Personalization is a watch-word for any new product. Within a sportsbook, operators also need to visualize data in a way that will capture the imagination of the betting community, whether that’s live, statistical or historical data.
 
The rise of in-play betting will continue. Already established in football, the decreased cost of the technology to deliver in-play means operators can offer more sports within their in-play stable.
 
We’re now seeing in-play available for horse and greyhounds, which introduces a new style of betting for punters who can demonstrate another level of knowledge relating to the consistency of a horse, or its finishing power, and so on.

What are your plans for 2016? Are you looking to expand in Latin America?
 
The next 12 months will be a very exciting time for SIS. We’ll be showcasing a suite of new products and services at ICE in London, including our streaming solutions for international customers.
 
Our technology can be applied in all markets and Latin America is definitely on our radar. As an example, we recently signed an agreement with LaLiga in Spain to become the official data provider for Spanish football, which is immensely popular in South America, as it is elsewhere.
 
Operators in Latin America can benefit from a reliable, robust and super-fast data solution that is often times 10-15 seconds faster than other non-official suppliers – which can be the crucial difference between profit and loss.
 
SIS is already providing a bespoke service to bookmakers in Spain complete with localized commentaries and graphics and this is clearly an opportunity for Latin America in 2016.