"Major sporting events definitely move the needle on the wagering industry"

The 2016 Summer Olympics are coming up and bookmakers are looking to retain their loyal clients and attract new ones. How can BGT products and solutions help operators achieve these goals?

Summer 2016 has already been a great summer for sport especially for bookmakers with the underdogs over performing in EURO 2016 and outsiders, Portugal, eventually claiming the crown from the French in their own backyard. Nobody saw that coming. Following on from the shock of Leicester winning the premier league, we’ve seen a lot of punters moving away from the old favourites and putting their money on longer odds outsiders which can obviously work both ways.

Summer is traditionally a quieter time for bookmakers but with all of the sporting action this summer in particular, we’re looking to take advantage of this. BGT solutions offer an amazing wealth of markets with over 20,000 individual events per month and we’re building upon this all the time. All Olympic events will be covered by our solutions and we’ll be working hard with our partners to make sure that available marketing space on our dual screen terminals and other products will be put to good use informing punters of our comprehensive Olympic and Paralympic coverage.

Do major sports events really move the needle on the wagering industry? Can you share with us recent statistics?

Major sporting events definitely do move the needle on the wagering industry. The Tour De France, for example, has seen a huge increase in stakes placed on cycling. The increase was almost 400% in July when compared to June. This clearly highlights the impact that major events can have on the more ‘fringe’ sports.

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We look to use events such as the Olympics and the Tour De France to introduce customers to sports they may have never bet on before

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Although numbers do drop off when the big football leagues start up again in Europe, the overall trend does see punters experimenting with different sports. These major events help the smaller sports keep up with the likes of Tennis and Football.

How do you think that the 2016 Summer Olympics are going to impact the wagering industry this year?

It’s been a long time since the last Olympics, but stakes placed on sports outside of the usual Football and Tennis markets has increased steadily as punters have become used to the wealth of markets available these days. If we look at the last Olympics in London British Bookmakers turned over a combined £80m during the two weeks. Compare that to the Olympics in Beijing where the combined turnover was only around £4m. Of course we have to look at the fact that these figures come from British Bookmakers and it was a home Olympics, but we will be working with our partners all over the world to ensure we can effectively tap into this lucrative market.

What was your clients' experience this year for the UEFA EURO, for instance?

This year for the EUROS, BGT released a special start-page button for all our SSBTs which link customers directly to Daily Coupons designed specifically for the competition. Over 75% of bets placed through BGT SSBTs are on football so it was important for us to maintain a customer base throughout the off-season. The button proved very popular amongst our operators and we will be considering making more buttons like this in future.

For our operators, summer football tournaments are always a welcome bonus and this year we worked very closely with all of our partners to ensure maximum engagement from punters in what is usually a quiet time of year in the sports betting industry.