Stimulating value by simulating action

CONLETH BYRNE, Product Director at SIS, explains how sports simulations are filling gaps in the sports betting schedule and providing operators with a substantial new source of revenue.

Words by CONLETH BYRNE

After another summer of big spending on players from the world’s leading clubs, including those in the Middle East, the appetite for toplevel football among millions of fans has continued to grow.

Once again, operators focused on getting their plans in place to make the most of the enormous hunger for the game before the 2023-24 season got underway. Naturally, as the biggest league in the world, the return of the Premier League, in particular, attracted the most attention in the quest to retain and engage bettors.

Despite the high-octane action that is to be enjoyed this season, from an operator’s perspective, there are limitations to real-life football. Primarily, it comes down to the fact that it is simply not taking place all of the time. Even during prime betting activity, there are gaps in the schedule where bettors are not being served. This lack of engagement in and around matches from leading leagues taking place is where esports solutions can have a major effect in this space in the market - sports simulations can have a massive impact on bettors. In fact, this process is already underway, with some very positive results.

Engaging

Upon coming across a sports sim on a sportsbook - be it football, basketball, or other major sports - bettors will find immediately familiar and engaging content.

Bettors can follow world-famous favourite teams and players within the action, which are supported by betting markets that reflect those offered by sportsbooks in real-life sports and are therefore easily digested.

We have seen at SIS, with our Competitive Gaming sports sims products, esoccer and ebasketball, that the 24/7 proposition has proven very popular with audiences as a supporting product to premium real-life sports. Our sports sims have added 10% in value to sportsbooks once they have gone live - a far greater result than could have been envisaged only a few years ago.

We have seen the esports betting vertical on mainstream sportsbooks travel full circle. In recent years the focus for operators was mainly on traditional esports tournaments, such as CS:GO, League of Legends and DOTA2, as they embarked on a quest to bring a new generation of esports enthusiasts into their ecosystems.

Those efforts are certainly still ongoing, and at SIS we have a successful events-based CS:GO product performing well across regulated markets in Eastern Europe and beyond.

However, there is a greater appreciation in 2023 of the role that sports sims can play in driving both activity and revenues, given their lack of barrier to understanding and the appeal they hold for existing sportsbook customers.

At SIS, we have put a great deal of time and effort into honing our end-to-end esports product, continually making changes to deliver a product designed specifically for a betting audience.

Created within our secure inhouse studios, Competitive Gaming is underpinned by integrity - we are the only supplier with ESIC gold accreditationand we make sure the quality, frequency, and volume of our events are all there to support the overall aims of the operator.

With tournament-based esports offerings, their inherently sporadic nature, allied to concerns over integrity and a lack of true in-play betting options, means that the same audience is often under-served.

For an operator, the sports sims product they carry must be highly competitive, with gamers playing to their full ability throughout every contest. Integrity and competition combine to fulfil operator objectives by producing always-available content with significant dwell time.

Our esports growth journey has taught us that demand for esports events consistently exceeds supply; while we started with a few hundred events yearly, we now offer over 200,000 while planning to offer even more.

Expansion

In terms of the further development of sports sims as an added-value product for sportsbooks, there is plenty of mileage to be had from engaging bettors in various markets with other sports.

At SIS, we are partnered with operators in North America, South America, the Far East, and Australia. In these markets, there are certain sports sims that are likely to be more popular than football is closer to home.

Broadening the portfolio to reflect the demand for new forms of content in these markets is certainly worth careful consideration, not least in the United States, where we are looking to expand further. If you consider the huge potential that an NFL sports sim could have in terms of engaging bettors, then it becomes a matter of when rather than if.

Looking at traditional esports, too, there is considerable potential for growth. Operators could benefit from being served with content similar to our two-on-two CS:GO offering through titles such as DOTA2 or League of Legends, or an expanded five-on-five version of CS:GO that replicates its most popular format.

Operators are seeking high-quality round-the-clock content, and it’s up to suppliers like us to serve that demand across a range of verticals.

Esports is a vital part of the product mix, as is racing from a range of different time zones around the world, as well as live numbers content which continues to grow with its low stakes, big prizes model, proving a great fit for operators in Africa.

Through a commitment to providing operators with highly engaging, premium short-form products, suppliers can play a huge role in helping their partners stay a step ahead of the competition.