Exclusive: Prophet founders on the launch of the world’s first cash-out exchange

Prophet, the brainchild of American entrepreneurs Dean Sisun and Jake Benzaquen, launched today offering a cash-out alternative for punters.

Dubbed as the world’s first cash-out exchange, Prophet gives bettors access to favourable cash-out rates using an exchange format where they can buy or sell bets from their peers.

Having relocated to the UK, the company’s founders, both from financial and investment banking backgrounds, are targeting the UK with their new platform to capitalise on the already well-established cash-out concept, as well as tapping into the country’s mature sports betting market.

Prophet’s target market is casual and serious punters alike, and 18 to 40-year-old males. Taking a commission of 3%, the idea of Prophet is to offer maximised profit for sellers and premium odds for buyers.

The cloud-based platform is currently available on both mobile and desktop, with an app planned for Q1 2020.

Founders Sisun and Benzaquen talk to EGR Intel about how Prophet’s UI and UX help it to stand out from other exchange products and their plans to launch the platform in other markets.

EGR Intel: Can you tell me about your backgrounds and how you first came up with the idea for Prophet?

Dean Sisun (DS): I come from investment banking and Jake’s from financial consulting. We met at university six or seven years ago and were both very much into sports betting. We were betting basically every day. In our fourth year at university, we bet on the Champions League on Monaco to win at 66-1. They made the semis but then their odds moved to 4-1. So, Jake and I looked at each other and said our bet went up 16-17 times the value. We thought we can’t do anything with it and we’re stuck with it. So, we did some research and found out about the cash-out function in the UK, which was basically a similar concept to this. But then we realised how much bookmakers are ripping off individuals and how much they’re actually taking off from the true value of the bet. And that’s when it really started to get going.

EGR Intel: How does Prophet work?

Jake Benzaquen (JB): Prophet is a cash-out alternative. If you head on to Prophet, we simply ask you what bet you’re looking to cash-out. You enter its details and then we spit out a price in terms of its current value, which we compete with the bookmaker on. From our calculations, we are beating them 99 out of 100 times over here. That’s just one side of it. But on the flip side, buyers have access to a marketplace with higher odds and that’s all through the way we price it.

Jake Benzaquen, Prophet

EGR Intel: Why did you decide on the UK as your launch market? What are your plans for launching in other markets?

DS: When we were doing our initial research talking to US attorneys, while we were both at our jobs over in the US, they were the ones who originally suggested we should look to the UK because at that time in the US it was illegal. Back then, in October 2017, PASPA had not been repealed.

So, we started looking into the UK and we’d learned about the cash-out function. People are already thinking like this in terms of betting and the popularity of it was on the rise. So, we said why don’t we come to the UK where people already understand the concept. It’s fully legal. It’s the biggest market in the world right now and the most advanced market.

As for other markets, our plan is to look to the US next. We’re thinking about entering one of two ways. One way has some proprietary technology that’s not completely through the patent process yet. But the other way would just be to go the DraftKings/FanDuel route where you partner with a land-based casino. Europe is just a Malta licence for most countries so we want to get our Malta licence in the next few months and then think about where we want to go next.

EGR Intel: What makes your platform unique from other exchange products?

DS: Well, first and foremost, people don’t really know how to use exchanges for the most part. Either they don’t know how to use it or they’re overwhelmed by it and they choose to just use a sportsbook. But in reality, everyone should be using an exchange because it gives you better prices.

I should say in theory people should but in reality no one really does because they’re very complicated. There’s a lot hitting you in the face at one time.

On the flip side, you have the cash-out function, which provides a similar concept to us but our alternative is between 15% to 50% better returns when selling your bets. So, for those reasons people should use us.

We will also be implementing the ability to cash-out accumulators in the next few months, whereas other exchanges do not offer you the ability to create an accumulator.

Dean Sisun, Prophet

EGR Intel: Did you build the platform yourself and did you face any technical challenges?

JB: Yes, to both, but for the latter nothing we couldn’t work through and haven’t been able to work through. But the complexity, security and all those aspects of building a marketplace, especially in the regulatory environment of sports betting, is extremely complex and time consuming. We’ve been in testing for months. So the answer is yes. Many technical challenges but nothing we weren’t able to work through and turn around into a fully furnished comprehensive product.

EGR Intel: You’ve described Prophet as having the cleanest UI, the best UX and taking a design- and analytics-focused approach. Is that compared to sportsbook and exchanges?

JB: If you go on Betfair or any exchange, they’re hitting you with casino ads, there’s a lot going on but not a lot of self-explaining or promotion really. So, what we were looking to do was take a consumer educated and focused approach. We’re working with the consumer to help them rather than just putting everything on there and overlaying ads for our own benefit. We’re ad free and promotional free. We just want to be able to help the user as much we can and that is the approach we took.

At the core, Prophet is a data and analytics company, using every transaction as a metric to learn about user and market tendencies and bookmaker behaviour, all for the benefit of the consumer at the end.

EGR Intel: Is using your platform not more complex than a user just clicking the cash-out button on their original bet?

DS: We’ve actually mimicked the cash-out function. But yes, it’s really easy to use. You come on, you select your bet and we price it for you. We have an algorithm that prices it and all you do is click cash-out. What you can also do with us, as well as bet365 and other sites, is sell a portion of your bet so you don’t have to cash out the whole thing. And that’s something we’re trying to teach people more of, but you have to teach people to walk before they can run.

EGR Intel: Have you also been marketing the product on social media yet?

DS: Not just yet, we haven’t really spent any marketing dollars so far. We are wrapping up our funding rounds here in the next two weeks and then opening up another one about a month later. And then that’s when we’re going to be pouring in the marketing dollars. We’re trying to hit everyone with everything at the same time. We’re trying to launch, send out press releases and we have our podcasts coming out to go along with all the social media.

EGR Intel: Have you considered offering your services to sports betting operators in the future?

DS: One hundred percent. I don’t think anyone will want to deal with us now because we’re competing with their highest margin product. If I am a Paddy Power or another large bookmaker, why would I use a third-party cash-out provider when I’m making so much money off the cash-out function? We definitely appeal to the smaller sportsbooks and bookmakers right now, so the guys that don’t have a fully developed cash-out function. Those are the guys that would be very interested in us. But for now, we’re strictly B2C and using all our marketing dollars for B2C.