EGR Power 50 2022: 3. Bet365
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3. Bet365
Financials : While financial and performance numbers revealed exclusively to BDO have to stay under wraps, bet365 is still an online gambling powerhouse
Strategy & impact : An unwavering obsession to detail, particularly around UX and putting the customer first, has got bet365 to where it is today. Sports betting dominates, while igaming products are a deliberate soft sell
Geographic reach : A massive name around the world and a leader in regulated – and unregulated – markets. Yet to crack America, and looking more and more unlikely it ever will
Influence & leadership : Siblings Denise and John Coates dodging the limelight adds to the mystique surrounding the company. Bet365 is Stoke-on-Trent’s largest private sector employer
Bet365 retains its podium position in the EGR Power 50, comfortably ahead of the chasing pack, and remains perhaps the industry’s only true global brand with its geographic reach and market share. It is no exaggeration when we say there is still a fascination with this family-owned and notoriously media-shy online goliath, underlined by the fact that any bet365 story published on the EGR website tends to attract the lion’s share of the clicks that day.
While the past 12 months have been relatively quiet on the news front, bet365 is as omni-present as ever around live sport with its slick TV ads enriched by the gruff tones of actor Ray Winstone, the long-standing ‘face’ of the brand. With its speed, breadth of markets and intuitive navigation, the mobile product stands head and shoulders above the rest, underlined by its stellar World Cup betting pages and the operator winning the mobile sports betting category at the EGR Operator Awards 2022.
Interestingly, bet365 has been outsourcing functions of late, the most notable being a deal struck with retention specialists Optimove, the first time a third-party provider has been enlisted to assist with bet365’s CRM. It was an unusual move for a company which prides itself on building and running almost everything in-house ever since its humble beginnings in a portable building on a Stoke-on-Trent car park more than two decades ago. The services of Scout Gaming were also called upon to provide a fantasy sports product, while, more recently, a deal was struck with Simplebet, a Miami-based supplier of in-play micro-betting markets.
It seems every year in this lineup we question whether the next 12 months will see bet365 finally start flexing its sizeable muscles across the pond in the US. And yet here we are, more than four years after PASPA’s repeal, and this deep-pocketed online colossus is live in just two states: New Jersey and Colorado. Bet365 is an approved operator in Virginia and Ohio, so a rollout in both states is in the works, but you have to wonder if challenging the incumbents stateside is really a priority given the maturing market is dominated by a handful of firms. The resignation in late summer of the influential Jon Moss, head of international development and face of the brand at events and awards ceremonies, was a blow to the business.