Playing it cool: Coolbet's president on Latam gains and preparing for a new era

Photos: Arttu Karvonen (headshots) and Terje Ugandi (office)

For Tallinn-based Coolbet, formed in 2015 by igaming veteran and NordicBet founder Jan Svendsen, its near-decade-long existence will soon be marked by another significant milestone as the operator prepares to be acquired by new owners in the coming months. (At the time of press, buyer details remain confidential until the deal completes.) 

This will be the second time the sports betting and casino operator has been bought, after US supplier GAN snapped up Coolbet parent company Vincent Group for $175.9m in January 2021. 

Leading the firm through its latest acquisition is company president Endre Nesset, who has been at Coolbet for more than four years. 

With a unique industry background, he has 10 years of igaming experience, having started out as a professional sports bettor, followed by a seven-year stint on the supplier side heading up Gaming Innovation Group’s (GiG) trading and sports departments. 

In August 2020, Nesset joined Coolbet as director of sports, before becoming senior vice-president of global sports in April 2022 and then president in August 2022.

Coolbet, which employs more than 400 staff in the Estonian capital, operates in 10 markets, primarily in Northern Europe and Latam but, until recently, was also present in Ontario. 

However, despite taking the very first legal bet in the Canadian province, Coolbet withdrew from the market in April 2023 due to the number of unlicensed operators still active there, resulting in a significant competitive disadvantage, according to the firm.

Nesset tells EGR that at the time of the acquisition by GAN, Coolbet saw its Latam business grow, particularly in Chile, fuelled by its brand awareness through sports sponsorships and ability to localise the product. 

Self-proclaimed as ‘a gaming site that strives to be fair, personal and transparent’, Coolbet’s motto is to ‘stay cool and bet responsibly’. 

Putting that into practice, the company is focused on operating only in regulated markets or those with the intention to regulate.

EGR: You come from a unique industry background as a professional sports bettor as well as previously working for a supplier and now an operator. How have you drawn from those skillsets during your time at Coolbet?

Endre Nesset (EN): First of all, I’m very grateful for the background I have. Sports betting in general, and especially on the professional side, has taught me a lot of things and made me think a little bit differently about certain aspects, especially that there are no real shortcuts. You’re being measured on your own performance. 

Of course, when you are a professional sports bettor, it hurts when you’re not doing a very good job. So, I think that mindset, first and foremost, and attention to detail have probably been the biggest learnings from that side. 

Also, the fact I went through an acquisition very early in my career was helpful to me. When Gaming Innovation Group acquired our company, [sports betting technology firm] OddsModel in 2016, it was the first time I was exposed to that part of the business. 

Being a professional gambler, it’s more of a ‘lone wolf’ territory. 

Even though we were a group of close friends, it’s still not the same as being part of a larger organisation and having a common goal you’re all working towards. I really enjoyed the switch to the supplier side, of course. 

For me personally, that worked out really well because I was exposed to a lot of the US stuff. 

So, when PASPA was repealed in 2018, I was at the forefront. We [GiG] launched one of the first sportsbooks in New Jersey, which was a very good experience to have gone through. 

When the time came for a change, Coolbet was quite close to my heart as it has always been positioned as a sportsbook that likes to take a bet and doesn’t necessarily limit [players] too much. We’re still a soft book but we are one of the sharper soft books, which was, with my background as a professional gambler, a good fit. 

I’ve been at Coolbet for just over four years and the company has grown tremendously. We’re now part of GAN and, for a lot of the US gambling companies, there have been challenging times. We’re not going to deny that. Valuations have struggled across the board, not just for us, so it’s been a rough couple of years. 

But the Coolbet side of the business has still been performing very nicely and strongly, despite challenging surroundings and limited resources. 

We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved and now that we’re getting acquired again for the second time, the future is looking good for us.

EGR: What is the vision behind the Coolbet name and what’s the current split between sportsbook and casino?

EN: Coolbet was founded on the idea that nobody else did sports properly. So, for a lot of operators it was all about getting customers over to the casino side, which is fair enough.

It’s easier to budget, easier to plan, easier revenue in that sense and it’s cheaper to acquire [players] through sportsbook. 

Coolbet is a sportsbook, always has been and still is today, even though we also have significant revenue coming out of the casino vertical.

That being said, a lot of our sportsbook resources over the past couple of years have gone into developing our US B2B solution, which is now live in three states, and this has had an impact on the Coolbet product. 

We have dropped a little bit in our share of wallet coming from sportsbook from a percentage perspective – we’re currently around 55% casino, 45% sportsbook – whereas historically we’ve been around 60% sportsbook. 

But we still continue to invest in our sportsbook, and we’re hoping to get to a 50/50 split, which is quite a lot larger than most of our competitors. Most of them are at 75% to 80% casino revenue. 

It’s also worth mentioning that we have some poker revenue, though it’s not a significant portion. Poker is a big vertical for us. 

We do a lot of our retention through poker. Coolbet has been a very strong poker operator in the Nordics in particular, ever since the beginning. We’re hosting our annual poker tournaments in Tallinn, and poker is something that’s close to our hearts at Coolbet.

EGR: How has the business been performing since the GAN acquisition?

EN: Coolbet was acquired at the beginning of 2021, when things were really kicking off for us in the Latam region. Chile, in particular, was going through a very quick expansion. 

Coolbet operates predominantly in two regions: Northern Europe and Latam. We are also in Canada, but that’s only one market. The Northern European markets are very steady and solid, growing nicely year over year. 

But the markets are a bit more mature; we’re not seeing explosive growth there, but we’re seeing nice and steady business growth. In Latam, there’s been a lot more explosive growth and there’s plenty of interesting markets there. 

Now everybody’s looking at Brazil but that’s not really a market we’ve been looking at. We have a Peruvian licence and we’re live in Ecuador and Mexico, so we have a couple of legs to stand on in that region, but it’s no big secret that Chile is our bread and butter.

EGR: Of the 10 markets Coolbet operates in, why is Chile your most successful?

EN: Chile has been almost like a fairy tale for us. We launched the brand back in 2018 and it was a bit of a gamble. Chile was not considered a real igaming market at the time. 

There weren’t many people targeting it, so we had some advantage there by being not a first mover but at least an early adopter. We went in with our usual Coolbet playbook with a very localised product. We set the standard for the sportsbook offering in the country. 

We created events that were nowhere else to be seen or found – for example, second and third division events in the local football leagues as well as player specials nobody else had. 

This is the typical Coolbet approach: we go in, we try to be local with local people, local knowledge and local products.  Now there are a lot of operators that are spending a significant amount of money in the market.  Every time a market is moving towards regulation, there are always people positioning and spending a lot of money. 

We are not spending as much money but we have the advantage of having been there early, so we still have a key position in the market. We have a significant database of players there, and we’re very grateful for the Chilean market. We sponsor not only professional, high-level teams but also lower division teams and give back to the community. Chile is a very nice market for us. 

That said, there was DNS blocking well over a year ago now, which caused problems for everybody.  That also created a new wave of brands launching in the market, so the competition is at an all-time high. 

EGR: You launched in Mexico with a locally licensed partner in January 2023. How is the brand performing there?

EN: Acquiring your own licence in Mexico is very expensive. You need to have a bricks-and-mortar presence through either a racetrack or a casino, which is not relevant for us. So, we needed to go with a local partner that could sub-license. 

The Mexican market is very complicated. You need your licence holder to approve a lot of things, and the localisation piece has probably been a little bit harder than we anticipated. 

And of course, there’s some very strong brands in the market already such as Caliente, and others that are investing extremely heavily, like Codere. 

So, we have decided to slow down and have moved to an affiliate marketing approach. Mexico hasn’t been the success we’d hoped it would be, but we’re in this for the long run. 

EGR: How will Finland’s switch from a monopoly to multi-licensed system affect your presence there?

EN: It won’t impact us, but we will pursue a licence. In October, Finland’s draft law was sent to the European Commission for approval, which is very interesting. 

There’s a couple of points in there that will probably be a bit challenging for the market itself. 

One of the things they want to do is ban affiliates. We all know where that’s going to go. It’s actually good for Coolbet because we don’t work with affiliates in Finland, but it’s going to be bad for the market as a whole. 

The channelisation will be low and it will create a fairly big black market. Though I have to give the regulator some credit as well; they did listen to some of the feedback that was provided by the various operators. 

Coolbet will be pursuing a licence in Finland – this is our goal. We want all our markets to regulate. There has been a lot of talk about Chile regulating. Right now, it’s been a little bit quiet. 

But when that time comes, we will be defending our position and pursue the regulations. Same for Finland.

EGR: How has Sweden’s gambling tax increase from 18% to 22% impacted your operations there?

EN: Sweden is minimal for us. We gave it a crack back in the day, but we also recognise there are a lot of bigger guys with bigger wallets than us spending a lot more money. 

So again, we are a little bit similar to Mexico in that we have a fairly conservative approach. We are going to continue to operate in Sweden, but the tax increase is not going to make a big difference for us from a financial perspective. 

EGR: Coolbet describes itself as ‘a gaming site that strives to be fair, personal and transparent’. How do you achieve that?

EN: We’re not trying to hide anything from our customers. We are very transparent. We still have some very cool transparency features on our  site. 

We still show some of our positions and some of our liabilities at times. We’re not hiding behind any legal structures. We’re very personalised in everything we do. 

It’s in the small things that matter. We never void any bets. If we accept a bet, we honour it. We’re in this for the long term. We would much rather have a lot of customers who lose €1 per day than huge customers who are losing a lot. 

We are very proud of our retention rates too. Customers who play with us tend to stick with us for quite some time, and I do believe that’s because we provide a good and fair service. 

EGR: How does Coolbet’s in-house technology help it stay ahead of the competition?

EN: Again, that was also part of Coolbet’s strategy from the early days. We do everything in-house and have our own platform. 

Everything is built on our own tech stack, which gives us huge advantages and it means there are no limitations. We can do whatever we want, so that’s been one of our biggest benefits. It’s something we’re very proud of. 

We obviously work with suppliers for some of the sports feeds and for casino we work with game providers, etc. But all the foundations, the wallet and the platform are owned and operated in-house. 

EGR: In the summer, Coolbet held a two-day workshop on AI. How are you using it across your business to achieve additional efficiencies?

EN: We’re in the early days and we’re curious people in general. We actually have some really cool stuff going on, such as using AI in our back offices. We’re still only scratching the surface, though. 

As long as you have the interest and facilitate people being able to explore it, that’s the most important thing. Then the results, I believe, will come by themselves. Within a year, I think you will see quite different things already. 

I don’t think AI will take over, though. The human element will always be there. But as a tool, it will make things a lot easier and more efficient. 

EGR: What’s your marketing strategy and how does sponsorship, such as that of Chilean football club Colo Colo, fit into it? 

EN: Again, that’s tied into where Coolbet has been positioned as a sportsbook, which has been a very big part for us. Our marketing strategy has, to a very large extent, been focused on our odds offering. We provide better odds and higher payback for our customers.

When we’re launching in a new market, we’re going in and localising our offering. We’re aggressive with the odds and giving customers a good experience at a good price. 

And of course, being visible in the sporting space is also very important. Colo Colo are great partners for us. We’re also sponsoring numerous other teams in Latam, but also organisations in Europe such as the Estonian Football Federation. We’re sponsoring athletes in general. 

We’re not on the overall ‘influencers train’ – you won’t see us going after the Love Island contestants – we’re going for the Olympic winners. 

So, the latest sponsorship we did in Estonia was with Kelly Sildaru, a freestyle skier who has won Olympic and X Games medals. Overall, that’s going to be the type of sponsorship you’ll see from us. 

EGR: What’s next for Coolbet in terms of growth and expansion?

EN: We are getting acquired and the deal is set to close within a couple of months. We’re actively monitoring both new and existing markets. 

There’s probably room to expand, so we have had very good conversations with our soon-to-be new owners. But we haven’t committed or made any super clear plans on any concrete moves as yet.