Q&A: Adrian Vella on how the Tipico US tech stack will bolster LeoVegas Group’s product 

In June, LeoVegas Group struck a deal to acquire the US sportsbook and online casino technology belonging to Tipico, marking the end of the latter’s involvement in the US market. 

As part of the transaction, former Tipico US CEO Adrian Vella joined LeoVegas Group as managing director of sports, product and technology.

Arguably, no one was better placed than Vella to oversee the transition from Tipico to life under the LeoVegas Group banner, thanks in part to his 10 years of service at the German giant. 

Vella was woven into the fabric of Tipico US through his work as head of data, analytics and special projects that started a decade ago before his ascension to the title of CEO and president. 

And while it proved to be “a very heavy couple of months after the transaction” for Vella and a 200-strong army of former Tipico staff, the new LeoVegas Group employees have hit the ground running. 

EGR: A few months into the role, how have you found the transition from Tipico to LeoVegas Group?

Adrian Vella (AV): Overall, it’s been really good. We knew before the transaction that both our organisations had matching cultures, so it’s easy for people to get along. 

We also have similar ways of doing business, which is what really attracted me to this position. I’ve been extremely surprised by how well it’s gone so far. Everyone’s been very open, they’ve received our integration very well and we love working with them. We’re fully integrated into the LeoVegas organisation now, and we’re already starting work on new launches. 

For us as a company, LeoVegas is a very good home in general. I’ve been in the igaming business for about 15 years. I was with Tipico for 10 years, six or so of which were in the German business, and then five years in the US. 

When we were building in the US, from day one after PASPA was repealed, it was a gold rush, with people acquiring customers left and right. There were the land-based casinos, the fantasy guys, the European sportsbooks coming in – everyone wanted to take a piece, and we wanted to compete with our product. 

We decided to go the hard route and invest, build proprietary IP and retain customers with our sportsbook. We wanted to take all our learnings and build a very unique product that we could differentiate and have full control of – and we did that. 

We knew from day one that after we proved we could build a sportsbook that could be sustained, optimised and run on a lean setup, we could find a partner with a brand database, with scale and a good brand to grow.  We’re doing that now internationally with LeoVegas, but this was always our story from day one. 

We wanted to spend years building our tech, and we did that. We wanted to operate in a couple of US states – and we did that. We wanted to excel in some product propositions on the market and get good trading reviews from analysts like EKG [Eilers & Krejcik Gaming] – and we did that. Then, it was always about trying to find a partner – now we’ve found a partner.

EGR: What makes LeoVegas Group the right partner?

AV: The people, the culture, not to mention that the backing of MGM is exceptional. Apart from that, we fit in quite well because LeoVegas has all this technology and expertise in casino, while we have all our operational expertise and IP, and our sports betting technology is live in several countries which we can leverage our platform in. 

They also have similar methodologies to us: knowing to control all your tech stack, control your IP and provide unique customer experiences online. All of that matches really well. So, from our side, LeoVegas is an exceptional partner.

EGR: Which elements from the Tipico stack will work well under the LeoVegas Group banner?

AV: So far, we have built our own PAM, our own casino product and sportsbook. The sportsbook is divided into three big pieces: betting, trading and risk. The whole sportsbook is exceptional to integrate into LeoVegas because that’s the piece of technology where we can really excel. It was built bespoke to grow multiple brands, in multiple countries, with multiple currencies and languages. 

We also excel in core user experiences, meaning the app has to be fast and simple. You have to find the content right away and players have to place bets with the least possible hurdles. The fun part is, in the US, you have to excel at same game parlays – or bet builders – which we have invested a lot in. 

We’re also rated very highly in live betting in Europe especially, where there’s a big piece of the market.

EGR: What do you think are the biggest differences between European and US players?

AV: From a customer perspective, the two markets are completely different. The US market was black for a long time. It was illegal to place a bet and customers were playing fantasy. Culturally speaking, US customers tend to follow players more because of fantasy, which makes that drive for something like same game parlays faster from a market perspective. 

Seasonality is also completely different in the US. September to February is NFL season, then you move into the Super Bowl, then you have hockey and baseball in the middle of the year. After the downturn of the baseball season, you move back into NBA. It’s a very different calendar. 

In Europe, it’s different. It’s majority football (soccer), then tennis and everything else. You also focus a lot more on sports in general than on specific leagues. European products are also a bit more mature. In the US, the products have escalated so quickly. But if you look at the European sports market, it has been regulated for a very long time. 

It’s great that now we can take our learnings from both markets because we operated in Europe. We operate in the US, but we can take all those learnings and really create something exciting for Europeans; take those wins in the US, plug them in and then maybe localise them.

EGR: Which part of LeoVegas’ sportsbook offering do you think has the biggest room for improvement?

AV: It goes back to controlling your tech stack as you’re making tailor-made products for customers in localised markets. When you’re not doing that through an outsourced party, you can integrate experiences much better because you control both the product and the operational cadence throughout. 

The first thing to consider is, how can we integrate this product so well into the experience that it remains seamless for the customer? Whether they’re using sportsbook or casino in their app, you want it to be a seamless experience.

Secondly, after the transaction, we moved 200-plus employees who really know sports betting, which adds a lot of value as well. We do our own trading, we do our own risk, we do everything internally. We use a lot of our internal models when it comes to personalisation of the product and providing the right content to our customers. 

We’re spending a lot of our time understanding the customers’ behaviours, understanding how we can flavour the right offer in these markets, and how we can really be well integrated in the LeoVegas operation.

There are also a lot of features straight out of the box that we were leveraging in the US, which would come in very handy. We excel at bet builder and live betting as well as having our own bonusing engines for mission driven bonuses. We have a lot of auxiliary features which can provide a great customer experience.

EGR: How did those 200 or so employees find the transition?

AV: It went so well and LeoVegas Group was so helpful. We’ve already integrated everything, and everyone is now a LeoVegas employee, so we’re just excited about the future. Everyone is really on board and looking forward to winning the game with the LeoVegas hat on. It was a very heavy couple of months after the transaction, but beforehand as well. Now it’s great because we can just focus on delivery.

EGR: Do you prefer a more specialised technical role compared to the overarching remit of CEO? 

AV: I’ve had more specialised roles in the past but, for the past five years in the CEO role, I was really involved in both the product and in the operations of our sports betting [product] because that’s where all our investment was going. 

Now my role is a bit more specialised again. It allows me to take again all that investment and double down on it and grow it forward. So, for me, it’s quite fun. And, at the end of the day, what I love doing is product and growing P&L.  

In reality, my biggest focus in life at LeoVegas is to take that product, localise it in that market, launch it, and grow that P&L. You will see me [work] very close with all the commercial teams and operations to make sure that together, as a team, we grow that forward. 

I wouldn’t say there’s one role I prefer over the other, but I love that I was able to take the blood, sweat and tears from my team and move it forward. Now I’m more focused, so it’s exciting. I also have a great management team around me at LeoVegas, and I’m so happy to be able to do all this with them. 

EGR: What new technological development do you see having a big impact on the sports betting industry in the new future? 

AV: I wouldn’t say there’s one silver bullet – if there was, everyone would be on it already. We’ve already seen the impact of bet builder/same game parlay, so I think we can expect to see companies investing more in that and see more innovation in that space for sure. Live [betting] is another area where we might see big shifts in the US, trying to make the live experience more exciting and engaging when the game is happening. 

Everyone talks about personalisation, as content is changing daily, with seasonality and everything. That’s usually tough but, if you can get it right, fully control the experience and make something tailor-made, then there’s something there. 

Mainly it’s about trying to excel at lots of different things and trying to improve the customer experience as much as possible.