The mane attraction: can BetMGM take a sizeable bite out of the UK market?

It is an early Thursday evening in mid-October and the downstairs space at SAMA Bankside – a bar, kitchen and events venue near London’s Blackfriars Bridge – has been transformed into a mini-casino with roulette, blackjack and craps tables. The few dozen guests in attendance, including EGR, have each been handed three fake $100 bills and challenged by LeoVegas Group UK and Ireland director Sam Behar to win as much as possible. The two people holding the most ‘money’ at the end of the evening will each take home a signed Manchester City shirt, Behar announces over a microphone while positioned part way up the main staircase.

The reason for this ‘Vegas-themed’ soirée with drinks and party food, if the BetMGM-embossed gaming tables and chips weren’t a big enough giveaway, is to celebrate the launch of this sports betting and igaming brand in the UK. Just for good measure, this industrial-like venue with its exposed pipework and concrete flooring is festooned with black and gold balloons, BetMGM’s colours.  

BetMGM is already a leading online betting and gaming operator active in 27 North American jurisdictions through a 50/50 joint venture between MGM Resorts International and Entain, established in 2018. However, the foray into the UK is orchestrated by LeoVegas Group, a subsidiary of MGM Resorts International since the bricks-and-mortar casino giant acquired the gaming-led Swedish online operator in 2022 in a deal worth approximately $604m.

Prior to the BetMGM launch event in London, EGR dialled in for a call with Behar and LeoVegas Group co-founder and CEO Gustaf Hagman. Behar, who is based at the UK headquarters in Newcastle upon Tyne, was on a business trip to the group’s office in Sweden’s capital, so this was a prime opportunity to hear first-hand about their plans and ambitions for the UK market.

“It’s a very big and significant launch,” says Behar when pressed as to whether this really is “one of the biggest UK launches in UK igaming in over 20 years”, as LeoVegas Group’s chief commercial officer, Chris Welch, triumphantly announced on LinkedIn. “When you look at the last 20 years in the igaming market, we’ve had new operators turn up but no one quite like us,” Behar adds. “A lot of people have claimed that they’re ‘Vegas’, but no one can claim that they’re as Vegas as we are, particularly with our heritage in bricks-and-mortar [gaming] on The Strip in Las Vegas.”

The 38-year-old isn’t fazed by the fact plenty of brands have entered the UK in recent years, only to beat a hasty retreat or go bust, adding that the combination of LeoVegas Group’s know-how and MGM’s name makes for an “unrivalled” proposition. “You can compare us to other brands that have launched in this space if you want to, but I don’t think anything stands out in quite the same way that we have with our launch,” he remarks.   

A team effort                  

The BetMGM brand is managed by a team based out of LeoVegas Group’s modern, 10,000 sq ft UK office situated on the outskirts of Newcastle where more than 120 people are employed. It is a team with deep knowledge of the UK market, with some members of staff still at the business five years after LeoVegas Group acquired UK-facing gambling sites BetUK, Pink Casino, Slot Boss, 21.co.uk and other assets in a £65m transaction. All these brands are still operational today. “Rocket X, which was the name for the Newcastle team back then, had a lot of experience,” Hagman says. “The majority of those guys are still with the company now, so the experience in the UK market goes back about 15 years.” 

Rolling out BetMGM has been a collaboration between the Newcastle team and various departments spread across the company’s offices including Málaga, Warsaw, Stockholm and Malta. “Our teams have put their hearts and souls into the launch,” Hagman emphasises. While sports betting pricing is provided by Kambi, the rest of the product, including the front-end and player account management (PAM), is LeoVegas Group’s proprietary tech.

Hagman says: “There’s about 500 people working within product and tech across the group, not just on BetMGM. That is substantial.” He also points to Behar being an “expert in media buying and understanding the market”. Indeed, the UK and Ireland director was previously director of marketing agency Tomorrow Advertising, as well as founder and director of Crave & Lamb, an ad agency acquired by Ve Interactive in 2016. Behar has also served as CMO of Marathonbet prior to the pandemic, which is where he worked with Dan Towse who was appointed director of brand at LeoVegas Group in May 2023.

And then, of course, there is Hagman, who founded LeoVegas in 2011 along with former high school friend Robin Ramm-Ericson after discussing the idea of launching a mobile casino for the iPhone during a barbecue in Stockholm earlier that year. “Everyone knows LeoVegas and our mobile heritage,” Hagman says when referencing how this experience benefits BetMGM.

“Our vision was to create the greatest mobile igaming experience, and that still stands. We put a lot of effort into making the product great because if you have a great product, customers will stay and they will recommend us to other customers,” the Swede adds. This attention to detail paid off when LeoVegas Group took the headline category win at the EGR Operator Awards 2023 in London on 26 October: operator of the year. The firm scooped casino operator of the year, too.                

Enter the lion’s den                          

Unleashing a new brand in a market like the UK isn’t for the faint-hearted – or those without deep pockets. According to proprietary data from gambling industry consultancy Propus Partners, there are more than 140 active fixed-odds sports betting brands licensed by the Gambling Commission (GC), the vast majority of which have less than 1% market share. In fact, it’s difficult to point to a single brand that has launched in the UK in the last 10 to 15 years and managed to take a meaningful slice of an online betting and gaming market generating gross gaming yield of around £6.4bn a year, according to the GC.

Quite clearly, though, those behind BetMGM believe they can buck the trend and that the investment will pay off. Behar is quick to point to the company’s track record in the UK: “We have brands that have been around for a long time. We have brands that are growing, that have seen great success and that are well established, like LeoVegas, BetUK, Pink Casino, 21.co.uk and Slot Boss.

“We have a structure and a foundation in our existing technology platform, which means we have something well established and really solid to work from.” The pair avoid putting a number on the market share they are targeting, although Hagman says the aim is for BetMGM to become “one of the larger brands”. “That’s why we’re there but it’s early days,” he adds.

Until then, the plan is to inject some razzamatazz into the UK market while emphasising through the messaging the brand’s close ties with MGM. Behar says: “Our intention was to be different, was to be ‘Vegas’, was to be bold and to offer something different in the UK […] we’re ready to shake up what is obviously a mature market.” Perhaps any new operator’s biggest outlay, if it isn’t product development, will be marketing, especially if this includes a TV campaign. In fact, you’ll probably need to shell out seven, or more likely eight, figures on marketing depending on the scale of the launch and its intended reach.

The cash has seemingly been splashed with US actor and standup comedian Chris Rock enlisted to front BetMGM’s UK marketing campaign as a brand ambassador. To many on this side of the pond, the 58-year-old is perhaps most well known for being on the receiving end of an unexpected on-stage roundhouse slap administered by Hollywood star Will Smith at the Oscars ceremony in 2022. Nevertheless, landing Rock is quite a coup and is in keeping with BetMGM in the US signing up actor Jamie Foxx as a brand ambassador back in 2020.

“Other operators might have retired footballers; we have Hollywood A-listers,” Behar remarks in a not-so-subtle dig at certain rival operators’ identikit marketing tactics. “We needed someone that could represent the heritage and entertainment that MGM stands for.

“There’s no one better to drive trust and credibility in our brand than Chris Rock. We believe it’s one of the best – if not the best – campaigns in the market right now. It’s certainly different and Chris Rock embodies everything we are trying to achieve.”

Thanks to a large dollop of CGI trickery, a 30-second ad released for TV and social platforms sees Rock pilot a gold speedboat, incidentally with a medallion-sporting lion on board, from the famous Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas to the Thames in the heart of London before he sets off fireworks from the craft’s bow, illuminating the night sky above the Palace of Westminster. Rock reels off the script, including the tagline ‘It’s showtime’, in his inimitable style.

Hagman adds: “I got to talk to Chris [Rock] during the shoot for the commercial and he seems a really great guy, so it’s good to have him as a figure fronting the brand in the UK market.”

The ad, produced in collaboration with London-based creative agency Recipe, also contains responsible gambling messaging, yet there is a separate shorter video circulating on social media dedicated to safer play. With the campaign having Rock decked out in a tuxedo beneath a black and gold lifejacket, using a smartphone housed in a gold case, it certainly gives off the impression this is an operator going after high rollers or those used to red-carpet treatment.

However, Behar insists the marketing plays up to this being an “entertainment-first” digital sports betting and casino operator targeting a wide spectrum of potential customers. “We think Chris Rock, our campaign and our product is built to appeal to a broad demographic of punters […] we believe that the campaign we’ve driven at the top of the funnel is engaging to everyone.”    

Strike up the brand                 

In the US, MGM is a household name. Indeed, MGM and its lion logo transcend gambling. That brand recognition is primarily reinforced by the fact the New York-listed casino group operates 18 properties across eight states, including the iconic Bellagio and MGM Grand on the Las Vegas Strip. There are also two properties in Asia’s premier gaming hub, Macau. On this side of the pond, MGM doesn’t have a gaming footprint, although older Brits will recognise the roaring lion intro sequence by movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, from a time before the business diversified into casinos with the initials MGM. Like BetMGM in the US, the UK logo features a 2D illustration of a lion’s head, albeit in a slightly different style. Likewise, the font and the way the BetMGM lettering is arranged differs between the two countries.

That said, it begs the question: can the BetMGM brand resonate with a UK audience? “We’re a data-driven company, so it would be no surprise to you that we researched and tested it to understand what BetMGM would look like in the UK,” Behar replies. “There are three magic letters in our name; those letters add a bit of showbiz and stardust to what we’re trying to achieve. And in answer to your question, yes, we believe it has the recognition in the UK that we would expect it to have. And that’s why we’ve launched the brand.”

Any UK launch wouldn’t be complete without a deal with a Premier League club, and so, at the end of September, BetMGM signed a partnership for the 2023-24 season with its hometown club in the UK, Newcastle United. This tie-up was perhaps inevitable seeing as the LeoVegas UK office is located on Sir Bobby Robson Way, a road named after the Magpies’ legendary manager who was in charge of the team between 1999 and 2004. The tie-up means the BetMGM logo is featured on LED signage around the perimeter of the pitch and behind the players and managers during post-match interviews. Plus, the company is afforded access to the squad and other club assets for marketing purposes. For instance, three players were recently enlisted to promote the benefits of working for LeoVegas as the firm embarks on a recruitment drive to create 50 more jobs at the Newcastle base. On the field, Newcastle United are riding high after finishing fourth last season in the Premier League and qualifying for Europe.

“The fact Newcastle have re-entered the Champions League this season is obviously a great brand alignment,” Behar says. Football partnerships and maximising brand exposure from these collaborations is clearly a strategy that works for LeoVegas Group based on the fact the company has penned deals with Premier League champions Manchester City, as well as Wolverhampton Wanderers and Italian sides Inter Milan and Atalanta.

Partnerships extend beyond football, though; BetMGM has signed up former jumps jockey Megan Nicholls as its UK horseracing ambassador. The ITV Racing pundit shares her thoughts on key race meetings across BetMGM’s channels. What’s more, the brand is an official betting partner of talkSPORT’s Outspoken with White & Jordan show, which means a representative from BetMGM joins the duo – Jim White and Simon Jordan – daily at around 11.30am to discuss betting markets on upcoming events.

With the programme attracting around 1.1 million listeners a week, Behar insists talkSPORT – the world’s largest sports radio station – is a powerful platform to showcase what BetMGM has to offer. “We partnered with them because we believe they are an insightful duo that offers something unique and different to sports broadcasting. It aligns well with what we’re trying to achieve.”

In addition, BetMGM features on the UK’s biggest odds comparison site, Oddschecker. The brand has slid into 12th place on the grid, sandwiched between Betfred and BoyleSports. “It is a very important part of our marketing mix,” Behar explains. “Oddschecker is the primary destination for odds comparisons in the UK, and lots of other markets.”

On how BetMGM’s odds stack up against the grid’s incumbents, he adds: “We trade very competitively. Feel free to go to Oddschecker and you’ll see that we are incredibly well priced across the grid in most instances, or best priced.” Oddschecker data on the Premier League showed BetMGM had an average 1×2 overround of 102.4% for October.

Be a good sport

BetMGM in the US has leveraged its land-based casino business and omnichannel opportunities where online casino is available to turn the operator into an igaming market leader with a national GGR market share above 30% not so long ago. BetMGM may not have the land-based properties in the UK to drive customers to the digital arena, yet it boasts a full live dealer offering, more than 1,600 games (including exclusive titles) and a “supersized” jackpot with the chance to win more than £16m – one of the largest online casino prizes in the UK.

With that in mind, do LeoVegas Group’s chiefs view BetMGM as a casino-first or a sports betting-first operation? “It should be seen as the best of both worlds – but the marketing is more sports-led than casino-led,” Hagman replies. “Our media mix is sport-driven,” Behar confirms. “That’s because it’s a great place for us to attract as well as communicate with our customers. But we believe we can cater for everyone and attract a healthy mix of sports and casino customers.”

To aid with the acquisition of sports bettors, BetMGM has a free-to-play prediction game that requires players to guess six correct scores in the Premier League. While ‘Golden Goals’, which has been built in-house, probably won’t win any awards for originality given other operators have tried to replicate Sky Bet’s Super 6 product, BetMGM’s prize for correctly predicting six out of six scorelines is certainly head and shoulders above the competition. Bet365 has £1m up for grabs with its ‘6 Scores Challenge’, yet BetMGM has upped the ante with a headline-grabbing £2m on offer – eight times Super 6’s £250,000 jackpot most weeks.

“If we’re going to take customers’ expectations and raise them, we need the best-in-market prize on a free-to-play selector game,” Behar insists. “It also gives us something great to talk about with customers. Some of those customers may transact with us and turn into real-money gaming players. For us, it’s about brand positioning and saying, ‘If you can correctly guess six scores you will win £2m if you’re the only person to do it that week’. I think that’s a pretty good story to take to the market.”

With LeoVegas Group shouting about BetMGM’s arrival on these shores, it has been hard to miss the brand these past couple of months, be it the TV campaign, promoted social posts or programmatic ads following EGR around the internet. Combine this marketing onslaught with the financial firepower that comes with being owned by a casino giant with a market cap of $13bn and it’s clear that the ambitions go far beyond being a challenger brand occupying a sliver of the UK market.

“Our strength is being able to play the long game in the UK market,” Hagman stresses. “We’re not in the UK for some short period of time, meaning that we will continue to invest in the technology, our relationships with game suppliers and media [deals].”

Given the strength of the MGM name, a logical next step might be to expand BetMGM into other licensed markets. After all, LeoVegas Group already operates in nine jurisdictions in Europe and in Ontario, Canada. If international expansion is the near-term plan, the CEO is keeping his cards close to his chest. “Well, of course, it had crossed my mind,” Hagman says with a smile. “I mean, it’s early days and we just want to succeed in the UK market first and see how that takes off. We can learn a lot from the UK before we move into other markets, but LeoVegas is present in several licensed markets, so it’s not too far-fetched to think there might be other markets as well for BetMGM.”

As for the casino night at SAMA Bankside, EGR spun the $300 into $700 thanks to a favourable double down at the blackjack table and more than a slice of good fortune at the roulette table. Turns out that was enough to take home one of the two Man City shirts up for grabs. 

The other UK brands

LeoVegas

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