Exclusive: Bet365 expands into micro-betting with global Simplebet deal

Bet365 has added micro-betting to its US sports betting markets through a long-term deal with B2B technology supplier Simplebet, EGR can exclusively reveal.

Micro-betting markets – such as the outcome of the next pitch in baseball or the next drive in American football – have been integrated into the bet365 app across Simplebet’s five core products of NFL, college football, NBA, college basketball and MLB.

The deal is global in nature and will see bet365 offer these markets across all major jurisdictions, including the UK. EGR has learned the pair have been in discussions over the deal for six months, beginning at ICE 2022.

Simplebet VP of revenue and trading Ryan Keur spoke about the deal to EGR. “It was actually a fairly quick turnaround, in terms of the way that the partnership evolved,” Keur said.

“I think micro-betting has come to the forefront over the better part of the last 12 months with our initial partnership with DraftKings and it definitely has gained quite a bit of industry-wide exposure.

“Both sides thought of this as a really great product, something that they think their users will love and engage with and something that can be can also provide some good monetisation on the business side,” he added.

The first markets went live last Thursday, to coincide with the start of the NFL season, with NBA and college basketball markets to be added when the new season starts on 18 October.

Markets offered include next-play rush past, touchdown/no touchdown, first down as well as yard betting. A number of scripted parlay bets are also on offer.

The long-term agreement includes a fixed-term renewal element. Expanding on his comments, Keur continued: “From our standpoint, what we’re so excited about was partnering with bet365 as obviously they are a global leader of in-play.

“Part of what’s so great is just their data visualisers, some of their streaming capabilities that they have and really good low-latency game tracking, which is really so critically important to these sort of micro-betting markets.

“For example, on a basketball game things like who has possession, because if you have a market like which team is going to make the next basket in synchronisation with that, it provides a really frictionless experience,” he added.

The long-term agreement comes amid an increased interest in micro-betting in the sector, recently typified by the launch of the micro-betting-focused B2C operator Betr, the brainchild of ex-Simplebet CEO Joey Levy and social media star Jake Paul.

Simplebet has an existing agreement with US sportsbook operator DraftKings, first signed in August 2021. This agreement included an exclusivity element over a specific period, a provision which expired earlier this year, allowing the firm to conclude its deals with Betr and bet365.

Addressing the perks of signing a deal with a significant operator such as bet365, Keur said it allowed the firm to illustrate its tech scale as well as its ability to effectively operate markets.

“We’re fairly battle tested now. We have a 30-person trading team at Simplebet so when we integrate these sort of markets, it’s not something where we’re just asking for these markets to be integrated in there sitting on your site. We have traders that are monitoring every single play within every single game,” he explained.

“That’s a fairly heavy lift to try and ask a partner if we weren’t supplying that sort of service.”

Keur continued: “Over the course of its four-and-a-half years, at times I feel like Simplebet has maybe over-promised and under-delivered and since getting live with DraftKings.

“I think now hopefully with bet365, most people would say we’re actually under promising and over delivering and continuing to just be really good partners within the space.

“We’re providing something that’s really hard to do, pricing these out in real time and trying to provide a frictionless experience with as minimal bet delay as possible. We’re trying to take on and not limit customers, with our partners, so we’re really confident in our models throughout each period of the games,” he added.