Exclusive: GiG aims to build “tier-one sportsbook team” with GVC and SG Digital hires

Gaming Innovation Group (GiG) has hired new senior staffers from GVC and SG Digital as the operator looks to build a “tier-one sportsbook operations team” under new sportsbook director Stuart Weston.

The Malta-headquartered firm has hired James McKay as it sportsbook ops manager to be based in Marbella alongside Weston, and Claire Alexander from GVC as head of sports product, based in Malta.

McKay has worked with Weston at William Hill, Superbet and most recently Scientific Games, where he was sportsbook operations manager.

Alexander was head of customer operations optimisation at GVC and also worked with Weston during his time at William Hill.

“I feel I’ve now got all the pieces in place,” Weston told EGR. “GiG has definitely invested in people in sports and I think we’ve really raised the quality bar and we can continue doing that.”

Stuart Weston

GiG has said previously it aims to break even in sports by the middle of 2020.

Weston said the firm will initially focus its B2C efforts on smaller markets like Norway, where the firm can leverage the pricing expertise of Odds Model, the Norway-based algorithmic trading group acquired by GiG in 2016.

Odds Model pricing has not yet been integrated into the GIG sports platform, but the group has started manually implementing their prices on a handful of football games.

“We’re going standout prices where they indicate and we’re just testing that at the moment but the early signs are promising,” Weston said.

“Every Premier League weekend, for example, we’ll be standout prices on three or four teams, and I’d be hoping that by the end of the year we’re covering the top five leagues in Europe. Plus, as you’d expect, they are really strong on the Norwegian leagues.

“That means we’ll have something to say on price, particularly in Norway, and we’re also in a position where we can take sizeable bets because we’re confident in the prices that we’re laying.”

When asked about the dangers of offering standout pricing in the current sportsbook market, Weston said: “It’s obviously risky given the type of clients that you can attract, but it’s also an opportunity, particularly in specific territories if you want to be more of a VIP-led brand.

“Inheriting local knowledge is a real USP for me. Not every firm is going to have 20 Norwegian experts in it.”

Weston said the firm was aiming to prove this standout pricing model in Norway and then replicate it in other markets around the world, including South America.

“If we wanted to go into a specific South American territory, we could build a model for their leagues and be quite aggressive there as well,” Weston said. “We’re not trying to compete with the tier-one European operators, we’re just trying to find our base within specific territories.”