Technology strategy and prop bet success go hand in hand

Prop bets are enjoying unparalleled levels of engagement and the phenomenon still has huge potential yet to be realised. The World Cup provided the perfect platform for increased interest in these unique markets that provide heightened engagement for consumers, focused on individual events such as shots, fouls and tackles, adding variety to their betting experience.

A core attraction of prop bets is that these bets can actually have nothing to do with the final result. Even if a game is pretty much over within the opening exchanges there remains an interest to the final whistle as the markets remain alive. Consumers benefit from greater breadth and depth on available markets whether on a player, team, league or market level.

True creativity can shine within the prop bets system in the type of markets on offer and how they are delivered to sports bettors. In-play settlement brings quicker satisfaction and allows them to go again within the same event.

There are obvious complexities to offering engaging player prop markets which means the tech in place must be robust and highly flexible. A way to ensure a better user experience for the end player is by having the pricing and data element managed as an all-in-one service. It grants total control over the end-to-end process.

In terms of the all-in-one data choice, the key point regarding integration is that it minimises the operator’s requirements to either connect to multiple APIs or integrate two APIs with an iFrame on their website. Introducing numerous feeds requires a multiplication of mapping requirements for an operator, which is widely recognised as one of their biggest difficulties when integrating new clients.

This takes up more developer resources and the time for these is at a premium. Finally, legal is often the final stage of negotiations for any product, doubling the legal input by having two contracts rather than one presents risks of the deal falling at the final hurdle. Multiple entities involved also lengthens the time before integration can even start on the product.

Choosing the right technology is the most important part of the vertical as it allows the most creative sportsbooks to flourish. If the tech is there, then it’s up to the trading team and leadership to drive the market availability. Some of the new markets that have burst onto the scene are points- based trios and head to head shootouts between two opposing players like Mo Salah and Erling Haaland.

Today’s new generation of consumers tend to have increasingly shorter attention spans and are demanding more instant gratification from the user experience. Prop bets deliver the ultimate level of instant gratification with respect to the sports betting user experience, as well as providing greater creativity in the markets bettors can engage with.

Innovation within the space will be driven by broadening the player proposition offering, growth of interval markets and the use of stats to drive engagement in these areas. As bet propensity increases, it arms operators with even more data to then present markets to reflect customers’ personal preferences. This information will also help provide even more accurate bet-prompts that are shared from operators to consumers.

There will be a natural progression into new sports for prop bets. Esports and basketball both lend themselves perfectly to the format as they move incredibly quickly and have a high number of data points, resulting in the opportunity to generate a diverse number of markets.

Henry has spent 12 years associated with professional football and utilising sports data to maximise performance. This has included co-founding a betting syndicate for seven of those years, which was the brainchild behind SportingRisk; the experts in betting, forecasting and analytics in sport.