Bally’s EVP: product is key to North America Interactive business push

Bally’s Corporation executive vice-president Marcus Glover has suggested that an enhanced omnichannel online gaming and sports betting product will be key to the success of the Bally’s Interactive business in the US.

Glover, who was appointed to the role in May, spoke as part of Bally’s Q2 2023 financial earnings call, in which the operator revealed a 40% increase in North America Interactive revenue during the quarter to $25.2m.

The North America Interactive divisional adjusted EBITDA losses shrank slightly during Q2, from a negative $20.9m in Q2 2022 to negative $17.7m.

The Bally’s EVP was asked by analysts about the transition occurring in the US market away from business volume generation by marketing spend to a more product driven customer acquisition trend.

Responding, he said: “Product in the end will win out, but what is product? It isn’t just about having a sports betting offering or the most games available, it’s about how you utilize your data platforms.

“Our essence is about how we can analyze, understand the consumer needs, test and integrate that into the product experience.

“That is the true capability, and what has driven our growth historically, because then you can spend more effectively to acquire the right consumer and retain them by communicating in their language and with the right rewards at an optimized level.

“That is why we’ve accepted the outsourcing of our sports betting product, but we’ll integrate our intelligence and our brain power to make sure it’s the best possible experience for the user,” he remarked.

Historically, Bally’s online product in the US has stuttered, with the long-mooted move to in-house developed sports betting technology in the form of the Bally Bet 2.0 upgrade shelved amid criticism of the technology by CEO Robeson Reeves.

In the absence of superior technology, Bally’s has moved to third-party technology provided by Kambi and player management software from White Hat Gaming, with the operator inking supply deals with both in May.

Addressing Bally’s investment into sports betting and igaming over the coming months, Glover suggested that while the firm would be prudent with its investments, it was confident about the opportunities available in igaming in particular, claiming it had “significant” levers to pull.

“Our investment has been fairly intentional in a couple of areas, one is content for our Bally Live platform which we think is very important, the second is making sure that some of our overhang from the prior platforms is removed from our system,” he said.

“Some of that has been written off but content and investment in our igaming, while understanding the variable component of our Kambi and White Hat Gaming partnerships, is where we’re focused right now.

“In terms of profitability, it’s hard to say if we’ll achieve it by the end of this year, or even next year, but we expect to reduce our losses significantly by the second quarter of next year.

“Our focus is on continuing to build up the platform and our infrastructure so that we can be strong in the igaming space and honor our strategic and media partnership commitments,” he added.