SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Since making its debut on the international gaming stage back in 2019, TVBET has undergone some tremendous changes – having grown its products, employee numbers and number of partners.
Speaking to SBC News, TVBET CEO Peter Korpusenko (right) discusses the company’s growth, overcoming the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, as well as plans for the future.
Firstly, thank you for taking the time to chat with us! So take us back to 2019 when TVBET made its ‘big entrance’ to the igaming community. How did people initially react to what you had to offer?
Hello, Erin! Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you. Yes, let’s start by talking about the beginning of our long journey in the igaming space. In 2019, we fully entered the market with our offering and during that year, we visited about 14-15 exhibitions in all corners of the world. It was certainly difficult, but very exciting and useful for us.
The largest exhibition for us was, of course, ICE London 2019. And going by the feedback from colleagues and partners, we showed a super-class offering at the event. At the time, we built a stand with four of our live games with the ability to make bets right at the exhibition! Some of our partners even asked if they could host these streams on their platforms. This helped everyone to really plunge into our games, study our software and visually see how everything works. We managed to achieve three goals at the exhibition:
- Show how studios work from the inside;
- Show how the online version of the product performs;
- And also demonstrate how the land-based solution works.
So we believe that 2019 was really significant for us – the year of our big entry into the market. And we still remember ICE London 2019 and are proud of the results achieved then. In general, it was a very outstanding exhibition, and in addition to the presentation of games, we also held a lot of drawings, gave cool gifts, made top promo videos, and showed the industry and ourselves how fantastic a booth and product presentation could be.
What have been the biggest changes in the company since that time?
After that, we continued to actively develop our product, adding new games to the portfolio, developing the retail product, integrating our games online and offline, and optimizing existing games. In general, very productive and benchmark work was done. However, then COVID-19 happened, which slowed down not only us but the industry as a whole.
COVID-19 undoubtedly had a huge impact on the betting and gaming industry – how did TVBET shift its focus to overcome these challenges?
The biggest problem during COVID-19 was the unpredictability. Everything slowed down: development, recruitment, PR, marketing. The whole world was scared, many companies closed, jobs were slashed, many people faced a financial and not only crisis. And in general it was not known what would happen next and how.
But we decided not to rush into any decisions, to focus on development, and this helped us overcome difficulties. We didn’t fire any employee, didn’t close any game, didn’t stop the work in the office, but on the contrary, we even made a lot of important improvements in the software, increased the staff, and even developed and added new games! Perhaps, at that moment, we could be called crazy, but we stood our ground and accepted this challenge!
Thanks to our fortitude and self-confidence, we ended up with big pluses! We saw huge increases in performance: the number of new partners increased by 30%, the number of bets on our games increased by 300%! It was an incredible boom, which, of course, once again showed us that we are on the right track!
We recorded the results of our work in a small but lively promo video, which, by the way, also appeared on your site.
And following on from that, how has TVBET disrupted the market at this time?
Now we do not stop and continue to grow. We are very proud to break records for game views every week. And recently the record for accepting bets of all time was reached!
We are also working on optimizing our existing games, and at the same time developing new ones. By the end of this year and the beginning of the 23rd, we plan to release very interesting products in a variety of directions. But in which ones, it’s a secret for a while?
Herewith, we are proud to be actively working on our White Label offer. Together with partners we build studios and create games for local markets.
If we talk about the markets in a little more detail, at the moment we are keenly expanding in Asian countries, and in the near future we expect a large increase in new partnerships in Africa, both online and retail. Stay tuned!
Given that TVBET has a large portion of its staff based out in Ukraine, how have you – as a company – navigated the challenges that the war has posed whilst also continuing to support your employees?
The war was the second huge shock after COVID-19, and now the coronavirus seems like a little thing.
Yes, we have a lot of employees in Ukraine, and we are very worried about them. At first, the whole team in Ukraine fell out of the working rhythm at some point. At that moment, we were able to relocate some people to western Ukraine for greater security, many of them moved to other countries.
We were scared again, we didn’t know what would happen to the people, to the office and to the business in general. Many companies began to leave the Ukrainian market, fire people, close offices. However, we again decided not to rush into such decisions. We did not fire any employee, did not cut salaries, but on the contrary, we tried to help our colleagues as much as possible.
Moreover, we began to actively help the Armed Forces of Ukraine: we transferred large sums to the army, helping to purchase body armors and helmets. And we keep doing it! After all, the war is still going on, it is important not to forget about it.
It is important to understand that this war has affected so many people, and I am not only talking about consciousness and empathy. Every third Ukrainian has a relative or a friend who defends the country. The war also affected me personally, because my cousin is now serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I really hope for a speedy end to all this horror. And I believe in the happy return of my brother, and the whole country, to a peaceful life.
We admire all Ukrainians. All our employees have already turned back to the working rhythm despite any difficulties. And for IGB Live in Amsterdam, a Ukrainian company designed and built a stand for us! Just imagine how brave and strong people in Ukraine are, who stayed and continued to work, being under daily massive missile attacks…
We are proud that our employees and all the people of Ukraine do not despair and do not give up, and everyone works on his/her own front. This resilience and struggle motivates us to act. Slava Ukraini!
In your opinion, what more can the wider industry do to best support Ukraine?
It is very important not to forget that the war continues, that Ukraine needs help, and not get tired of helping! Everyone can do something – go to a rally in support of Ukraine, donate $5, post news from Ukraine in your LinkedIn and thereby attract attention. We see many companies in our industry who are actively involved in the process and really help a lot. It’s amazing to see such a high level of consolidation!
Also, we are now actively working on one idea of how our company can help Ukraine even more. I do not want to reveal the details yet to make our idea come true in the best possible way. But I hope for a positive outcome of our plans so that everyone could help together with us!
And finally, TVBET will be attending SBC Summit Barcelona! Can you give us a sneak peak into some of your plans for the event? What can we expect to see?
Yeah, we are very excited to be back at SBC Summit Barcelona! Everyone will be able to talk to our team at booth J9.
At the exhibition, we will present new games that we have been working on recently, namely Mega 6 and Spin2Wheels, we will be happy to talk about the variability of interaction with our products, about technical changes that have made the service even more efficient.
The main thing is that after so many trials, we will be very happy to meet our old friends again and expand our contacts with new potential partners.
See you at SBC Summit Barcelona!
TVBET will be exhibiting at Stand J9 at this month’s SBC Summit Barcelona, which takes place from 20-22 September.
