SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Horse racing is a betting powerhouse in the UK, but in recent years its struggles have become widely known and a question has subsequently been raised – can the sport innovate enough to cope with these testing times?
Though football surpassed racing as the UK’s most popular betting sport some time ago now, many gaming industry stakeholders believe that racing still has what it takes to innovate and adapt. These figures include Russell Colvin, Commercial Director UK at EveryMatrix.
Colvin joined the B2B betting and gaming solutions developer last summer when it acquired FSB Technology, where he was working in senior management at the time. Bringing his experience of sportsbook and particularly racing betting operations with him, Colvin has played a key role in spearheading EveryMatrix’s racing-oriented products.
He told SBC News: “On a personal level, I think horse racing is still an extremely exciting sport to bet on – you can place your bet and have the result within a couple of minutes. So, I think it is still an exciting support but you can’t ignore the fact that there has been a decline in the last few years.
“I think if we can innovate within that market, within the racing product, and bring new products and features to it, hopefully we can look to not only make it more appealing to the younger generation, but also improve margins for operators with more derivative markets, products like bet builders and in-play, potentially.”
Taking Bet Builders from football to racing
Colvin spoke to SBC News at EveryMatrix’s HQ in London on its opening day. Prior to the interview, SBC watched a series of presentations by EveryMatrix senior staff, showcasing the firm’s different products and solutions, its goals and ambitions, and overall performance.
Something that stood out during these presentations was the racing betting product, with the presentation referencing EveryMatrix’s development of in-play and bet builder products specifically around horse racing.
These features have proven successful in football, which as already noted is the UK’s most popular betting sport, having taken over from horse racing around 2019. The interview with Colvin provided the perfect opportunity to follow up on this and ask the question – what can racing learn from other sports?
“I think it can and it will. It’s the second most popular sport within the UK, in terms of a betting sport, and so it should look to try and innovate further. I think we’ll achieve that,” he said.
As the firm continues development of its racing product, bet builders will, as Colvin explained, play a key part. Bonusing will also factor into its sportsbook proposition, with a particular focus on player loyalty underpinning a lot of the firm’s ambitions.
This was something explained to SBC in separate interviews during the opening of EveryMatrix’s new HQ, including with CEO Ebbe Groes and Stian Enger, CEO of the firm’s Casino Unit.
Summarising the firm’s ambitions around the racing product, Colvin said: “It’s certainly something that a lot of our competitors have tried to do and failed, building this proprietary racing product, which is why a lot of B2B businesses choose to go down the route of using a third party racing product as an example.
“EveryMatrix wanted to do it properly, and they wanted to make sure that it was integrated and working harmoniously with the EverrMatrix platform, which then enables all of the other products within the EveryMatrix platform to work with that racing product.
“The fact that the development team, and the guys that supported from FSB, have delivered this within six months, is incredible.”
