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As one of the more mature betting markets, Europe still holds a wealth of opportunities for expansion – something that FSB has been capitalising on.
Over the last few months, FSB has expanded its partnership portfolio across a host of markets as well as at home in the UK – all the while, it has also been making significant moves Stateside.
Andrew Grimshaw, Business Development Director for UK & Europe at FSB, spoke at SBC Summit Barcelona about some of the company’s biggest partnerships across Europe and the expansion of FSB’s retail estate.
“We made a major announcement recently. We signed a long-term deal with tier one casino group Olympic Entertainment. We are absolutely delighted with the agreement; I’m really looking forward to working with them going forward.
“Olympic Entertainment is a pan-European business and they’re the kind of company that FSB is looking to work with.
“On the other side of the coin in the UK, we’re looking to expand our footprint in terms of our retail products. We also announced a deal with Bet Central in the UK; it adds another 16 self service betting terminals to the estate.
“What this now means is our SSBT estate is starting to grow in volume. We’re getting a really good data set out of that. The margins that we’re getting from retail are absolutely fantastic.
“It’s been a good couple of weeks, and there are some big announcements in the pipeline. Hopefully, there’ll be plenty more to follow over the next few months.”
FSB & the World Cup
The World Cup is fast approaching. And with all eyes on Qatar, the betting industry is turning its attention towards player engagement and access to data in a bid to help deliver the best user experience.
In terms of product development, Grimshaw made it clear that FSB has plenty of plans in the pipeline. As well as the recent upgrades to the firm’s React platform, he noted that its partners can also expect access to more micro-markets, high speed data as well as more omnichannel capabilities.
He said: “In terms of product development, a key thing for us was the React upgrade. A few months back, some of our key clients moved on to the React platform; that just delivers a higher degree of performance for operators. And obviously, user experience is everything. The feedback that we’ve received from the upgrade has been absolutely fantastic, so we’re very happy about that.
“We’ve also partnered with Abelson. That premium data feed allows us to add what we call micro-markets to the existing football product that we have. That’s been a great addition. We’ve integrated Abelson’s data feed into a product within FSB called Create A Bet, which others might know as a bet builder product. That type of product is going to be essential as we approach the World Cup.
“It’s been a busy period for the online space. For retail, we’ve launched additional capabilities in the omnichannel area where you can scan a bet slip and add that to your digital wallet. We keep incrementally improving that omnichannel functionality as a business, which has been great to see.”
When it comes to the World Cup, it’s of the utmost importance that operators have access to data which will help them best engage with their customer base. This is something that FSB has placed front of mind when partnering with sportsbooks.
Grimshaw continued: “FSB is obviously supplying premium, high speed, low latency data which is absolutely vital to operators at this important time. Also, we’ve added automated bonuses to bring players back – especially with the high frequency of events that operators are looking to engage with their customer base on.
“They’re some of the key features and services that we’d expect operators to want from a business like us. What is also vitally important is uptime and knowing that the platform itself is extremely reliable. So at FSB, we’re incredibly confident in that area of the business.”
Watch the full interview HERE
