SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
BETER has quickly become one of the most in-demand providers of fast-paced betting content and data in the market. Through its sports and esports divisions, it offers live streams, data, and odds across hundreds of thousands of events each year, all managed in-house.
To learn more about how the company is assisting operators in engaging next-gen bettors through its content, we interviewed Arsenii Salai, Sports Head of Strategic, and Evgeniy Bekker, Esports General Manager.
SBC News: Thanks for talking to us. To begin, before we look at what potentially lies ahead, what would you highlight as the major achievements gained in recent times in helping to drive BETER forward?
Arsenii Salai: During the last 12 months, BETER Sports completed incredibly productive work, adding new disciplines to our portfolio, increasing the number of events we are running (we surpassed 110,000 in 2023), and further enhancing our offerings to exceed the expectations of next-gen bettors.
In addition to levelling up our flagship in-house Setka Cup table tennis tournaments, we’ve added a new basketball series, BSKT Cup, and strengthened our table tennis offering with the launch of Ping Pong Point.
The team has also collaborated with national federations and competition organisers to deliver table tennis tournaments with live data and odds in the likes of Colombia, Serbia, Egypt and India.
We’ve continued to add more professional athletes to our team, which stands at more than 1,000 for table tennis alone, and have added more talent to our 150-strong trading team.
Integrity has remained a priority for the entire BETER organisation, with our policies, education program and whistleblowing platform resulting in just 0.01 per cent of events being investigated for suspicious activity.
Evgeniy Bekker: BETER Esports has enjoyed a year of tremendous growth. We delivered more than 370,000 in-house events of our ESportsBattle tournament series, including eFootball, eBasketball, eHockey and CS2 disciplines to our customers.
We also provided esports odds based on official data for more than 400 international esports tournaments across CS2, Dota 2, League of Legends, Valorant, and many other popular titles.
Our trading team covered more than 35,000 pre-match and 25,000 live events for these contests, which is about 30 per cent more than our competitors. This in turn allowed us to strike partnerships with some of the biggest companies in the business, including Novibet, Betsson, Superbet and Kaizen Group.
SBCN: Could each of you please share with our readers the goals for 2024 in the division you are responsible for?
AS: A major goal for the entire BETER company is to push ahead with our international expansion plans. As part of this, we have been working hard to secure licences and approvals in key regulated markets such as the US and are working closely with partners to deploy our content in the likes of South America and Africa.
For the sports division, we will continue to focus a lot of resources on the Setka Cup – we already offer more events each month than our competitors (we run more than 9,000 events each month alone), but over the coming 12 months will pull further ahead.
This will see us grow the community of fans that follow the Setka Cup and ramp up content production which takes place across three European countries. This means we can run the largest number of parallel matches, meeting bettor demand and helping our operator partners offer more of the most profitable market to their customers.
EB: In 2024, BETER Esports sets its sights on ambitious goals to solidify its position as a leader in the esports betting industry. This includes further expanding our presence into LatAm, and other prominent regions worldwide, and introducing our esports products and solutions to a broader audience.
We are actively exploring strategic partnerships to enrich our product portfolio. I would like readers to stay tuned for our exciting announcements in the near future.
We’re also dedicated to providing even more value to our existing clients. We’ll be expanding and improving our product portfolio, offering a wider range of services and enriching content quality.
This includes leveraging cutting-edge technologies to ensure our solutions remain at the forefront of the industry. Ultimately, every step we take is aimed at providing the best-in-class services and maximizing profitability for our clients.
SBCN: Related to the previous question, how do you plan to achieve them?
AS: There is a very strong team working behind the scenes at BETER to bring our leading content and experiences to market. They have built incredible momentum in recent years, and we will use this experience of creating in-demand fast-betting products and experiences to achieve the goals we have set.
This is underpinned by a commitment to fair play and meeting the highest standards of integrity – we have a dedicated team focused just on this – so that our customers can offer our content with confidence. This also helps us to foster incredibly strong partnerships with customers looking to launch our content in all of the markets they target.
EB: Arsenii already addressed this well, but to reiterate, achieving our goals hinges on our incredible teams. We’ll continue to deliver quality content that resonates with bettors, while maintaining the highest integrity standards. This unwavering commitment extends beyond content.
We’ll also be strategically investing in cutting-edge technology to ensure we stay ahead of market trends and offer the most advanced solutions. This ensures we not only meet but exceed customer expectations. By doing so, we’ll forge strong partnerships that fuel global expansion into new markets.
SBCN: We are right back in the swing of things when it comes to the exhibition season. How important are these for providers to ensure consistent momentum is maintained?
AS: Exhibitions are always important for content providers such as BETER, and for the markets in which they are held. From our point of view, it’s great to see some of the new, exciting products coming to market as well as showcasing what we have been working on.
It’s also nice to be able to share our experiences with others and to make new connections and contacts. We visit industry events to gain feedback on our product portfolio and especially our Setka Cup offering.
Recent feedback is that our arenas look really good and that our high quality, 24/7/365 coverage and significant margin stability are hitting the mark with our operator partners. Getting this feedback in person while contributing to the wider conversation is really important for us as we continue to go from strength to strength.
EB: Exhibitions are one of the most effective ways to showcase our products and get direct feedback from operators, suppliers, and other stakeholders. This valuable feedback is crucial for the continued development of our products and content, and for bringing new and exciting things to market.
This is why we’ve ramped up our event participation this year and will be taking stands at the upcoming SBC Summits in Lisbon and Miami.
SBCN: Again, regarding each division that you are responsible for, what fresh developments/introductions can we expect throughout 2024?
AS: It will be more of the same in terms of further developing Setka Cup, launching new disciplines, adding new initiatives for product development, fortifying our approach to integrity, entering new markets and forging more partnerships.
We are also working on plans to launch our proprietary table tennis events in a new region due to the rising demand among operators and bettors.
I can’t reveal too many details at this stage but what I can say is that table tennis is incredibly popular in this market and by adding an arena there, fans and bettors can wager on even more contests through high-quality content with lots of fast betting markets to explore.
EB: We’re excited to revamp our online marketing efforts, starting with the company’s website and webpages for our products, especially for ESportsBattle. These updates will provide a more informative and user-friendly online experience, including valuable insights and streamlined access to our products and services.
At the last ICE, we also showcased the new capabilities of our upgraded iFrame and Managed Trading Services, aimed at enhancing operational efficiency and market penetration for our clients.
Our MTS enables clients to provide bettors with our in-house tournaments and more than 60,000 pre-match and live events throughout the year.
In addition to these enhancements, we are dedicated to introducing new features and capabilities, ensuring our clients have the necessary tools to thrive in the competitive esports betting market. We are also considering launching innovative services designed to boost our client’s content reach efficiency.
These services will complement our existing portfolio, offering comprehensive solutions to meet all esports betting needs of our clients.
