Betfred: Never down to luck

Our countdown of the most-read stories from SBC Leaders magazine in 2024 reaches number 6, with a feature originally published in Issue 32. New Chief Intelligence Officer Andrew Daniels speaks to Ted Menmuir about the tricky task of transforming Betfred’s High Street market leadership into digital success.

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In the first-half of the year, Betfred announced that it had completed its £100m acquisition and integration of technology partner Sharp Gaming, completing its migration onto a new tech stack for its digital operations. 

After completing the two-year project, the former CEO of Sharp Gaming and new Betfred Group Chief Intelligence Officer (CIO) Andrew Daniels speaks to SBC Leaders about the all-new tech division at Betfred, which seeks to transition its retail success onto digital channels.

“The swing between England winning and losing is millions,” says Andrew Daniels, the new Chief Intelligence Officer (CIO) of Betfred. “I’m an England fan. I really want them to win… But let’s just say that an England win and Harry Kane as the top scorer outcome will batter us!”

On the eve of the UEFA Euro 2024 final, between England and Spain, the dilemma of Betfred’s new intelligence chief sums up sports betting’s ever-present conundrum. Does intelligence count in a sector where uncontrollable elements ultimately impact end results, be it a red card, a rainy pitch, poor refereeing, or Harry Kane scoring or missing a penalty?

“Can you quantify intelligence against risk or luck?” Daniels asks. “I have thought about this, as Betfred was founded on (company founder) Fred Done’s winnings when England won the World Cup in 1966.” 

Once more, everything revolves around England and football this summer.

Everyone’s in transformation mode 

Daniels believes that although betting has evolved through technology, “the fundamental practice of bookmaking remains the same”. 

“You can add more data, machine learning, or AI into the mix, but it will always be about your book being matched against the punter, and you don’t control the elements in your destiny.”

Gambling, and sports betting in particular, are blunt risk-based industries, but reality should not undermine the importance of intelligence as a corporate competency. Reflecting on his 20-year career in gambling, intertwined with Betfred developments, Daniels points to “intelligence breaking corporate hierarchies and precedents”.

“Every business has its foundations. We are coming up to 60 years, starting from a small family business in Manchester to operating the UK’s largest retail estate of betting shops. We now want to be an agile, technology-first led business. It’s a process. My role is to help that transformation and make sure we get there.”

In his response, Daniels triggered the word “transformation”, which has become almost omnipresent in the vernacular of industry management in 2024. Questioned on the mere reality that all costs are increasing, and margins squeezed for industry incumbents, can intelligence outperform the hard realities of a cutthroat sector?

“Historically, gambling businesses that made a lot of money could mask inefficiencies, but that’s not the case now with operating costs driving up and margins being tightened.” 

Daniels points to multiple gambling PLC competitors entering “transformation phases” in the past year, stating: “I’m not surprised they have their eyes on the share price and they need to drive efficiencies in their businesses.”

For gambling PLCs, Daniels notes that investors have pressured executive teams to copy the corporate efficiencies of Silicon Valley giants such as Amazon, Apple, and Google – “transformations that are forced on operators to adapt to.”

Beyond Fred

Probed on the factors driving Betfred’s transformation, and whether company founder and chairman Fred Done views intelligence as an innovation dynamic or a cost efficiency, Daniels reflected on the leadership team accepting its generational changes.

“Fred remains heavily involved in our business and recognises that we no longer operate as a traditional bookmaker, but that the company he founded is more akin to a financial services business.”

Though rooted as a family business, Betfred’s transformation has been led by Chief Executive and former IT boss Joanne Whittaker since April 2021. Whittaker leads a new executive team, tasked with the mission of growing Betfred “above and beyond the Fred Done era.”

“Fred built a phenomenally successful retail bookmaker. But we have not reached that same parity digitally. We have also seen our competitors expand internationally.”

Unlike PLC rivals, Betfred has no specific timeline to achieve its digital transformation, as the only objective “is to get there, by making these big strategic changes.”

“We don’t have any real option. We do it ourselves, or we’re never going to be in control of our own destiny. So whatever it’s going to take, whatever it’s going to cost, we’re going to keep doing it,” says Daniels.

Retail therapy

Although Betfred faces tough choices in its digital evolution, Daniels underscores the company’s proven resilience and pragmatism in becoming the UK gambling sector’s biggest retail operator. During a decade of conflict around fixed odds betting terminals, many PLCs shrunk their retail footprint, which allowed Betfred to expand its position and market share, building the firm’s most lucrative unit.

Strategically, Daniels views Betfred’s ground-based number one retail position as the platform to accelerate online growth. However, he is not as convinced as some that an omni-channel strategy is the be-all and end-all for UK digital operations.

“Strategists told us not to invest as it’s a diminishing return on retail bookmaking, but our turnover has returned to pre-COVID levels, whilst our competitors are still recovering.”

As operating efficiencies are demanded from operators, Betfred maintains retail as its cost-effective stronghold, bringing its brand daily to an actively engaged audience. As a discipline omnichannel is not the be-all of a digital strategy needed for Betfred’s UK business. 

Daniels has witnessed many disbalanced omnichannel strategies that paralyse growth between retail and digital businesses – “Retail has kept us in a good place and given us an advantage. We now have to control our technology stack and become nimble… Unlike others, we have not met our saturation point.”

“In every market we compete in, our biggest challenge has been technology,” continues Daniels. “But I believe that our competitors are in the same boat.”

Having completed the two-year integration of Sharp Gaming, as Betfred lead technology partner, Daniels views the launch of the Betfred Technology unit as the next step in Betfred’s evolution.

“For us, it is day one, as we now have control of our own technology. Like retail we want to be in control of our digital offering, but also expand internationally.”

“To me it is about enabling that, by supplying technology that gives the business the tools that we can grow, we can expand, we can go into new markets and we can do that underpinned by a technology platform that is scalable, reliable and economical to run.”

Via a new technology platform Betfred controls its destiny. Yet, for Daniels and colleagues, the generational bet is whether it can control its digital future against all of gambling’s unpredictable outcomes within an evolving marketplace. 

As such, a  tough endeavour awaits Betfred’s new Technology unit, as once more the firm’s ambitions mirror that of the England football team… as the hits and misses will be in the millions.