SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Free-to-play (FTP) sports game provider SportCaller has made its new Free Or 4 game available to William Hill, helping the operator drive both engagement and retention.
Free Or 4 asks players to select six games in which they believe three or four total goals will be scored from the Saturday long-list of 3pm UK kick-offs.
If players are able to make six successful selections, then all of their correct entries will receive £200 in free sportsbook bets. However, there are also smaller, easy-trigger prizes for any customer picking five, or even four, matches correctly.
Cillian Barry, MD at SportCaller, said: “Flexibility in the ideation and deployment of FTP games came to the fore during the sporting shutdown, but we’re seeing that trend extend in sync with the new normal.
“William Hill understands these shifting sands of engagement, so it was a great experience to work alongside their dedicated team, coupled with some illuminating focus-group feedback, to create a game with simplicity, universal appeal and a core retention mechanic at its heart.
“The early engagement levels have been impressive, while the conversion rates to active users speak directly to the trust and brand recognition which these simple “winnable” games can readily foster.”
The roll out of SportCaller’s latest game marks William Hill’s first return to football free-to-play since its Football21 game in 2018.
By shifting away from low-probability prize pots, SportCaller believes that Free Or 4 will help deliver ‘greater levels of sophistication and appeal’ by offering attainable prizes as ‘a robust method of retention’.
Liam Barbour, Head of Customer Product at William Hill, added: “It’s fantastic to broaden our ongoing collaboration with SportCaller and get back to free-to-play on football, sportsbook’s perennial revenue-driver.
“We took our time developing Free Or 4, working in tandem with numerous focus groups, customer research and testing so that we could establish a straightforward concept whose intuitive playability instantly resonated with our thriving client-base.
“The results have been both immediate and encouraging and I look forward to seeing how our customers engage with the game throughout the domestic football season.
“As ever, SportCaller’s gameplay finesse has helped enhance brand loyalty and digital dwell-time, proving themselves versatile masters in the competitive “attention economy” of modern engagement.”
