SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
William Hill has enlisted Contentstack as its core content experience platform, with the long-term goal of supporting an ‘aggressive strategy’ focused on becoming an international, digitally led business.
An entirely rebuilt online portfolio of the operator’s properties will become available in June as part of updates to the William Hill Vegas casino vertical.
A centralised hub of William Hill offerings will form the core of the platform, which the bookmaker intends to leverage to offer ‘a streamlined customer experience’.
Following online gaming, sports betting products will be integrated into the platform, after which it will extend into the terminals within the bookmaker’s range of high-street retail outlets.
“Aside from the cultural fit between Contentstack and William Hill, it was obvious from our early assessment that the Contentstack product speaks for itself,” said Bartek Gerlich, the Head of Engineering for the Gaming Division at William Hill.
“We were particularly impressed by the ability to simplify A/B testing and the speed and ease with which we could spin up new properties and features. As a fully cloud-native solution, Contentstack removes a huge amount of the effort our developer team faces and so we are better able to focus on the customer experience.
“With regards to publishing, we have moved from new features taking half an hour to take effect to a matter of seconds. That kind of responsiveness is vital in the gaming industry.”
Contentstack has replaced a range of coupled content management systems that were unable to support William Hill’s expansion plans, and which were ‘impeding the speed’ at which the operator could iterate new features.
The firm was chosen due to its ‘headless architecture’ and ‘rapid deployment’, as well as the platform’s ability to quickly create high-performing, responsive iterations of William Hill’s games and web pages.
Additionally, Contentstack features an intuitive editor experience, driving productivity enhancements, which William Hill expects will enable robust customer data analytics, operational efficiency and marketing independence.
Matthew Baier, Co-Founder and COO at Contentstack, added: “Online entertainment is an industry that demands constant innovation to keep customers engaged.
“A modern MACH-based architecture lays a powerful and flexible foundation that enables brands to quickly create – and continuously enhance – compelling, physical and digital content experiences.
“It’s a strong competitive advantage for innovators like William Hill who are constantly looking for opportunities to delight their customers and, in turn, drive business growth.”
The new partnership comes as William Hill enters a transformative era of its corporate history, having been purchased by Ceasar’s Entertainment for £2.9 billion in April 2021.
Following the acquisition, Caesars Entertainment announced plans to sell all of William Hill’s non-US assets, including its aforementioned suite of retail venues, although the European division of the company was able to successfully launch in Colombia via the Alfabet brand in May.
