SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
bet365 has partnered with Infront Bettor, the betting arm of Swiss sports marketing firm Infront, in an international content distribution deal to expand its video product offering.
Terms of the agreement will see the Stoke-based global bookmaker stream 18,000 hours of sports video content from 30 rights holders to 80 million customers in over 160 countries.
An additional goal is to reduce stream latency, ideally from the ‘current standard’ of between six and nine seconds, with Infront highlighting the measurement of data latency in ‘low milliseconds’, causing significant setbacks for data and video distribution.
Chris Catling, Head of Infront Bettor, said: “This is a major agreement for Infront Bettor. It has been a busy and exhilarating few months launching the division, building out major and robust operations, acquiring a highly desirable set of betting rights and communicating to the market our new service.
“To agree terms with a partner who has led the digital revolution of online betting and is as forward-thinking as bet365 validates the hard work up until this point. I am excited to deliver our content to bet365 and to work with industry leaders to develop our proposition even further.”
To achieve the partnership’s goals, Infront Bettor intends to cooperate closely with its partner, IGameMedia, to integrate the product enhancement into bet365’s content portfolio and reduce latencies to ‘around one second’.
The project will cover competitions which Infront holds exclusive marketing rights for, and is an initiative of Infront Bettor’s Media, Betting and Technology unit.
Tournaments included in the deal are the EFL Cup, Coupe de France, Turkish Superlig, IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship and the Champions Hockey League (CHL).
Catling continued: “When we were designing our service and products we were very aware of bringing this to the market across our content portfolio.
“With a market leader like bet365 showing a real desire to embrace real time streaming, I see a new horizon for video products that drive betting engagement and interactivity increasing the fan engagement and betting experience.”
bet365’s desire to upgrade its video content comes as the firm pursues further international growth, particularly within the US where it recently made market entry in Virginia, its fourth active state.
Amikam Kranz, Vice President of Infront Bettor’s Media, Betting and Technology division, said: “I am thrilled with this new deal. It marks a significant achievement for our Media, Betting and Tech division and we are starting to see the fruition of bringing these business units together.
“These synergies are driving the rapid growth of our betting division. Our partnership with a market leader like bet365 is a testament to our commitment and we look forward to this partnership growing and making the breadth of Infront’s offerings available to them.”
