Margins vs acquisition – why has bet365 joined the ‘Super Sub’ betting wave?

Bet builders have become a mainstay of British betting and are now being exported overseas, but the product is also undergoing a revamp with the addition of ‘Super Sub’-style features.

Today, bet365 became the latest company to announce a version of the Super Sub, which has been doing the rounds at Flutter Entertainment brands over recent months, as well as at William Hill.

The online bookmaker has unveiled ‘Sub On Play On’. Similar to the ‘Super Sub’ first launched on Paddy Power and the ‘Impact Sub’ later launched on William Hill, the feature will see a bettor’s wager on a player roll over to their replacement if the player in question is subbed off during a game.

Bet365 is hitting the ground running with the product, taking it live across 20 different countries and across its most popular sports markets including the Premier League, LaLIga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Champions League.

A bet365 spokesperson said: “We’re delighted to deliver Sub On Play On to our customers around the world. We’re confident that it will be quickly become a fan-favourite, joining our existing portfolio of standout football promotions.”

The costs of innovation?

So why is bet365 doing this? The obvious answer is competition and innovation – after all, customers will always be attracted to the product that offers them the most.

In this regard, Sub On Play On will meet the challenge Paddy Power and William Hill have established with their sub products. It may even cause some headaches for Power and Hills given bet365’s reputation in the industry for high-quality products popular with the end user.

This is similar to when the bet builder was first introduced by Sky Bet years ago to later become a staple of most bookmakers’ offerings, and now making its mark in the US in the form of ‘same game parlays’. Super Sub appears to have done a speed run in this respect, with Paddy Power’s fellow Flutter brand, FanDuel, also offering it.

The main reason a customer will bet using a Super Sub product is of course that it improves their likelihood of winning. If a player is subbed for whatever reason, this can sink a player’s bet in a matter of seconds – Super Subs provide an insurance against this.

This may present an issue for bookmakers further down the line as more winning customers could potentially bite into bottom lines. In bet365’s case, for example, the product is far-reaching, being offered across multiple bet types including goalscorers, bookings, shots and assists.

This offers customers a lot of ways to win – and put simply this is great for the customer but not always great for the bookmakers’ bottom line. Others firms may feel prompted to now do the same as Paddy Power, William Hill and bet365 to meet the challenge the duo have laid down.

These product launches also come at an interesting time given it is results season, and the impact of Super Sub’s on Flutter margins and customer acquisition has already been discussed after the firm released its latest record-breaking financials – you can check out the iGaming Daily podcast below to see what SBC Media made of this.

The potential impacts have not been lost on other stakeholders. Commenting on a LinkedIn post about the recent spate of betting financials, Eoin Ryan, Director of Sportsbook and eGaming at BVGroup, raised the topic of super subs.

“I would love to see some data on what Super Sub does to builder margins at PP. We took a look at it, and it was pretty much an extinction level event on margin,” he said.

“I see that Evoke have tailored their version, suggesting they may have seen that. Might be one to pin them on in one of your cavity search post result calls…”

Bookmakers and their product teams will have a bit of a balancing act to fine tune over the coming months – the need to acquire and retain customers will have to be balanced with the ever-present need to preserve revenues, even more critical for big plcs like Flutter and Entain which have ever-demanding shareholders to answer to.