SVP of Sales, Sarah Robertson, on how Kambi Group is delivering greater flexibility than ever for operators through its increasingly open turnkey sportsbook and expanded product portfolio
Q: Kambi comes to ICE with its new tagline ‘Together we are limitless’. Can you tell us more about that?
A: It’s a bit of a departure for us ‘Together we are limitless’ but we’re really excited about it. It’s really meant to demonstrate that we’ve had quite a big shift at Kambi in that we’ve expanded our product portfolio, some through M&A and some through the expansion of our existing products. We now have several Group companies supporting different kinds of spaces in the industry. We have the Kambi Sportsbook brand which is a well-known and established product, but we now also have Abios, an esports company that supplies standalone esports products, Shape Games a front end specialist company, and we’ve just recently launched Tzeract which has built out a multi-sport, AI-driven model so that we can deliver more cutting edge offerings.
Q: Kambi places a high emphasis on agility and flexibility, how are you showcasing that in your products and what you’re bringing to market?
A: Historically we’ve been very well known as an end-to-end sportsbook and that obviously doesn’t fit everyone’s needs. What we’ve tried to do over the last few years is really to create a more flexible offering, creating modular products across our Group companies but also creating more flexibility within the sportsbook. This includes optionality around front end and pricing. We’ve come a long way over the last four years to really develop the product to be much more flexible and bespoke for specific operators.
Q: From a commercial perspective, what do customers want in 2024 and what are what are they seeking in the market?
A: That’s very dependent on specific markets but most tier-one operators are looking for a good amount of flexibility and control over their product. What we set out to do when we set up these modular products is to be able to service more of those tier ones that may only want pricing for a specific sport or may only want a front end or may only want esports from us. We’re now much more flexible to be able to deliver those independently outside of the sportsbook.
Q: Can you talk more about Tzeract?
A: We’ve seen that AI is a big theme in the industry around being able to provide things such as AI-driven pricing. We took the strategic decision a few years ago to look at where we think the sportsbook space is going as we know we now have much richer data sets. Historically we were really focused on main markets, 1X2 etc., now we can see across our network and our operators that player-specific markets are becoming incredibly popular. ‘Next shot on target’ is one of our most popular markets on our sportsbook, for example, so we made the decision to build out a unit with a really multi-dimensional model allows us to price much more efficiently and be able to do those hard to price markets like player-specific markets, exotic markets and micro markets.
Q: Even within a saturated market Kambi has still grown commercially and still gaining tier one clients. How are you achieving that?
A: We had a really successful year last year, signing Bally’s, Svenska Spel and LiveScore within 2023. So it was a really busy year for our commercial team. The way we won those deals is through a lot of the things I’ve spoken about such as enhanced flexibility and control for those operators mentioned which are all tier one operators in their markets. We wanted to be able to ensure that their technology choices supported their marketing and strategic ambitions for their product and I think our sportsbook product is now able to do so with that enhanced flexibility.
Q: What should we expect from Kambi in 2024, what are you bringing to market and what should people be looking out for?
A: We’re still really focused on the sportsbook solution – that’s our bread and butter and where we are still looking to sign up the large tier one customers and market leaders. We now have this enhanced focus around selling modular services, so I think my team’s focus this year is looking to drive sales for Tzeract, being able to sell independent modular odds feed products to customers that are looking for a really advanced offering in certain sports.
