Genius Sports aspires to a ‘new standard for in-play betting’ with latest BetVision release
Genius Sports has unveiled the latest iteration of its streaming and in-play betting product, BetVision, ahead of this Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX.
The annual NFL championship game will see American Football Conference champions and two-time defending Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, go head-to-head with National Football Conference champions the Philadelphia Eagles at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Billed by Genius Sports as “the future of in-play betting”, BetVision offers viewers of the big game an interactive overlay of betting tools and stats, enabling them to interact with it in real time as they watch.
Describing the new features to me this week, Chief Product Officer Matt Fleckenstein said the priority when launching the product last year, and in building on the more interactive and intelligent features this year, was to “create a new standard for in-play betting.”
Demos of the product certainly appear to be slick and rich with features. If the promise of low-latency streaming delivers to the extent Fleckenstein says it does, this does seem to be a product that moves in-play betting on for sports fans and regular bettors alike.
In fact, this week saw Washington’s Monumental Sports Network add a similar feature to its Monumental+ app, enabling users to see real-time sports betting odds and gamification during live game streams for the NHL’s Washington Capitals and NBA’s Washington Wizards.
Fleckenstein acknowledges the product is similar, but there are differences, he says. “If you look at similar products,” he explains, “I can watch the game, and I can see odds in it, but I’ve got to go somewhere else to place the bet, versus being able to have this seamless, all contained, interactive experience.”
Next generation in-play
BetVision is designed around three pillars: it’s immediate, intelligent and immersive, according to Fleckenstein. “We think that’s going to be really important to users. Actually, our data has shown it,” he says, “when we have it versus when we don’t have it.”
He says when the product was launched last season, some of the sportsbooks didn’t have an integrated betting slip, where users can place a bet from within the screen they are watching the game on. They would be able to watch, see stats and odds, but had to leave to place a bet.
“We see the uptick when you have an integrated bet slip, the likelihood of somebody placing and finishing a bet is 5x what it would be if you had to go elsewhere,” he says. “That’s all related to in-play betting and a lot of these micro markets, like the player props, because people want to be quick. Because honestly, those markets move so fast. The odds could have changed by the time I place my bet.”
BetVision hopes that this fast, engaging, blend of broadcast and gaming features will be the driving force behind building in-play momentum in the US, where it is currently far less popular than it is in Europe, for example.
Fleckenstein, who has been at Genius Sports for around 20 months, having joined from a similar role at The Walt Disney Company, estimates that traditionally only around 20% of the bets are in-play in the US.
In contrast, about 59% of BetVision bets are in-play, although it’s worth saying that users do have to actively bet to retain access to the game stream.
“You’re seeing that help drive that shift that we talked about,” Fleckenstein adds. “And this just increases the appetite for things like player props and the micro markets that have trailed a bit in the US. We’re seeing about half of the bets that are wagered within BetVision on those micro markets. Which is also a pretty substantial shift.”
Uniquely placed
As Fleckenstein also highlights, it’s no coincidence that Genius Sports is driving this interactive in-play betting forward. Founded in London as a betting data specialist in 2001, Genius Sports has its roots in fast, accurate data provision working across integrity, odds and gamification products.
“Our core is bringing a new fan experience to the table, but it’s essentially the same types of betting that we’ve done for 20 years. This is kind of where we’ve made our bread and butter,” he says. “We’ve had to increasingly rely on more sophisticated models, increasingly rely on AI for our Genius IQ layer that we built. So, this is our core.”
He says it’s what attracted him to join Genius Sports 20 months ago, the sophisticated use of data and technology across the broadcast and sports betting space. “As you look at this next wave of fan experience, it’s all about the convergence of these all coming together,” he says.
Genius plans to roll BetVision out more widely later this year, with BetVision for soccer set to launch across about 20 leagues from around the globe in the second quarter of this year and then basketball, across 15 to 20 leagues, in the latter two quarters of the year.
I ask how difficult it is to scale this product given the broadcast rights and data management involved. “There’s only a few players who are uniquely suited to do this at any kind of scale,” Fleckenstein tells me. “We happen to be one of a couple that can do it. There’s lots of complications there. I’m not trying to minimize or trivialize those. It’s just that’s the business that we’ve been in for many years and that’s why we are who we are.”
Beyond branching out into soccer and basketball, the team behind BetVision hope to build on the immersive features of their in-play betting products, and to take them into free-to-play and fantasy sports.
“As we look ahead, we believe there’s an opportunity for us to revolutionize the way that short form content; highlights, clips, and reels are experienced today,” Fleckenstein says. “Right now, there’s a number of broadcast cameras in a venue, so everybody sees a given play, a moment, and they all kind of see the same moment. They see it from the broadcast view. There’s a lot that you can do with convergence of the broadcast replay, the data, the advanced statistics, the next gen stats that we make available.”
He says Genius has experimented with deploying iPhones into soccer and basketball venues to create 3D live recreations of what’s happening on the floor, that enables viewers to see things from the players’ point of view or to show angles of the same broadcast replay that you otherwise couldn’t get. “We think of these as an opportunity to go from just the basic broadcast replay to these rich data infused 3D multi-view types of highlights.”
Looking ahead
Last year BetVision was in the US, this year its available in 13 different countries and the expectation is for that global footprint to grow dramatically. “I don’t know yet exactly how many countries, but it will be dozens and dozens of countries,” Fleckenstein says. “We really believe that this is the future of in-play betting.”
But as Genius pushes forward into more jurisdictions with a greater array of in-play products, Fleckenstein is cognisant of the responsibility on the betting industry to do so responsibly.
Last year’s slew of betting integrity related suspensions, bans and arrests, including the high-profile NBA-Jontay Porter case placed this issue high on the agenda. Already this year new allegations are emerging out of the same investigation that uncovered the Porter scandal.
“As sport and the sports betting industry continues to grow, trust is going to increasingly become the number one value,” Fleckenstein says. “Players like Genius Sports, and sports books who do the things that are necessary to ensure a healthy growing industry – versus just a growing industry – they’re the ones who we believe are going to get the lion’s share of the handle and the fan engagement and the acquisition going forward.”
He says interest in Genius Sports’ integrity and risk products is greater than ever before and he believes that the top tier operators and suppliers are stepping up to lead that charge.
“I know there have been quotes out there in the press saying we should eliminate player props and college sports but the challenge with doing that is if you don’t enable that stuff to happen in the right way, it’s still going to happen, it’s going to happen in the underground market, and then you’ve lost all control and management and integrity, and allowed it to kind of be thrown out the window,” he says.
It’s true of course that the black-market will always step in where over-regulation puts a stranglehold on offering gambling products legitimately. For now, Genius Sports is hopeful that its 20-year sports betting background will give it the edge on both product and integrity.
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