Kambi's Head of Tennis, Philip Mardh, previews the second Grand Slam on the tennis calendar
Read More Kambi’s SVP of Sales, Sarah Robertson, reflects on a year in which Kambi has solidified its position as the world’s leading B2B sportsbook with key signings and renewals
Q: How do you reflect on 2023 for Kambi? What have been the commercial highlights and operational achievements?
A: From a commercial perspective, new partnerships with renowned operators including Bally’s, Svenska Spel and LiveScore Group clearly illustrate the strength of our product and strategy, as are the on-property agreements we have sealed with organisations such as Potawatomi Casino Hotel, WarHorse Gaming and Prairie Band Casino & Resort.
What should not be undervalued in the excitement of new signings is the impact of renewing with existing partners, and throughout 2023 we have entered into new agreements with key partners including ATG, BetPlay, LeoVegas and Rush Street Interactive, underlining the quality of Kambi’s long-term trajectory.
The commercial progress we are making is underpinned by extensive enhancements made to core elements of our sportsbook. This included debuting cash out and in-game functionality for our award-winning Bet Builder product ahead of Super Bowl LVII, while our AI-trading division, which has processed hundreds of millions of bets to date, became Tzeract, and is ready to usher in the next dimension of sports betting.
Q: How significant are the partnerships the business has signed this year, most recently with Svenska Spel and LiveScore Group?
A: The last 12 months have demonstrated the demand for Kambi’s Complete sportsbook among top-tier operators, and the underlying commercial momentum of the entire Kambi Group. In a year marked by several significant additions to our growing range of partners, signing with Svenska Spel following a highly competitive bid process was an important moment, partnering Kambi with one of the most prominent sports betting brands in Sweden. Alongside our landmark agreement with LiveScore Group, we have signed partnerships with two operators with well established brands and large customer databases, and ambitious plans to drive further growth leveraging Kambi’s sports betting technology.
A factor worth emphasising is that the partnership with Svenska Spel includes provision for Shape Games to supply its leading, fully-native front end technology to the operator. Having also signed agreements with Kambi partners BetCity and SunBet, the appeal and synergy of the Kambi-Shape combination to both new and existing Kambi partners is evident.
Our partnership with Bally’s Corporation, signed in May 2023, has also been key. The operator selected Kambi to revamp its sportsbook offering – moving away from existing in-house technology – and we are live in multiple states, including Arizona, Iowa New York and Virginia.
Q: November saw Kambi’s AI-powered trading division become Tzeract. What are the ambitions for the new brand, and how is AI driving the evolution of sports betting?
A: Tzeract is the new name for our award-winning AI-powered trading division and signals the next stage in the evolution of Kambi’s bet creation and trading capabilities. It has already processed hundreds of millions of bets since launching in 2022 – powering much of Kambi’s pre-match soccer offering and with preparations advanced to roll the technology out across tennis and live soccer.
Player behaviour is moving towards the products and bet offers that only complex algorithms have the capacity to deliver, and the growing richness and complexity of data increasingly requires AI to help interpret and trade these products correctly.
Tzeract enables Kambi to set a new standard for bet creation with a complete overhaul of the conventional, static bet offer list model which can struggle to keep pace with the shift towards end user curated markets. It is a comprehensive AI platform capable of odds compiling, trading and risk management across the full offering, and has the capacity to be truly revolutionary in how it expands both the scope of the products we can create, as well as how they are packaged for the end user – providing limitless opportunities for innovation and the building of bespoke products as we move away from the rigid and traditional monolithic bet offer platform.
Q: With Abios, Shape Games and now Tzeract growing the wider Group, can you expand on Kambi’s modularisation strategy?
A: Kambi’s vision is to be the pioneer of next generation betting entertainment that players demand and operators can’t compete without. We have a singular focus on sports betting, and providing a Complete sportsbook service with a depth and quality of offering that few can match, empowering partners to grow faster than the market.
Kambi Complete is the world’s most trusted, revenue-driving full turnkey sportsbook, but Kambi also offers a broad range of modular services – a range of tailored solutions capable of meeting the needs of operators with existing third-party software or their own in-house sportsbook.
Kambi Flex is built on Kambi’s open platform with a mix and match of Kambi and third-party products, while Kambi Select enables sportsbooks to enhance their existing platforms with a selection of high-quality modular services such as Kambi’s AI-powered odds feeds, esports odds powered by Abios and front-end UX powered by Shape Games.
The progress being made both unilaterally and as part of the Kambi platform by Abios in esports data and odds provision, and Shape Games with its market-leading front-end technology, underlines the commercial rationale behind our modularisation strategy, into which Tzeract will fit seamlessly alongside as part of the wider Kambi Group.
Q: Which markets is the business targeting in 2024?
A: As the trusted provider to operators on six continents Kambi maintains a global outlook and strategic focus on markets all over the world. We have made extensive commercial progress throughout Europe and the Americas in 2023 and will continue to build on the momentum we have developed throughout 2024.
We are also placing focus on continuing our commercial expansion throughout Latin America. Having supported BetPlay to achieve a position of market leadership in Colombia’s regulated market, we are also live with a number of partners throughout countries including Argentina, Mexico and Peru. Brazil remains an important area of focus, and we are well placed to capitalise following the Senate’s approval of sports betting regulation through partnerships with organisations including Rei do Pitaco, the nation’s largest provider of daily fantasy sports.
On that note, we are keeping a watchful eye on regulatory developments throughout the globe, assessing long-term opportunities in markets which hold significant potential including California, Texas, India and Japan which would significantly increase the scale of our total addressable market as we build towards our strategic objectives.
