ONEworks™ says apps for betting via mobile phone are the future for online sports books
ONEworks™—a world leader in business-to- business online platforms for sports betting—recently launched its mobile interface optimised for smartphones. It allows betting companies’ customers to place a wager while on the move. Tom Hall, Business Development director for ONEworks, explains to Inside Asian Gaming why ‘mobile’ is the future for online betting.
Inside Asian Gaming: How has the business developed since we spoke late last year?
Tom Hall: We’ve decided to focus on mobile—not just because mobile communications are becoming popular around the world, but because of the convergence of personal computer and mobile technologies as ways of accessing the Internet. Also sports betting lends itself to delivery via mobile devices, whereas with casino games or poker, it’s much more complicated to deliver them that way.
How are you building that mobile platform?
The iPhone app world and the ease of using those apps has taken the mobile communications world by storm. We prefer to have something that’s cross-platform, so we’ve built on HTML5 [programming language] a product that works on iPhone and works on Android, without having to buy it from an app store. It’s very easy to use.
And with the Asian operational experience of ONEworks and the insight we’ve gained from that; it’s also very fast. It allows you to do lots of ‘in play’ parlays [also known as accumulator bets; linking two or more bets together] during games—which Asian customers want, but are not so common on applications built by other people.
Do people have to register online via their phone to get an app?
Content delivery is optimised via the smartphone browser, and you have to be a customer of the betting operator. At this time the Asian [betting] operators still want the customers to go to their website and sign up, and then they give them access to the mobile version.
What we’ve been seeing is that customers have been using their mobile devices to bet more often, but in smaller amounts each transaction. Because customers are betting from a bar, or while they’re watching the game, they’re not betting quite as tightly. As a result, operators’ margins are better when customers are betting by mobile device.
Why are they betting more often?
It’s probably because they are betting more ‘in running’. So if you’re sitting at the bar wanting to have a bet, and watching a game in-running with your friends, it’s easy to bet by phone. It wouldn’t be easy to pull out a laptop to do that. And the days of ‘phoning your bookie have pretty much gone. Lots of small bets is good for the operators. And big bets can ruin the fun [in terms of the liquidity of the operators and bet pricing for the other transactions]. We make it very simple to bet. We have pre-sized bets offered so that players are not going to bet too big without specifically typing something in to the handset. We think that’s an important safeguard for the players.
Although our heritage is Asian, developing European markets is an important aspect of our development. ONEworks was the first sports betting company to get what’s called an Isle of Man network licence [allowing platform providers to work with sub-operator betting companies on either a business-to-business or business-to-consumer basis]. So we’ve set up our own hardware hub in the Isle of Man to replicate what we do in Asia.
Why do operators prefer to sign up customers via their traditional websites rather than a mobile handset app?
There are issues with customers signing up via a mobile device or depositing funds via a mobile device. The process is a little more complicated. I mean complicated technically, not in regulatory terms. When you’re depositing money or using a credit card, or a bank wire or one of the payment processing mechanisms, there’s usually quite a complicated multi-step process. While you can do that on a phone—just like you can on a home computer or laptop—sometimes the screen real estate is a bit complicated. So I think the operators’ view at the moment is ‘Let’s just make sure we sign up the customer on our traditional site where it’s as easy as possible for them’. Then the minute they’ve signed up they can use PC or mobile.
With the European operators where the payment processing is a bit more standardised, the operators are asking if we can build the sign up process into the app. So we have to take their [computer] sign up process and convert it into a mobile process. ONEworks doesn’t provide the electronic wallet side of the mobile betting business. We’re always integrating our sports book product with the operators’ wallet mechanisms.
Are Asian betting operators using ONEworks to expand their business in Europe?
A couple of our Asian operators are already quite well-established in Europe and have an Isle of Man licence or an Alderney licence. A lot of Asian operators—in order to reach their Asian customers—have been sponsoring European soccer teams in terms of shirt sponsorship or stadium advertising. Through that they have also got a customer following in Europe. They’re doing reasonably well in Europe and their product is very price-competitive because Asian pricing is generally finer in terms of operator margins than European operators’ pricing.
Is the ONEworks platform more focused on serving Asian-style betting products than European ones?
Probably what we lack at the moment is the full range of types of sports bets that are common in Europe. In soccer, for example, everyone likes to have these thousands of bet variations. They don’t actually make you—as an operator—any money. The number of bets placed on these things is tiny. But operators like to say they have a full range of bets. We’re looking at ways of offering that in partnership with a few other people. I don’t think they’re necessarily going to be popular products in Asia, which in bet volume terms is obviously a powerhouse. But we might look at doing some joint ventures with people that bring us that pricing in. We work in Asia with an affiliated company that has a team of traders that trades these events and prices. So if there’s enough demand from our licensees we will go back to them and say ‘Can you put some traders on to trade these markets?’ A lot of those products—such as the [soccer] corners market—are algorithm-driven off other events in a game.
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Tom Hall is recognised as one of the world’s leading experts on interactive gaming. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and investor forums and has been actively involved in gaming since 2002.
Mr Hall was the founder in 2002 of AsianLogic—one of the pioneers of online gaming and betting in Asia. He remains as non-executive Chairman of what is one the largest and most established operators in the region. In parallel to AsianLogic, Mr Hall was instrumental in the development of Playtech, the world’s largest supplier of software for online betting. He joined the Playtech board in 2002.
He subsequently became the CEO, with responsibility for overseeing global customer growth. He then swapped over to Global Business Development Director shortly before Playtech’s 2006 flotation on the London Stock Exchange. He remained as a Playtech director until 2010. That year he joined ONEworks™ —one of the world’s largest sports betting platform providers—as Business Development Director.
