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Sometimes a concept comes along that's so simple you wonder why it's taken so long to arrive. Buzz Sport's ZonePlay is one such product...
Confusion is the enemy of success. If you want your product to go mainstream you have to make it simple, accessible and immediately understandable. In my younger days I would never in a million years have entered a bookmakers simply because I didn’t really know what odds of 10/11 meant, nor how to ask for what I really wanted. The day some genius put a poster up in the shop window that simply said “£5 on Ronaldo to score first on Saturday wins you £10” was a turning point in making gambling a simple, understandable (and more importantly, fun) pursuit that could be enjoyed by a sports enthusiast rather than a seasoned gambler.
Online gambling has certainly made the ‘one-click’ wager possible, but is it fun? Is it a live social activity that can be shared between a group of generally non-gambling mates who just want a ‘flutter’ to amuse themselves?
Buzz Sports’ ZonePlay is an online system that hopes to revolutionise on-the-spot sports betting. It supports various sports, offering a live window into the event itself as it ticks over and presenting the user with various simple ways to bet on the next outcome in the game, be that a corner in soccer, or an ‘ace’ in tennis. Casino International Online spoke to Buzz Sports’ Marketing Director, Ian Williams about the fledgling product…
Casino International Online: How did ZonePlay come into being?
Ian Williams: We have a ten year history in the online gaming business, especially sports betting. The owner of the company decided to spin off that knowledge into Buzz Sports, using the backend we already had as the platform to develop ZonePlay.
CIO: The product still appears as ‘Beta’…
IW: Well we went live in March 2011 after about three to four years in development, so it’s relatively new. We’re constantly updating it, adding new features and aspects to the game play, as well as adding new sports. We launched with just football, then introduced Aussie Rules as we have clients on the retail side based in Australia who wanted that product. We recently added live cricket, and that product is now trialing in Jennings stores. The numbers coming out of those locations are absolutely fantastic.
CIO: Was there anything that operated as ZonePlay does before you?
IW: No; it’s totally unique. People could copy it, but we think we probably have a two year head start on everyone else. People can look at it and say ‘oh right; it’s just betting on the next event or as the ball is moving around’, but to actually model the data is very difficult. We’ve got a team of statisticians here who work pretty much around the clock doing things like regression analysis on every game to ensure the models we’ve got are up to date and are working as predicted.
CIO: And you’re delivering this via online and direct to locations via terminal…
IW: Yes; the terminals are what we call third-party retail terminals, so they’re run by the likes of Jennings and Ladbrokes. We have them in Belgium; we have them in Croatia; we’ve just gone live in Italy and Germany… Buzz Sports as a company is all online; we don’t have any retail presence so we don’t operate the terminals for ‘us’, we supply them for the bookmaker or the casino, or whoever requires them.
CIO: Are there any differences between the online and terminal product?
IW: We have more capability online – where we have leaderboards and chat – and the stakes are capped at £10 on the terminals at the moment. We could increase that to whatever a user wants, but online you can bet up to £100 a unit.
CIO: How are the live games tracked for the system?
IW: We have a team of traders who not only trade the games, but also use the software to track the ball around the pitch or court (or wherever the sport demands). Depending upon when the ball is the model predicts the mathematical chance of a specific event happening based upon what data the model is feeding it.
CIO: So each game is down to a single individual manually tracking the game?
IW: Yes. There’s a pretty large amount of pressure, but we have a dedicated trader that trades that game, and then supervisors to watch the traders to make sure everything is as it should be and that the settlements are correct. We have instant feedback if something isn’t right. We always aim to have zero errors in the settlements, and if there ever is even one per game we feel quite disappointed.
CIO: How does the tracking system work?
IW: The traders have various screens on their desks; one shows the live coverage, while the other screen has a delay of 20 seconds so that the trader has another chance to view every event. They can also rewind footage to check back 100%. The bespoke software we’ve developed is quite sophisticated.
CIO: What’s the maximum number of events you can cover at any one time?
IW: It’s only limited by the number of traders we’ve got. The UK is probably one of the worst places to watch live soccer because there isn’t a live Saturday three o’clock kick off. However, we’ve got all the streams and stadium feeds, so on a Saturday we’ll be trading as many games as we’ve got pictures for. It really comes down to the wants and needs of the business. Is there much point trading West Ham vs Bolton when we’ve got Man Utd. Vs Chelsea on Sky? Probably not; It all comes down to general business decisions that I guess most bookmakers have on what games they want to trade in-running, and if they think there’s the volume there.
COI: How do you decide which events deserve coverage?
IW: To be honest people will bet on anything they can watch. A lot of punters sitting in a betting shop don’t really care where the action is coming from because right now they’re probably betting on virtual horse racing. The fact that they can watch a game from Saudi Arabia and bet on it in a shop is probably more attractive than betting on virtual dog racing. These guys know that this is a live product, and once they start seeing it in every shop they’ll really start to trust the game and play it more and more. We will take over the virtual sphere because we don’t need to be doing virtual betting when there’s live sport action on. The comment from Ladbrokes’ chief execs was that they want to know if in-play betting works in the shops and our product offers the easiest way for them to find that out without spending a whole bunch of time and money at their end.
CIO: Tell me about the delay on the betting...
IW: The delay between the ‘click’ and the bet placing depends upon the sport. With cricket it’s three seconds, with the AFL it’s five seconds, with soccer it’s longer [seven seconds] because the ball moves so quickly. On the models like cricket and tennis most of the models are premeditated; nothing would change dramatically between events. For instance, a player getting an ‘ace’ won’t affect the probability of him getting another ‘ace’. With football, however, if the ball is up one end of the pitch it dramatically affects the chances of there being a corner, free kick or goal at the other end of the pitch. Obviously there’s always a delay between live and the feed you receive as a customer, so there’s always going to be a minimum of at least three seconds just on the basis that someone could have prior knowledge of what’s going to happen or has happened.
CIO: When a big part of a product’s selling point is its simplicity, is it hard to hold back from over-developing it?
IW: Yes, something we’re very keen to do is keep it as simple as possible for the user. We could add a whole range of additional betting opportunities to it, but we’re very keen to be more of a sports entertainment company as opposed to a hardcore gambling company. We’ve had people requesting a number of features; they want in-play betting or constant props running throughout the game. These are all things we could add if we wanted, but we decided that we want to be known as the company that did this first and did it the best. We have a product that’s very difficult to copy and is unique in that no one else has done it and no one else can do it easily. The level of detail we’ve gone into with the models and the trading is very difficult to replicate.
COI: What’s the next area of focus for you now?
IW: The real priority is getting it out further in terms of new clients as well as increasing the number of sports that we cover. One of the issues we have right now is that we don’t have 24/7 coverage with sports, so from an acquisition-of-players point of view, bringing a guy in at eight o’clock in the morning leaves him with nothing to do for hours. We’re really dependant on the fixture schedule and the TV schedule, so we’re limited that way, and will be until we add more sports.
COI: What is your main priority right now?
IW: Our main priority is to grow the business, and we think we’ll do that by adding more sports and by adding more opportunities for people to see ZonePlay. We want to be all round the world. Right now we’re in distribution deals with people in Mexico, Brazil, Australia and all over Europe, so we have nice geographical coverage and these markets all require something different from us as a provider. The guys in Croatia want Croatian League soccer to be traded, so we trade that for them… but would guys in the UK watch that over something else? It’s really about tailoring each offer to the individual clients.
For more information on Buzz Sports and ZonePlay, visit www.buzzsports.com
