Hi, welcome to the Three Questions Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston. I'm joined today by a very special guest, Andrew Wolfington, who's the co-founder of Vigot Technologies, and he's going to be talking a little bit about the US market, what's been happening over there in the sports embedding scene, and also a little bit about his new product, the Bigot um social embedding app. Hi, Andrew. Thanks very much for joining me today.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Lynn. It's a pleasure being here. I'm excited to be on your podcast.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Long time listener, first-time speaker, or guest, I should say.
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. So let's kick off this podcast with a little bit about your um social uh sports betting app. Tell us a little bit about it and why did you decide to go down the mobile route instead of website?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Uh so the company we started is called Viget Technologies. We're doing business as Vigot, uh, which is a mobile sportsbook integrated social network. Uh in short, we're a sports betting social network that's changing the way America bets on sports. Uh, encouraged by strong market fundamentals, such as um we saw over 70% of U.S. sports gambling handle uh coming in from mobile devices, and over $28 billion spent on mobile native advertising in 2018. Um, we just strategically decided to go to market with our iOS and Android clients uh on our platform uh because this fit in line uh with the culture and consumer behaviors of our target market, which are tech savvy millennial males looking for entertainment, so social recognition, and a deepened fan engagement with their favorite teams at any time, anywhere, right from the palm of their hands.
SPEAKER_00And that really was something that I saw while I was there. Um is just, you know, when I was in the States um speaking at the sports bidding conference, there were a lot of young guys in um sports bars who were kind of like, you know, socializing, networking, and the television screens were all on, but a lot of them were on the herbar phone, um, which I thought was quite crazy because the screens are right in front of them, but they weren't really looking at the game up on the telly they were kind of following the stats on their phone. So I think that's quite intuitive that you've you've got involved in in that space.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we it really derived from the fact that uh myself and another one of our co-founders, Joe Joseph Barba, uh were millennials ourselves. So uh that we kind of started this company on the premise of we're both sports gamblers, we're following the regulation of sports gambling in the US. And uh going back and forth, we kind of just kept complaining about how antiquated and how unintuitive a lot of the current platforms are, and that there's some very basic things on a fundamental level that uh millennials have come to not only know and love, but really have as a non-starter for them to adopt any app or a platform or anything of that nature. And it all starts with just the ability to access it anytime, anywhere, right from the palm of your hand on your cell phone. Uh and you can look at other industries such as uh the mobile messaging industry, where you have like WhatsApp and Groupme, where they had similar strategies where they went to market with their mobile platform and they utilized web as for marketing purposes. Uh, and then as they developed their user base and hit a critical mass, they then rounded out their their entire platform by delivering that desktop and mobile web browser client as well.
SPEAKER_00And let's just talk a little bit about kind of localization and players. You know, you mentioned that you've built your app in a way that really speaks to your target audience. So talk me through a little bit about what you're seeing over there in the US and how uh your customers are evolving to actually start betting online because obviously it's still very new. It's uh you know, not all the states are regulated. Are you finding that there is a very different, you know, app experience that you need to be giving to somebody in you know New Jersey versus you know another another state? Or is it not really that um, you know, the differentials aren't that great yet?
SPEAKER_01Uh so there are definitely um some differentiators between state to state. So whether we're verifying a user's location to adhere to an individual state's regulations or to provide a custom user experience based off the teams in their region, uh localization is and will continue to play a critical role in the industry. Uh, whether it's legislators, incumbent operators, and consumers alike, they have all been impressed by the speed in which regulated sports gambling is becoming widely accepted across many U.S. markets. Um, betters literally can't wait till mobile sports betting is available in their respective states. In some instances, such as New Jersey, uh, we've seen cases where the total handle for the month for New Jersey for New Jersey on the mobile side, 40% of it came from within two miles of the state's border. Uh and you're seeing this in other uh markets as well uh that are surrounded by states that have not legalized it yet, where people are literally driving past the retail casino on their way to cross the state border, pulling over at a pit stop and placing their bet. And this is having ripple effects where you're even seeing people in the commercial real estate industry uh see this trend and they're looking to uh invest in quick service restaurants, so like a Chick-fil-A, a McDonald's, or anything that's kind of a hey, drive across the border, stop here, place your bet, grab your food, and drive back. And it's all part of your Sunday morning. Uh, because as people in the space are familiar with, a lot of the action comes in typically an hour before game time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that's quite interesting. That's a trend that I think the sort of online affiliates aren't able to um, you know, touch on, which makes your mobile betting app a little bit more exciting, really, for operators that might be listening to this and who are looking to actually work with people such as yourselves. So, what do you see the biggest trends are in the US right now in sports betting? I mean, is there still an education piece that needs to happen? So are you still spending a lot of time um you know nurturing that content piece and and and brand recognition? Or are people quite okay with it and you know that they know what they know and they like what they like, and it's really about offers and and and pushing um you know timely messaging?
SPEAKER_01Uh so it in in short, the answer is uh unfortunately both. Um so uh the trend we're seeing in short is consolidation, right? Whether it's William Hill's recent announcement with CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports partnering with MGM, Penn Interactive, who uh is in our backyard. We're based out of Philadelphia. Uh so they're another regional company here. Uh they just announced their deal with Barstool Sports. So you're seeing a lot of the incumbent operators realize that their traditional product offering isn't living up to the expectations of uh tech savvy uh consumers and players. So they're seeing this trend and they're absolutely on the right path where they're consolidating and partnering with media companies. So now you can place a bet and get all your sports betting content in one convenient location. We're simply just continuing to see around the curve and say, hey, instead of uh combining a sports book with a media company, you should combine a sports book with a social media company. That's a true dynamic social network because you can still deliver the same valuable content that a traditional media company does, but you can do it in a social and gamified way that leads to higher user acquisition, user retention. And we really see the social gamified community as a kind of a top of the sales funnel where uh where this it's new, exciting, you can share with your friends, and and we're consolidating all the information. Um so it's the US demographic as a whole, we're we're impatient, we want things, we know what we want, we want it instantly. Um so we want that we we demand that there is a place that we can go to, uh, just like where you can go to a Walmart and buy essentially anything under the sun. Yeah, uh consumer behaviors demand that we're able to do one-stop shopping, open up one app or go to one website where I can place my bet, buy tickets to the game, buy my favorite player's jersey, uh follow handicappers, track their success, engage with them on the platform much like you would an influencer on Instagram or Facebook, um, and really develop those relationships in order to encourage people coming back and make sports betting uh a more part of everyday life. So, do we necessarily think there's a learning curve to uh informing people of that, hey, you can bet on sports uh through your phone. Not necessarily. We're seeing that the traditional sports betters have been doing it for years with uh offshore um apps. So they're very familiar with the process. Um what we're what you really need to combat is millennials in a whole, at least in the US, are less uh enthusiastic about sports um compared to their baby boomer and Gen X counterparts. Uh and why is that? Uh it's because sports has kind of uh reluctantly, and you're seeing it more now where they're transitioning into this omni-channel approach to sports entertainment, um, where it's not just about the game, it's it's about having a mobile presence. Traditionally, the leagues were hesitant to allow streaming of games on mobile phones. You're starting to see that become more prevalent, especially in out-of-market games. Um, so the the leagues, while slow to change, uh they see the writing on the wall. Um, and what it really is going to take is a collaboration from all the different aspects of the sports entertainment industry, whether it's the incumbent operators, the sports leagues themselves, the sports betters, or even the sports brands and handicappers, and being able to create this mobile economy or marketplace where you can bring all of these aspects of the industry together in a holistic way, where you're constantly just providing value to your to your users. Uh, and it's what we like to call holistic value marketing, where traditional traditional content marketing relies on uh typically white papers, blogs, and providing uh information and making it relevant to the affiliate that you're trying to push traffic to. Where because we're mobile app and it and we're incorporating analytics and data, we view content as any valuable piece of information. So whether it's a blog describing a goods and service and relating it to the affiliate partner, or like we do on our app, we have betting analytics and team trends where we will display in front of you and say, hey, the Philadelphia 76ers are 3-0 against the spread in their last couple games. Do you think they're gonna keep it up against the New York Knicks, Knicks tonight? By the way, you can bet it on DraftKings, get a $20 match bet on this bet alone, and they're offering it the uh it at minus six, where the Vegas line's at minus six and a half. Um so being able to aggregate all that information and identify that from download to that point where they place their first bet and identifying all the pressure points and goods and services that they could use along that user journey is really what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00I love the fact that you brought up the DraftKings because um obviously they've you know just recently got their sports book license. So do you think, I mean, we spoke a little bit earlier in this call about branding. Do you think that now that DraftKings is also a bona fide sports book operator, that traditional bookmakers like William Hill, for example, are they gonna have a little bit more of a harder time to push their, you know, the brand, their offer the message? And do you think that that's gonna change the ecosystem to be not so much about, hey, we're new and come and try us, but more about here's the bonus or the offer that you can get with us versus somebody else? Or do you think that the ecosystem's still a little bit um uh you know unstructured so that you know innovative marketing doesn't have to be price-led um as it has been here in Europe?
SPEAKER_01So so we have a feature that we call our uh search best odds, which I don't know if you're familiar with like a kayak or expedia.com, but in that metaphor, where we would be kayak and DraftKings, Sandal, William Hills of the World, they would be the different airliners where we have the price transparency. Yeah. Now, what we're seeing from our users is the people who are more active and uh we've identified as traditional sports betters, they're typically coming in and they're and they're payment shoppers, right? They're they're the person going in, they're they're used to betting and they appreciate the value of having minus six over minus six point five, and they're taking the time uh to take advantage of their pro promotions. Oftentimes we'll see it come in and they'll maybe hit two or three affiliates in one session uh just to take advan and place essentially the same bet three times, but with all the three different promotions. Um but but from a larger scale and user adoption in the US market, there is absolutely plenty of room for establishing yourself as a dominant brand. And we're seeing it with DraftKings and FanDuel. Um the the biggest problem now, William Hill is at a unique advantage in that it what it is a uh international company, so yeah um US players aren't necessarily familiar with it, but Harras, Caesars, uh Tropicana, uh every millennial associates them with slots slot machines.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01So and and you can look at other industries again, like the car industry and look at uh Lincoln and look at what they're trying to do to revamp their branding and target a younger demographic. It takes time, takes a lot of money, and the odds are it probably won't be successful. So it's a very high-risky move that takes a lot of time, that unfortunately, given this opportunity, it's those people who are able to pivot quickly and take advantage of changing market opportunities that are really gonna end up dominating the space. So where a Caesars and a traditional US incumbent operator, uh, in my opinion, what it's really gonna take is a is they would need a total rebranding or possibly invest in a young startup and take advantage of their of their branding that they've established on themselves, but with their backing and working capital and strategic partnerships.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um as William Hill kind of isn't ingrained in the American psyche and identified with slot machines, so that I think they would have a less challenging time uh rebranding themselves. But you can look at FanDuel and DraftKings, they are dominating the market. And that quite frankly, that's the best thing that ever happened to us uh because you have all these publicly traded companies, whether it's the Caesars of the World, the Bet Rivers, uh, and their C suite board have to answer their shareholders and their board. So when their board and shareholders are seeing in the news, sports betting, huge industry, gonna be like expect huge gains and everyone's and all this investment and consolidation. And then on their monthly board meetings, they're seeing that DraftKings and FanDuel are taking up 85% of the market in almost every single state. They're like, hey guys, why aren't we expecting to see huge growth in this opportunity and we're getting our lunch eaten? So we're finding that some of these lesser performing operators uh are very willing to work with affiliates uh in a collaborative in a collaborative approach of where we go, hey, here's what we're seeing from a user, from a marketing, user acquisition, and conversion perspective. And if we can integrate more deeply so that we have API access and that when someone clicks on your link, we could take them right to your platform, right to the bet that they're looking at, pre-populate their bet slip, and essentially all they have to do is is place uh bet now once they're directed to the DraftKings platform, much like you see with Expedia and Kayak, as I referenced earlier. Uh that's just one of the integration functionality we have on the platform that leads to increased conversions. Um so that that's where we really see it going. And uh the answer is FanDuel and DraftKings are in a really good position, but even at the end of the day, they still kind of have an asterisk where people consider them fantasy sports. Uh Billy Hills will have an easier time. Incumbent U.S. operators, in my opinion, are going to need a complete and utter rebrand, which is going to be very difficult. And the only way to really achieve it in an effective manner would be to in a strategic investment or acquisition of a young startup. And that's one of the opportunities we saw when we set out on this venture back in 2018.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your insight and your knowledge on what's happening over the pond. Um, you know, we really appreciate you being and and giving us your time to be on this podcast. I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens with Figured App. Um, you know, it's a social it's I think social millennials, everything that you've spoken about is kind of like just poised and positioned correctly to take advantage of the regulating market that's taking place over there. So I just want to thank you very much for joining me on on our podcast and sharing some of your insights. And we're looking forward to seeing you again soon.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, and thank you so much for having me, and I'm looking forward to continue listening.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.