Q&A with Jussi Viljanen Product Manager at Bojoko

Bojoko is well established in the online casino space – what made you move into sports betting for the first time?

Expanding into sports betting in the UK was a natural step for us as we had been offering sports to players in Finland for more than a year and already had the experience and expertise in our team. There is still a lot of room for growth in online casino, but sports betting offers us a good opportunity to accelerate that growth and drive the business forward. There is now a dedicated section for online betting here where players can browse and choose the best and the newest betting sites in the UK.

What key opportunities do you see here? Is it a bigger market for Bojoko than casino?

We feel we have a lot to offer in this market for sure. Our team has significant knowledge and know-how when it comes to sports and sports betting and the whole concept of Bojoko suits sports betting perfectly. Our mission is to help our users to choose the best gambling sites for them, and this concept works incredibly well for sports betting with so many brands available to players.

We also provide all the information that players need to learn about sports betting in the UK, written by experts. This is an area where we stand out from our rivals. We are confident that we will be able to carry out our mission well in the field of sports betting and we see good potential in this market, although of course there is some fierce competition to contend with.

Are you taking the same approach sports as you are to casino? What makes Bojoko stand out from other comparison sites in the UK market?

In short, yes. But of course, sports betting brings its own challenges when compared to online casino. The general model though stays the same for us. We list and review sports betting sites the same way we do with online casinos.

Where we stand out is the quality of our reviews and that we actually test all the sites listed on Bojoko and play at them with real money. Our independent testers actually make deposits, place bets and withdraw funds to verify that everything works as it is supposed. They also expose any weaknesses so that players know exactly what to expect when they sign up and deposit.

Operators are evaluated based on different features such as odds, markets, welcome offers, withdrawal times, customer support and many other factors that are important to sports bettors. We also offer a selection tool to filter betting sites based on different criteria to meet players’ preferences.

Does sports present different challenges to casino? Can you give examples? And how are you overcoming these challenges?

The competition in both markets is fierce, but we thrive on that. The biggest difference between sports and online casino is in the content that we create to help educate players. Sports betting has a skill element to it whereas slots and casino games are generally based on luck. This brings a different dimension when it comes to content. Betting is about finding value in the odds, and we aim to educate players on how to find that value and what statistics to use when making betting decisions. Many of our users are recreational bettors that just bet for fun, but many people are looking for useful information for how to improve their betting success and we provide that by using our experience as sports bettors and sports enthusiasts. We combine this knowledge with offering the best betting sites in the market.

Is there much of a cross-sell opportunity between casino and sports in the UK market? If so, how are you leveraging this?

To some extent there is, yes. Quite a few operators have both an online casino and a sportsbook, so it’s been a rather easy process to start collaborating with several partners for both verticals having already established a good relationship with casino. For users, we offer all relevant content right on our home page and from the menu where they can find the most important pages for both online casino and sports betting in one place.

What are your thoughts on the review of the Gambling Act in the UK market? Do you think it will have much of an impact on affiliates?

Regulation and safety measures in the gambling industry are generally a very good thing in my opinion. The changes made in recent years have been largely positive and have made the gambling industry healthier as a whole.

The latest restrictions proposed seem to be quite dramatic and perhaps not completely thought through. The two most questionable changes are the £2 stake limit on slot games and a sponsorship ban for gambling companies and sports clubs. These would undoubtedly have unintended consequences.

To keep players playing on licensed gambling sites should be a high priority, but restrictions that are too tight would only push players away to offshore sites where they could gamble with higher stakes. Given that players do not have the same security and safety on these sites as on UKGC licensed sites, this situation would be very unfortunate.

When it comes to sports clubs, the amount of sponsorship pounds that come from betting operators is massive. After COVID-19 especially, many clubs are still struggling financially and this could, in the worst-case scenario, be a death blow to many and especially lower-tier clubs. There are also some smaller sports that live off the betting industry, such as darts and snooker, that would be directly in the line of fire.