Interview with BetGames CPO: Building Europe’s tier-one games studio

As Europe’s premiere live gaming betting studio, BetGames has continually proven itself as the industry’s favourite provider of live dealer and betting games.

From Twain Sport to unique branded content for big-name clients including Entain, we sat down with BetGames’ CPO, Ian Catchick, a true industry legend and real visionary for the industry’s future. Read on to find out more …   

To get things started – BetGames has had plenty of successes recently with the launch of Twain Sport as well as debuting in plenty of new markets. Can you talk us through these landmarks and how they’ve been achieved?

We launched Twain Sport back in the second half of 2022, and the results have been fantastic. Given we offer both basketball and football – we’ve seen some excellent traction across so many markets given both sports’ popularity.

It all started with a basic idea to introduce high-quality, unique and competitive live sports content, which was aimed towards customers who wanted short, fast action. We addressed that with a product that delivered intensive 60-second live rounds of both sports.

From there, we could see that the challenge to take Twain Sport globally would be a demand to increase the frequency and operating hours. This is quite complex to do when you’ve got a live product, because you’ve got athletes’ well-being to consider and their need for adequate rest between games to maintain performance levels.

So, to be able to deliver that we transitioned from live sports to prerecorded content – while retaining exactly the same foundations that made it successful and popular in the first place. Now we’ve evolved Twain Sport so that it operates 24 hours a day, more than doubling the frequency of output.

The same unique DNA remains – as does the vitally important fast and furious 60-second rounds but we’re able to have a game ready to go for pretty much any global time zone. The bonus, however, is that we’re now offering more opportunity for operators and bettors to suit all peak sporting periods, which is perfect for filling the gaps between all fixtures!

When it comes to Europe, you’re certainly a force to be reckoned with; where’s key for you on the continent and where do you see the biggest growth opportunities?

That’s certainly correct – we’ve had fantastic feedback from European players when it comes to Twain Sport. It’s easy to see why: it’s in the exact short-form format we knew would be popular, and now that they’ve got the ability to play any time, day or night – making it truly 24/7 action.

Completing Twain Sport is our classic BetGames portfolio. This means that we have the perfect combination of familiar, simple-to-understand games, with a mix of live and RNG content too. We’ve also got a whole new batch of games in the pipeline – including several high-frequency products that cater that short-form demand we know players are looking for. This all revolves around providing games that are engaging and easy to play, and most importantly – accessible to make the most of their valuable play sessions.

Looking ahead – we’ve got an ambitious road map which is very European-focused and will see four games launched over the second half of this year. In short, we’ll be delivering a mix of brand-new products while evolving what we already have and optimising those core, successful titles that perform the best.

Strengthening that proposition, we’ll also enhance the tools that we have to develop our service provision too. This means that we’ll be looking at how we can use our customer data to drive decision-making that will enable us to address the right games to the right players at the right time.

We’re confident we know what European customers enjoy, which essentially is short bursts of entertainment, so we’ll continue to accommodate that and make BetGames even more relevant to our European customers with both sports and casino content.

Looking at BetGames’ unique approach in bringing sports betting-style casino games to operators, how key do you think such a philosophy has been in making you special?

We’ve always wanted to offer high-quality content to all our players and what we try and do is target both sports bettors and casino players and bridge that gap between the two disciplines.

We see a lot of commonalities on each side, and being able to help those players to crossover easily is something that we see as highly important, providing us with a good opportunity to drive that customer experience.

Our products are primarily focused on recreational bettors, and we’ve worked on a number of initiatives to recreate what they know and love – including sports betting-style bet slips in our casino games to help to make them feel right at home. We’re also enhancing certain UIs to ensure the format we have on hand breeds familiarity, while also encouraging players to give new formats to try.

Our philosophy revolves around a few key principles. Our mission is to provide rich, familiar and unique content that delivers high-quality live entertainment experiences. This draws on our core competencies of broadcast, game design, and our skills in intuitively knowing and understanding how to create content that our players enjoy and can play responsibly with, in as simple and accessible a manner as possible.

When it comes to your existing portfolio, do you have any exciting plans to further expand your content with more sports themes?

We’ve got some plans for additional sports content, and we’ll be expanding on this quite shortly! This will definitely be a space to watch, and we’ll be unveiling a lot more detail on some of our new game launches soon enough.

We’ve learned a lot in a short space of time on the back of our Twain Sport experiences, particularly that there is a real interest from casino players and sports bettors in games that bridge both verticals together.

When it comes to Twain Sport, we will also be introducing new sports as well as a new team game which will be announced very soon. For us, it’s all about aligning with what our customers are demanding, which is this getting access to high-excitement, high-quality, simple-to-understand content which is quick and easy to play.

So yes, in short, we will be adding to and enhancing our existing sports proposition with some more sports-themed content – as well as plenty more BetGames titles to go with it!

Last but not least, drawing on your extensive experience with both tier-one operators and working on the supplier side, how would you define player demand in the coming years when it comes to next-gen gaming? What’s your vision for player trends?

I believe that we’ll continue to see the expectation levels of our players increase. They’re telling us quite clearly that what they really want is high-quality, engaging, rapid-play, simple-to-understand content.

The next-gen consumer is far more open-minded. They’re very keen to enjoy a combination of what they know right now and newer concepts that enhance their playing experience. With that will come exacting standards, however, and they will be very demanding.

So, we need to manage those expectations but we’re following this closely. Our plans are to invest in new products but also to look at some of our customer development tools to help drive that play experience – compiling data with elements such as gamification, loyalty and fun.

A constant among this is that our players’ time is very precious, and they want to ensure that each experience is very fulfilling.  Time pressure is going to change the way in which we engage with players in the future.

Addressing that, we’ll have to deliver more high-frequency content – engaging with a greater focus on personalisation, localisation and ensuring the product is appropriate to the individual as opposed to the mass market.

There’s a lot going on, but I think it’s about watching the market, trying to find the opportunities to push boundaries, to innovate and also to leverage our experience, knowledge and insights.

We’re going to have higher expectations and demands in the not-too-distant future – but I’m very confident that BetGames has the necessary assets to accommodate that.