Q&A with Betinvest COO, Max Dubossarsky.

How has your focus changed over the last few years?

The world and our industry are changing, and our focus as a provider of gaming solutions is also changing to match. Our focus won’t be drastically different, but we are setting our sights on new technologies, directions and markets that we are integrating into our products and strategy.

The trends of recent years have shown that both players and operators need solutions that are immersive, reliable and user friendly. As a result, last year we shifted our product focus to developing a new approach to providing a Sportsbook and eSportsbook as a Service. It is a comprehensive product that can be easily integrated into a client’s current platform and adapted to any market. There are many advantages to this approach. We handle the Sportsbook content in terms of events, live events, eSports or ordinary sports, categories, tickets and odds. Meanwhile, everything relating to the users – the customers, sessions, stakes, bets, bonuses and advertising – is taken care of by our B2B partners.

We are also expanding our product range. Last year we presented Book of Six, a new virtual game, and we will be presenting our online slot games at ICE London 2020 in February that have been developed according to a combination of requests from players and key trends in the gaming industry. As well as offering games from the world’s leading providers, we are also starting to offer in-house games.

Moreover, all our games have a built-in VR option to give players an even more captivating gaming experience. 

We also mustn’t forget about newly regulated markets, which have become part of our focus. We are expanding our global presence as a result.

What can both operators and players alike expect to see from you in terms of product development?

Because we have over 20 years of experience working in this industry, our operators can count on time-tested reliable sports betting products. We do everything we can to ensure that working with our software is as simple as it can be for operators, and that players become regular customers thanks to a convenient interface and payment systems, interesting markets and odds, and of course captivating games. And all this comes with a responsive design and data protection. Our clients benefit from a team that includes 260 IT specialists, 350 traders and 140 risk managers working to look after their business. 

Of course, as well as updating our existing products, we are also expanding our product range and hope that players will enjoy our slot games with in-built VR technology. This technology is very simple to use online, and VR glasses can be easily connected.

Which jurisdictions do you feel currently offer the most potential for gaming growth?

If we think about the gaming industry as a whole, it has been human nature from the very beginning to want to play and achieve defined goals: to win, and to move onto new levels. This desire continues throughout a person’s development, as it is through games that we learn both the difficult and simple processes of the world around us. Looking at it this way, nearly every single market has global potential. 

But when we narrow our focus to doing business and, correspondingly, its profitability, the macroeconomic factors of a specific region and the characteristics of the applicable regulations come into play. Of course, above all it is the markets that have been regulated in the last two years that have great potential. They are an excellent platform for developing the industry, for new local operators to emerge, and for expanding B2B solutions with providers who, along with their products, can provide extensive experience of working in European countries.

What will be the key point of focus for the next 12 months?

Our team is looking forward to the start of February and one of the biggest gaming events, ICE London 2020. We will present all our updates at the exhibition, as well as our new Betinvest Games and their VR integration. We are eagerly awaiting this event and all the other exhibitions we are planning to visit in 2020. 

In 2020 we will be aiming to actively build a presence for ourselves in the emerging markets that we spent 2019 studying. Through us our clients have access to everything they need from the gaming industry thanks to our wide array of sports betting solutions and industry experience. 

One of our key areas for continued development going forward is eSports. In 2019, we put together a team of specialists who not only know esports inside out and know how to calculate odds, but who have been involved in this industry in one way or another for as long as they can remember. They laid the foundation for our eSports solution and our odds successfully cover more than 1000 live events and 3000 pre-match events each month. Our company was also short-listed for eSports Supplier of the Year at the SBC Awards 2019. In 2020 we are planning to expand and continue to improve in this area.

2020 will also see the launch of the special We are Betinvest project on social media. It is impossible to create a high-quality reliable product without a team of experienced, talented and ambitious specialists. Through the We are Betinvest project, we want to reveal the work that the company’s different teams do: traders and IT specialists, risk managers and client support, analysts and business development managers, etc. We want to look in detail at the qualities that these people have and their input into making such a complex product successful.