32 Indian Gaming April/May 2020

Sports betting has quickly become one of the most exciting new casino offerings in Indian gaming. We spoke with some of the leading providers, who share their company histories,insights and successful partnerships. Here is what they had to say...

Spotlight on Sports Betting

EXECUTIVE Q&A

Stephen Crystal, Head of BusinessDevelopmentBetfred USAbetfred.com

COMPANY OVERVIEW: It’s agreat founding story. Fred andPeter Done financed the first DoneBookmakers shop in Greater Manchester, England, in 1967, withtheir winnings from a bet theyplaced on England to win the 1966World Cup. Thirty years later, theyacquired Robert Walker, givingthem a hundred shops, and then in2004, the company began operat-ing under the name they still usetoday – Betfred, with over 1,200 bet

shops and over 11,000 employees worldwide.

PRODUCTS: Everything an operator needs to successfullyrun a sports betting operation, Betfred can provide as a turnkeyprovider. We’ve got strategic tools such as business intelligenceand analytics tools for marketing, finance and executive personnel. For the sportsbook operations team, we have expertise and technology to support compliance, anti-fraud,trading, marketing and payment processing. Lastly, we have boththe systems and staff necessary to provide B2B and B2C customer service.

The most important thing that we bring to operatorsthough, is flexibility. We’re not here to dictate the terms of howwe work together. We can partner with tribal operators to deter-mine how financial risk and operational responsibility is shared.

How operations are branded and how internal and external customers are supported are all on the table.

RECENT PARTNERSHIPS: We are operating in Iowa atGrand Falls Casino in Larchwood, and are looking forward tolaunching soon in Pennsylvania and Colorado. Each market hasits challenges, but we have been very pleased by how wellreceived the book in Grand Falls has been received. It’s one ofthe best-looking U.S. sports books outside Las Vegas.

Charles Cohen, Vice President of Sports BettingIGT igt.com

DIVISION OVERVIEW: IGT hasbeen involved in sports betting forapproximately 20 years. We've been very active and successful ininternational markets and runsports betting in Italy, which is B2Cfocused. Everywhere outside ofItaly, we are a pure service andtechnology B2B company, and weare fortunate to have customers allover the world. We've now been inthe U.S. since 2015, and for thismarket, we took a platform that

had been successful globally, and developed a new versionspecifically for the U.S. market.

PRODUCTS: We've put a lot of time and energy into a solution for the tribal market. An operator interested in getting into sports betting doesn't have to hire a massive team,pay architect bills or spend $1 million on massive LED wallsto get sports betting on property. We've come up with a solution that allows a tribal property, even a small one, to geta million dollar sportsbook for a tiny fraction of that cost. That'sbeen our focus – creating solutions tailored to the needs of tribalproperties. We want to make it as easy for a tribal property tobring sports betting to their floor as it is for them to place anew poker game, or a new premium slot, or anything else. We don't believe sports betting should be complex, require massive overhead or a complete restructuring of a casino's operations in order to bring sports betting onto the floor.

Stephen Crystal

Charles Cohen

34 Indian Gaming April/May 2020

EXECUTIVE Q&A

The IGT PlaySports Bank and IGT Playsports Pod are ourmerchandised kiosks, wrapped in very attractive, useful merchandising, which effectively is all of the big screens andall of the pizazz that comes with sports betting in a merchan-

dised unit. It's verysimilar in structure tothe way that youwould get a bank of

slots or a pod, exceptwe've done it forsports betting. Whatthe PlaySports Bankin particular allows acasino to avoid is the

need to invest in con-struction and spendinghundreds of thousandsof dollars on LEDpanels. Our customerscan get this whole unitfrom IGT and it caneven be leased. Youjust plug it into your

existing TV feed. It's attractive, portable and fits in well on the floor. And if you get the sight lines right, and guests canwalk into the casino and see the sportsbook from wherever they are, you are going to do brilliantly. The kiosks are designedfor patrons to very quickly place single or parlay wagers beforeor during the game. People are able to walk up to a kiosk, put their money in, make their selections, print a ticket, andwalk away, and do the whole thing within a minute. It's a linebuster.

The CrystalBetting Terminal offers players a VIP sports betting experience and includes a 27-inch touchscreen monitor so a player can watch multiple live sporting events andplace pre-game, in-play, and real-time wagers directly from theterminal. This product is for customers that want to bet moreintensely for a longer period of time. We rolled it out first atPearl River Resort in Choctaw, MS, and it's been phenome-nally successful.

We also have what we call the IGT PlaySports Pad, whichis a sports betting kiosk inside a device that looks like an iPad.Casinos are getting these units and sprinkling them around theirproperties. A player can access the whole betting offer at oneof these units. It's all about convenience.

TRIBAL PARTNERSHIPS: We are live with Pearl RiverResort in Mississippi, Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort in New York, The Mill Casino in Oregon, and others. Operationally, sports betting can be very challenging for operators, especially if you have betting windows rather thankiosks. That's the reason we've introduced this out of the boxtype concept, because we've learned from the experience of the

last year that you really need to simplify so it's a much easier experience to integrate the business. The proof of it will be, I think, us winning business in Indian Country, sometimesagainst big money brands, because of the customer saying, ‘I want to work with IGT; I want to use my own brands; I wantto control my product; I want to own the relationship with theplayer, because it's my player, thank you very much.’ It's a goodexperience all around.

Max Meltzer, Chief Commercial OfficerKambikambi.com

COMPANY OVERVIEW: With arange of partners including MoheganGaming & Entertainment, SenecaGaming Corporation, PennNational Gaming and Rush StreetInteractive, Kambi is an indepen-dent provider of sports betting andtechnology services to licensedB2C gaming operators, offeringunparalleled on-property, onlineand regulatory expertise to many ofthe world’s leading brands.

We have been in the businessfor more than 20 years and are a truly global company, trustedby market leaders on six continents thanks to our unmatchedreputation for quality, integrity and the highest levels of corporate probity. Our unblemished compliance record has beenmost recently underlined by our series of market firsts in theU.S. – we are now live in 10 states having taken the first legalwagers in states including Illinois, New York and Michigan.

PRODUCTS: Kambi has a pure sportsbook focus, and we provide a world-class product capable of meeting any tribe’s on-property and online ambitions. We make it easy for tribesto leverage the strength of their brand and deploy sports betting. Looking first to our on-property offering, we provideour partners with a bespoke blend of kiosk and over the counterservices, with everything from our digital signage to trading andrisk management – simple to set up and get running rapidly.

An effectively deployed sportsbook can elevate the wholecasino’s bottom line, helping to enhance returns across gaming and hospitality and future-proofing growth by attract-ing a new generation of players with provably higher LTVs. Sports bettors are boosting the bottom line by engaging with all aspects of the casino, including gaming andhospitality. For example, at our partner Penn National Gaming’s Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg, table volumes roseby approximately 20% in Q4 2019 following the launch of sportsbetting.

Max Meltzer

36 Indian Gaming April/May 2020

EXECUTIVE Q&A

TRIBAL PARTNERSHIPS: We have taken sports betting livewith two tribal partners, Seneca Gaming Corporation andMohegan Sun. We launched in all three of Seneca Gaming Corporation’s New York properties within weeks of the inkbeing dry on our November 2019 partnership agreement.The early results we have achieved have been very encourag-ing, and we have both been delighted with how Seneca’s players are responding to the offering and how it is driving widerengagement with every aspect of the casino floor.

Although we are awaiting the passage of regulation in Connecticut, we worked closely with our partner Mohegan Sunto develop the tribe’s free-to-play sportsbook, which has provedimmensely popular with their customers – building the tribe’sdatabase and getting players accustomed to the sports bettingexperience so that we can hit the ground running as soon asregulation is in place.

Both Seneca and Mohegan Sun have been excellent to workalongside, with a real understanding of how they can drive extravalue in their properties by taking ownership of the sports betting experience with a B2B partner.

Rick Meitzler, President & CEO, NorthAmericaNovomatic Americasnovomaticamericas.com

DIVISION OVERVIEW: Novomatic Americas has beeninvolved in the U.S. sports betting industry since providing thevery first sports betting terminals to go live in Atlantic City, NJ, with Resorts Casino.

Novomatic Americas Sports betting kiosks paired with premium software like Kambi, have been a critical factor in newU.S. sports betting facility openings. The automated self-service betting kiosks offer the full suite of wagering optionsand are designed to provide an intuitive user experience withsimple navigation in the betting menu as well as live odds andlive feeds from the games.

PRODUCTS: Sports bettingkiosks are currently our core sportsbetting business in North America.Our sports betting kiosk, Action-Book™ process more bets per hourand offer multiple betting optionsthat promote a ‘quick pick’ style ofplaying. The increase in speed andbetting volume allows operators tomaximize betting opportunities and to capitalize on high volumebetting periods, inevitably increas-ing revenues.

Our Novomatic ActionBook™ provides a turnkey, provenand ergonomic hardware solution with outstanding graphiccapabilities and partners with the world’s best sports betting software and sportsbook providers.

The Novomatic design team in Austria relies on manyyears of experience and expertise gathered in the group’s proprietary sports betting operations across Europe to refine and develop popular and bettor-friendly technology. U.S. operators have complimented the kiosk’s touchscreeninterface, praising the short learning curve for both bettors andemployees.

PARTNERSHIPS: Currently, Novomatic ActionBook™kiosks are operating at Rivers Casinos, SugarHouse Casino,Resorts Casino, Parx Casino, Parx Casino Turf Club, PennNational Gaming, and in two tribal locations: Seneca Gaming,and Mohegan Sun. The most recent installation is at Seneca,Buffalo Creek in Buffalo, NY, and working with both organi-zations has been fantastic. With those locations, NovomaticAmericas has approximately 500 units in the field, with 100 prepared to ship – and those numbers continue to escalate.

Rick Meitzler

38 Indian Gaming April/May 2020

EXECUTIVE Q&A

Keith O’Loughlin, SVP Sportsbook, DigitalScientific Gamesscientificgames.com

DIVISION OVERVIEW:We havea long history in the sports betting industry, dating back to thelate 1990s. Today, we serve a totalof 35 sports betting customers in 15countries. We offer a fully inte-grated portfolio of technology platforms, systems, content, andunrivaled professional services andmarketing solutions.

Our approach to sports bettingis all encompassing – we want tooffer our partners everything they

could possibly need to run a successful sportsbook. Back-endtechnology, online, mobile, screens, retail terminals, pricing,trading, day-to-day management – we can cover every need,start-to-finish.

PRODUCTS: Our OpenSports product suite is an excellentfit for tribes looking to make a splash with their sportsbook.Partners can get up and running quickly and easily right outof the box. It’s a quick-to-market solution that allows for quickmarket entry, and it evolves over time with new features andinnovations that create an unparalleled experience for customersand their audience. OpenSports partners can leverage ourmodular sportsbook components to craft a product offering thatgrows with their business and meets demand.

We provide everything our partners need to run a success-ful sportsbook: retail, digital, screens, self-service betting terminals, mobile apps, a betting engine, trading, and more. Ourlatest addition is OpenMarket, the industry’s first one-stop content marketplace. It gives customers access to top-tiersports betting intelligence, data feeds and tools without the needfor complex integrations and financial agreements. We offer avariety of solutions so we can support our partners with world-class technology in any market.

TRIBAL PARTNERSHIPS: We launched our full OpenSportssuite in two New York properties with Oneida Indian Nationin August of last year, and we’ve seen great performance thereso far. New York is expected to be one of the leading sports betting markets, and Oneida has been a great partner andearly adopter in the state.

Earlier this year, we announced our partnership with Firekeepers in Michigan. Firekeepers is a true gaming leaderin Michigan, with an impressive audience of dedicated gamers.We’re really excited to expand and enhance their sports betting and iGaming presence in the state as regulations allow.

Generally, our experience with tribal partners has beenextremely positive. Both Oneida Indian Nation and Firekeepersbring a lot of experience to the table, and they want to lead the sports betting charge in their respective jurisdictions. It’s inspiring to see their drive and help them win in the sportsbook arena. ®

Keith O’Loughlin