It should be easy to place a sports wager during a game. However, comparing lines across sportsbook apps, scrolling through pages of odds, and even just finding a game can be time consuming and confusing. By the time bettors finds a prop they’d like to play, for example, it may already be off.
Companies like SnapOdds and Triggy are releasing products that allow bettors to place more bets in less time with less effort. That leaves more time spent watching the game and less time searching for lines. This also increases revenue for sportsbooks.
Gaming Today spoke with executives from both companies to understand what their products mean for sportsbooks, bettors, and the industry.
SnapOdds
Instead of bouncing from sportsbook to sportsbook and scrolling through endless lists of odds, bettors will soon be able to use SnapOdds. SnapOdds allows bettors to scan games they’re watching on TV with their smartphone cameras. This scan pulls odds from partnered sportsbooks.
“All you have to do is click the Snap TV — or icon — in the app in the middle [of the bottom tab] and it’ll pull up [the sportsbook odds],” Kevin Escalera, SnapOdds Marketing Manager, said.
We tried the SnapOdds app during the Chiefs/Chargers game on Thursday, Dec. 16. The app scanned the game like a QR code and brought up the odds from real sportsbooks, including DraftKings, FanDuel, and SugarHouse. SnapOdds expects to go live with sportsbook partners in 2022.
SnapOdds can also integrate itself within its partners’ apps.
“It would be like within a Bleacher Report or any kind of blog or anything like that,” Escalera said. “And then it would just take you to the SnapOdds page …. which has all the different operators.”
SnapOdds will begin its rollout a few markets at a time. Unsurprisingly, the northeast is its first launch target.
“I think it’s going to be New Jersey, New York [first],” SnapOdds Founder and CEO, Thomas Willomitzer said.
SnapOdds confers important benefits to bettors and sportsbooks. Bettors can get to their desired betting markets sooner and compare odds at a glance. Sportsbooks can gain insight into important conversion statistics, like how many bettors place a wager after scanning a game with SnapOdds. It could be an important way for sportsbooks to differentiate themselves from each other, too.
“All these unsustainable customer acquisition strategies will eventually implode,” Willomitzer said. “But what’ll be left is user experience and user engagement.”
Triggy
Triggy is a betting software company that offers a few different products designed to accomplish the same goal.
“We want to make sports betting really easy for the user,” Triggy CEO, Martina Akerlund said.
One of Triggy’s products is called NextBets, which gives bettors suggestions about what they should bet on next based on in-game events, live odds, and betting histories. NextBets goes beyond suggestions to put bettors in control, too.
“If you’re watching several games or you’re watching several sports, you can also — if the odds hit this or the next goal is [that] or so forth — you can trigger an alarm, because I think some fans and bettors really enjoy watching a game while [they] are doing other things,” Akerlund said.
Triggy will also offer hologram messaging through a partnership with 2mee. These hologram messages would allow sports stars to send messages to bettors through sportsbook apps. It’s a cool feature for users and a profitable engagement tool for sportsbooks.
“He [a football player] can just record a message and send it out to the fans and bettors,” Akerlund said. “And by doing that, you increase opening of the message by like, I don’t remember the exact number, but it was something like up to 80% [of tested bettors] that actually opened the message when it [was] a hologram message.”
Following the publication of this article, Triggy provided a concrete case. One of Triggy’s partners tested the hologram messaging and found that their clickthrough rate increased from 1% to 55%.
These messages could be used to offer bonuses, bet suggestions, and other types of content, too.
Triggy, WynnBET, And Memphis Grizzlies
Triggy has partnered with Venuetize, the company that powers the Memphis Grizzlies app about 50 other sports teams’ apps. Triggy’s NextBet product will be part of the Grizzlies app, and its bet suggestions will redirect bettors to WynnBET to place wagers.
“We are integrating our tech so we can have a betting possibility together with WynnBET in the Grizzlies team app,” Akerlund said.
So, bettors could open the Grizzlies app to buy tickets or merchandise, receive a bet suggestion from Triggy, then click the prompt to bet at WynnBET. Triggy plans to make these features available to bettors in January 2022. The Grizzlies are the first team to launch this product. But Triggy’s partnership with Venuetize will bring this feature to additional team apps, too.
Startups And Problem Solving
Startups like SnapOdds and Triggy are part of an ecosystem of companies aiming to make sports betting as natural a part of sports as buying tickets or merchandise. SnapOdds allows bettors to pull up game lines instantly in crowded sports bars. Triggy’s products power bettor and fan engagement.
This is part of a larger pattern of startups solving systemic issues for sportsbook operators across the United States.
“Allowing sportsbooks to not only price and accept [in-game wagers], but for customers to discover them in an intuitive and seamless user flow,” said Lloyd Danzig, Managing Partner of VC firm Sharp Alpha Advisors. “That is one particular pain point that a lot of startups are solving.”
In-game bets are becoming more popular in the U.S, in part because they’re immediately engaging and settle quickly. So innovation will likely cluster around these short-term bets. That will lead to sportsbook app features intended to make sports betting a complement to games instead of a separate activity that pulls bettors away from games.
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