Chalkline Sports is gaining recognition – iGB
Chalkline Sports is making progress in the developing US sports wagering market despite its origins in Africa. The firm is off to a strong beginning, having already secured customers such as Churchill Downs, Penn National Gaming, and Tropicana, writes Robin Harrison.
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Chalkline Sports is gaining recognition
Chalkline Sports is making progress in the developing US sports wagering market despite its origins in Africa. The firm is off to a strong beginning, having already secured customers such as Churchill Downs, Penn National Gaming, and Tropicana, writes Robin Harrison.
Despite its American founders, American focus, and American customer base, Chalkline Sports’ roots are in South Africa.
The company was established by the team behind Voltbet, a provider launched in South Africa in 2010 that was later acquired by casino operator Sun International in 2013. While CEO Dan Kustleski and President Joe Kustleski are both based in the US, its development team (who followed the founders from Sun International and are led by iGaming Director Jason Foster) are based in Johannesburg.
As Foster explains, the company’s main offering is straightforward: “How do we keep casual, high-margin sports bettors engaged?”
Being active in mature markets has meant that European providers have been able to develop more advanced approaches to player retention. However, the situation is different for emerging markets.
In emerging economies, there’s a vast pool of sports enthusiasts who may not have placed their initial wager yet, Foster remarked. They might have gambled through traditional outlets but haven’t ventured into online betting. We offer a means to attract these individuals through complimentary and paid gaming options, and we currently have two partners.
This approach is essentially a variation of a raffle, where participants can contribute a small sum for a chance to win a substantial amount.
“This is how individuals learn the ropes and begin wagering,” Foster explained. “They’re not going to risk a thousand dollars on their first bet for a narrow point spread.”
He believes Chalkline’s free-to-play platform is primarily a recruitment tool. After all, that’s how its American clients utilize it. However, in more developed markets like South Africa (where lottery betting operator Lottostar debuted as its inaugural client), he believes it serves as both a retention tool and a method to bring traditional customers online.
Chalkline’s partners include Churchill Downs (its BetAmerica and TwinSpires brands), Penn National Gaming, and Tropicana, and are establishing a robust business in the US. However, its most notable collaboration is with Barstool Sports.
The Chernin Group-owned sports blog recently unveiled Barstool Bets, which features free-to-play focused on in-game wagering.
Foster acknowledges it’s a novel endeavor for Chalkline. “It’s a significant undertaking to be completed within a one-month timeframe,” he stated.
Barstool is leveraging live sporting events to locate and attract individuals who wager in real-time. This is the direction the market is heading. It would have been a monumental task to start from the beginning, but they have constructed a robust and adaptable betting framework without all the components of a complete sportsbook.
They already possessed the necessary elements for live games due to their existing product that monitored odds. The genuine obstacle was scaling it up and incorporating all the markets with Betradar.
The effort yielded positive results, with Barstool Bets receiving 80,000 wagers during a Thursday night football match.
They are now capable of handling hundreds of thousands of bets per minute, encompassing processing and outcomes. The platform is currently highly flexible, a feat that was unattainable just three months ago.
They are still in the process of transforming their free-to-play solution into a real-money game and refining their marketing analytics solution, BettorBI. However, Foster believes that social elements are paramount for operators.
For instance, they can serve as an alternative to incentives.
Incentives are a dead end. You provide $10, then $20, then $30, and eventually, you exhaust all your profits.
It is crucial to motivate individuals to shift frequently between sports wagering websites rather than fostering loyalty.
“As individuals discover loopholes, you must enforce your terms more rigorously. I believe Europeans have recognized this. Free-to-play is a simpler and more enduring model.
“Potentially, integrating bonuses into your odds is a strategy we can explore. If you place a high-profit wager, you must make 10-15 forecasts, and if you achieve all of them correctly, or miss only one, you can readily offer a bonus or cashback.”
Chalkline is also making its platform accessible to third-party developers by releasing its software development kit. The concept is that it will provide all the functionality, from markets and live odds to analytical tools, enabling partners to create games on top of its platform.
“We are a sports wagering technology supplier, not a sportsbook or platform. We perceive ourselves as offering a layer beyond the platform,” Foster stated.
This is a captivating journey. Traditionally, the path from free-to-play to real money has been predominantly one-way, and Chalkline appears to be moving in that direction. However, considering its customer base and the emergence of social sports developers like Sportcaller, it feels like a new sub-industry is developing in the US wagering industry that astute developers can exploit.
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