The latest marketing campaign from Smarkets has underlined how the firm is seeking to change the image of sportsbooks. 

The campaign titled “SBK – The ad we weren’t allowed to make, but we made it anyway”  launches nationwide and places specific focus on the firm’s SBK sportsbook. 

Filmed at Smarkets London HQ, the campaign was developed by The Tenth Man – the Dublin-based creative agency of Ken Robertson, former Paddy Power Advertising Director, who founded the Irish bookmaker’s notorious ‘Mischief Making Division’.

The advert seeks to refresh SBK’s engagement with a range of UK sports audiences and will form part of Smarkets’ wider ‘SBK Rewriting The Sportsbook’ brand campaign.

Smarkets launched SBK in 2019 as its ‘ground-built’ proprietary mobile sportsbook that would deliver sports fans ‘true-and-fair matched betting’ across all markets using real-time Smarkets betting exchange prices.   

Campaign notes saw Smarkets state that “due to the nature and content of the campaign’s main video, clearing organisation Clearcast would not give their approval for it to be shown on television, saying it would “bring advertising into disrepute”.

“The industry’s old guard has been giving unnecessarily bad odds to customers for so long,” Trost said, launching the first ad of Smarkets Rewriting The Sportsbook campaign.

“We launched SBK to provide our world-best pricing to the mainstream market in the familiar feel of a sportsbook.

“That’s what this campaign is all about: how our odds are better than the rest who make easy money on casino products and huge sportsbook margins, and we’re not afraid to call them out. I had a blast filming the ad. I hope people enjoy watching it as much as I did making it.”