Alex Kornilov, CEO and Founder of content creation specialist Betegy, offered what might be seen as a controversial view during the recent SBC Summit North America, namely that the betting and gaming sector is actually disinclined to innovation. The present focus, he suggested, is firmly on content creation.

When asked about the kind of innovations that will increase engagement with sports bettors, he responded: “Our industry is usually averse to innovation – everyone is scared of innovation.”  

He added, however, that the US market is “good in comparison to the European market. “Why?,” he said. “Because here you have an audience that is more ready for digital and non-digital interactions throughout more channels.”

Underlining the point, he added: “They’ve (US bettors) been playing fantasy (sports) before which is a more diverse experience. Hence innovation is so important in the US to bring the European and legacy platforms to the US and together innovate with the industry. 

“And here you have a very strong media presence and technology presence so the demand for higher quality content and higher quality product is here, and I see that companies need to quickly catch up to these standards.”

Talking more about Betegy’s role within the market, he explained: “We work in content creation. Content is one of the main things which allow us to distinguish one operator from another operator – like our clients. We try to take as much as possible from other industries that have innovated and bring it in.

“We see automatic generation of content – we see personalisation. We see the emergence of different formats of content in one. So for example you have an article which has a video, which has dynamically generated visuals, which has live sports in there, which has collaboration from different readers.”

Kornilov also cited the emergence of cryptocurrencies and NFTs and their newness to the sector, saying: ”Of course – they are game-changing technologies. We are at the very beginning of our journey into the adoption of those new technologies.” 

But content creation, he stated, is what “is real and what is now”, adding: “Every betting company now tries to be a media company themself. Content creation is a hot topic and I see the majority of innovation going in this direction.”

The full video interview with Kornilov can be viewed HERE.