SBC News Adam Stickland - TXODDS - Enhancing the Data Game

Adam Stickland – TXODDS – Enhancing the Data Game

TXodds
Adam Stickland

Ahead of the start of a new Premier League season on 8 August, SBC speaks to Adam Stickland Marketing Manager of TXODDS, API and XML sports feed and data specialists. 

Stickland gives detailed insight into data and feed set ups of sports betting operators, and how they could be optimised to improve engagement and operations as bookmakers focus on Multi-Channel capabilities. Stickland sheds further insight to SBC on why sports data and analysis will become a vital tool in an operator’s arsenal, as the sports betting punter becomes better informed, more intelligent and a riskier asset.

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SBC: Hi Adam, thanks for the interview. A new football season is about to start, what new services and provisions has TXODDS lined up for the start of the 2015/2016 season?

Adam: Thanks SBC. TXODDS will be offering our newly repackaged TXAPI enhanced sports data push feed and TXTRADER web-based sports trading services as well as a new historical odds platform, called TXLAB, providing access to the world’s biggest archive of timestamped sports betting odds data. These services initially focused on football, but have expanded into numerous other sports including tennis, American football, baseball, hockey and basketball.

Furthermore, we are about to launch a new product called TXRACING which will provide a real time feed for global horse racing as well as real time odds screens with some unique features. We are using software that is usually associated with high frequency derivatives trading, so are having a lot of fun working with the data.

After that, we have more great stuff in development that we will let you know about nearer to release.

SBC: Bookmakers appear to be focusing more on omni-channel product output. How has this impacted the development and delivery of your data and odds product?

Adam:This has actually been great for us as we have been allowed to specialise and really delve deep with what we do. Since we supply data – both raw and derived – as opposed to any full service solutions, our customers consume and build this data into their systems with their own logic and established trading patterns. This applies for both pre-game and in-running. The impact of the latter has of course been well documented and was a game changer for our business also, as it opened the door to working with some fantastic clients doing some really innovative work.

SBC: With more data and insights being available to bookmakers, how have odds and data partnerships evolved. How do you create effective and focused partnerships?

Adam: What makes our working lives the most interesting – and dare I say it, fulfilling – is that we get to work with clients who have specific requirements for a plan of their own, and we help make it happen. It could be anything from a bookmaker wanting to offer everything under the sun but run it fully automated with minimal staff, to working with industry giants who have completely different and custom requirements.

It also means we can work with solutions providers, whether they are offering trading or platform services and supply the key market pricing data that they need.

We also have grown a healthy business supplying odds for content purposes, particularly in China where there has been a massive boom in online sports lottery sales. Here the demands may be different but our approach is the same and we always aim to make long term cooperation our goal, so there is always plenty of ongoing contact with customers.

SBC: We have seen bookmakers take a rough set of results in January and March 2015, could bookmakers and sports data analysts work together in order to make betting markets more secure?

Adam: Yes, we believe so. As an example, our historical data platform allows for modelling and back-testing, which can be used for a range of purposes – from researching trading strategies and competitor analysis through to anti-fraud and integrity purposes.

So on the one hand you have the ability to research where you have been losing money, even if it involves a rough set of results that went against you. Perhaps your competitors fared better – our history platform will show you exactly how they dealt with the price movements on those matches. Then, on the other extreme, if any of these betting patterns indicate any form of potentially fraudulent activity, they can be flagged for further investigation. Hence the data can be used as part of the ongoing process of continuous improvement. However, the data has to be real time and accurately documented, otherwise it has no value. This is at the absolute core of our real time strategy, data which is timestamped and stored in perpetuity.

SBC: Finally the question everyone wants to know, who will win the Premier League 2015/2016 season?

Adam: Tough question….with ‘Betting on Football’ taking place at the Emirates Stadium, TXODDS would love to choose Arsenal, however our in-house guru Chris is tipping Man City this season, so we will go with that.

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Adam Stickland – Marketing Manager – TXODDS

TXodds

 

TXODDS are sponsors of the 2015 Betting on Football Conference – Thursday 10 September Emirates Stadium

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