SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
David Archer, owner of FREEBETS.com, the leading affiliate and sports betting service, talks to Sports Betting Community about his firm’s new app, which was released earlier this month.
FREEBETS.com has grown rapidly in the last year and we are well aware of how important mobile is in the online gaming and betting space. Simply put, if affiliates and operators are not focusing significant resources and effort on the mobile market then they will fall behind competitors.
Mobile is over 50% of our traffic so, following on from the overhaul of our website in August 2013 in which we relaunched FREEBETS.com with a responsive design, the obvious next step was for us to develop an app for iOS and Android platforms.
The idea had been in the pipeline since last summer but we didn’t want to rush in and create a sub-standard product. Then main driver was marketing as we wanted our site to be seen as widely, and through as many channels, as possible.
Our central aim is to have the FREEBETS.com site available to a broad range of potential users. It’s vital for us to have a high-quality app available to all mobile users, to provide and showcase great value.
The Apple App Store was the obvious place for us to launch an initial version as the largest destination for apps, and we released the FREE BETS app earlier this month. It goes alongside a number of other applications the business has developed and released over the last year. We will be launching an Android version in the next few weeks.
Apps are popular because they are by their very nature concise and easy to access. Our app gives users a fast route for analysing the vast amount of information we have available on bookmakers’ free bets and promotions, as well as access to our popular tips section.
The FREEBETS.com site has been providing high-quality free betting tips and analysis from leading experts across a number of sports, and we wanted this section to feature prominently in our app. Tips and blogs from the likes of former footballer and Sky Sports presenter Matt Le Tissier, and Hampshire batsman and racing pundit Will Smith, have proved very popular via the website and we wanted to make their tips more widely available.
It’s a challenging marketplace so we know we have to stand out from the crowd. Along with our tips section, we list and review bookmaker free bets and casino welcome offers in a variety of ways that are not provided by our competitors.
For example, we list clearly and concisely deposit requirements, rollover requirements and certain odds requirements so users can see exactly what a bookmaker is offering.
In terms of the creation process, we had a very hands-on approach with the designers at Degree53, specialists in mobile and web design with an excellent record for creating betting and gaming apps.Our team had a vision for the design and, of course, the content, but Design53 were full of ideas and as a collaboration it worked really well.
We were lucky in that it was quite a straight-forward process with no real issues along the way. It took around six to eight weeks from start to finish which we were all delighted with.
Initial feedback has been promising and, as we recently sponsored a high-profile race at Cheltenham, we took the opportunity to use some promotional staff who approached racegoers and encouraged them to download the app. Reaction was positive.
FREEBETS.com certainly won’t rest on its laurels, though, as we’ll will be looking to improve and update the app over the next year. With improvements in bandwidth, loading speeds will remain a priority for us. We’d also like to encourage more interaction with social media and we’ll continue to add new features and respond to user requests.
App Screenshots
