SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Bernard Marantelli, CEO and founder of innovative football pool operator Colossus Bets, explains how the company is continually developing its B2B and B2C offering.
You’ve just launched HDA15 – a 15 team accumulator with a £1m jackpot. What is the thinking behind this?
We built this company in the belief the public wanted lotto sized sports jackpot bets with Fractional Cash-In.
While there are existing HDA (or 1×2) products they are very small, take ages to grow in size and rarely reach £1,000,000 in prize money, before reverting to sub 100K after they are won. All these flaws are in part because there are several of them competing.
Due to the potential of existing products and our growing distribution, we decide to launch one MEGA HDA (or 1X2) game to knockout the completion and consolidate interest on one central pool with fractional cash-in to further feed engagement hence acceptance.
Had you always planned on releasing a 12X product of this size?
Yes the HDA (or 1X2) football acca/pool, is a very popular bet type so it was always in the background to expand our HDA pools as the company grew
Also as our B2B partner distribution has increased with Betdaq, Betfair, Boyles and more partners coming on-board, it was important for us to ensure we cater for our partners betting customer needs by offering the right product for their acquisition and retention marketing. We are confident that the betting public will love winning a minimum £1,000,000 HDA15 every weekend.
How excited are you ahead of the new Premier League season now you have several partners also offering your bets to customers?
Very excited indeed. We had a hugely successful World Cup, especially when you consider that the limited number of games per day could have been a challenge for our products. However the Pick4 proved very popular with players and we can build on that success.
The return to weekend football which is the staple for an acca/pool punter will only grow our pools further.
In fact we shall soon be launching a Television marketing campaign of our products and where to play them – which will drive more awareness and interest for our partners.
How useful a marketing tool is the £10m Colossus for attracting players? How are your B2B partners using the Colossus?
The £10,000,000 gets their attention and the fractional-cash-in engages them, but for now the slightly easier products dominate the day to day betting spend. This will change as we see more clients coming on-board, meaning the big pools get won more frequently.
Has anyone come close to dropping the jackpot yet?
Last week we had a 20p line needing Real Madrid by AOH (Any Other Home score not listed) to win £100K pool and a shot at the £100k bonus. A lot of our players have just missed out by one leg; whereas others have taken advantage of the Fractional Cash-In feature.
It’s all about the value and entertainment, some players will go for the jackpot, some are happy with the Fractional Cash-In and taking small chunks of profit each week throughout the football season.
