Sports betting continues to grow and with it comes constant adaptation to modern world technology. Gaming Eminence speaks with Florian Diederichsen Chief Technology Officer at OpenBet. In our discussion we look at the impact of technology around innovation and competitive advantage, a results-focused technology culture, infrastructure challenges in emerging sports betting markets and recent OpenBet acquisition Multi Builder Ltd.
GE) As a CTO what importance do you place in staying ahead of external technology changes and how to potentially leverage these changes to facilitate innovation and competitive advantage?
FD) Modern day technology now revolves around 360-degree customer engagement, and the iGaming industry needs to adapt in kind, moving towards a more sports entertainment-focused approach – many of the bigger players in our industry have already started executing this strategy, key examples include Entain publicly announcing a shift to sports entertainment, or FanDuel TV.
Technology is going to play a pivotal role in taking the user experience forward and in-line with current market trends.
One of the next steps for the industry is personalised odds - working out what people want to gamble on and then tailoring those markets to bettors, optimising offering and margins. We have already started that with BetBuilder by SportCast, which allows you to essentially assemble your own personal bets around the upcoming game day. I think this desire for personalised experiences is going to go further, so we need to be able to cater for that. OpenBet has always been a leader in developing reliable sports betting technology that operators globally can depend on during major sporting events – we regularly report zero downtime in service when other third-party platform providers struggle to cope with increased demands during peak times.
GE) From your perspective, what does an ideal results-focused technology culture look like?
FD) We need to leverage both modern and trusted technology to create a resilient and scalable backend stack while creating market defining experiences for sports bettors in the front end. This needs an open and forward-thinking technology team capable of providing such solutions with business value at the front of their minds. I want my team to create value for our customers first and foremost, breaking technical ground where necessary.
GE) OpenBet partners with a variety of global operators, what challenges do you and your team face from a technical element when your partners are looking at expanding into emerging sports betting markets? Do you find that local infrastructure and legislation play a significant part?
FD) Aspects such as local infrastructure and strict regulatory requirements can often be a barrier to growth, but OpenBet has a superb track record in operating in legalised sports betting markets worldwide. The company is very forward-thinking and hungry to evolve how sports betting entertainment is consumed. That challenge is really exciting to us, especially when you consider how the betting industry is growing at pace, particularly in the US - our unrivalled regulatory leadership enables us to move into new states quickly, taking our operator partners along with us. Our success in bringing BetBuilder to a variety of markets is testament to the above and a good example of a separate application that we have made successful across our global footprint, similar to a host of other partners.
GE) OpenBet a few months back acquired Multi Builder Limited. As a process how do you approach acquisitions as a CTO from technical infrastructure, critical systems and personnel?
FD) The addition of Multi Builder Limited has allowed us to accelerate our growth trajectory, drive innovation and offer next level betting entertainment for our operators’ players. When approaching acquisitions such as this, we always look at the present technology stack to make sure it is capable of growing along with the wider business. We don’t look for synergies apart from vendors, support and ancillary tech supporting the existing teams on their growth trajectory. In turn, our acquisition by Endeavor now presents us with great opportunities to continue delivering what we do best; our sports betting systems have been expanded by the media technology capabilities provided by Endeavor.
About our contributor
Florian Diederichsen is the Chief Technology Officer of OpenBet, the world leader in sports betting entertainment, and is responsible for maintaining OpenBet’s status as the go-to provider of scalable, reliable software. In his role, Florian is dedicated to revolutionising the world of sports betting entertainment, utilising a range of consumer engagement capabilities to disrupt the betting space.
He has over 30 years of experience in the sports content industry and has overseen the technical operations of a number of companies, including Opta Sportsdata, Perform, and DAZN. Visit https://www.openbet.com/