With an Ohio mobile sports betting launch not expected until later this year, potential operators are looking for a way to bridge the gap and connect with sports bettors before launch.
Wagers.com spoke with Shape Games Chief Commercial Officer Morten Tonnesen about the recent launch of the betJACK free-to-play mobile sports betting app in Ohio, the history of F2P games, and the many benefits these products provide.
The betJACK F2P Mobile Sports Betting Experience
Steve Ruddock: Many companies offer pre-registration in the immediate lead-up to official sports betting launches. In Ohio, you’ve launched the F2P betJACK app well before the state’s launch. What advantages does a F2P app provide over pre-registration?
Morten Tonnesen: This is much more than pre-registration. Our free-to-play product delivers immediate customer engagement and a platform that is close to feature parity with the future real-money product. This achieves three important goals by building a database of addressable customers, giving those customers safe, immediate value and engagement in a safe and controlled environment, and familiarizing them with app-based sports betting that effectively prepares them for the rollout of real money apps.
At the same time, betJACK can hone its operational model and product readiness to ensure they will be as competitive as possible with the global operators who will be entering the market.
The consumer response in Ohio has been strongly positive. We anticipate that the free-to-play betJACK app will remain in place even after the introduction of real money as an on-ramp for customers who are learning if they want to try sports betting for fun before staking money.
The Value of F2P
Steve Ruddock: Can you unpack how F2P apps help walk new and potential customers through the betting experience?
Morten Tonnesen: Shape Games’ origin story is in consumer app development for companies like Apple, RedBull, and IKEA. We are very good at building consumer-friendly sticky apps that make it easy to convert interest into engagement. For betJACK, that translates into a simple onboarding journey that leverages our local sports knowledge and the customers’ social network to build sports conversation and bragging rights between friends as they share bets and challenge each other’s skills at picking winners and losers. The app provides statistics on your betting behavior to help you improve your picks, win badges and earn experience. Customers can subscribe to customized news feeds on their favorite teams and players to keep up-to-date on the most relevant sports news.
A Look at the F2P Customer
Steve Ruddock: Who uses F2P apps, is it just new bettors and non-gamblers, or does it also appeal to real-money bettors and existing casino customers?
Morten Tonnesen: We have seen a broad uptake of the product from the novice to the more experienced bettors who want to test things out before the real-money launch. We believe this will build much better conversion along the spectrum of sports bettors.
We will also soon be introducing links to betJACK’s retail casino operations so that their existing land-based customers have more reasons to sign-up and play the app.
The Long History of F2P
Steve Ruddock: What are some of the lessons you learned during your time at PokerStars and the company’s successful play-money poker offering?
Morten Tonnesen: The success of the online poker model in free-to-play is well established with real money operators like PokerStars – where I led marketing for a few years – and social games like Zynga Poker.
During my time with PokerStars, we built very healthy ecosystems in both free-to-play and real-money economies. This created strong brand awareness, familiarization with the product, and the ability to monetize through cross-selling making it a low-cost acquisition channel.
Free-to-play is very successful when it lowers customers’ biggest barriers to joining an iGaming product: trust and skill. Our betJACK free-to-play customers gain familiarity, bringing trust while increasing their skills through engaging with sports betting in a safe and fun environment. This is critical because we compete for a share of time – and wallet – with entertainment experiences. So, providing a low/no-cost experience gives consumers greater enjoyment so we get more of their time, resulting in better long-term value for the customer and betJACK.
Filling Voids in the US Market
Steve Ruddock: The US sports betting industry is evolving at a lightning pace, but I wonder if this rapid evolution is creating any voids?
Morten Tonnesen: The recent US experience with online sports betting (including DFS) has been about huge marketing spending to gain brand awareness, drive demand for category, and acquire customers at almost any cost. But, frankly, very little has been done to ensure a high-quality, simple and engaging customer experience. Most big European and domestic sports betting apps are simply digital versions of the old bookie’s spreadsheets. We are delivering a compelling and competitive consumer experience that starts with our front end on the bet\JACK app and runs straight through to the customer service and marketing services that we provide betJACK to have a seamless and sticky experience that will outperform the competition
