When Kambi acquired front-end technology specialist Shape Games in September, the sports betting technology company said the combined expertise of the two businesses would give operators the control they need to deliver truly tailored experiences to their players. To find out more about what that means for sportsbook operators, we caught up with Nicolas Linde, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer for Shape Games.
SBC: What factors separate Shape Games’ services from its competitors?
Nicolas Linde: We have been delivering best-in-class native solutions for some of the most renowned consumer brands out there since 2010 and we brought that mindset to the igaming industry.
Our focus on a native tech stack enables us to offer a highly flexible product based on the individual operator’s roadmap, and one where you can involve your internal development team and continue to build upon on your own.
SBC: Who are Shape Games’ partners, and what are some of the company’s success stories to date?
NL: I’d like to give three examples of different types of clients we have worked with over the years. Danske Spil is the Danish national lottery operator and was our founding client who we have worked with since 2015, as we have kept the international competitors at bay and gained a larger market share over the years.
Next up I’d like to mention betJACK, which was our first client in a US state (Ohio). We introduced our fully-fledged free-to-play solution Training Camp a year prior to the launch of its licensed betting offering to ensure first-mover advantages for betJACK in the market.
Finally, I’d point to BetWarrior who we have worked with ever since it was founded, as it has entered new markets and grown from a startup to an important player in Latin America.
SBC: How will Shape Games integrate its front-end services into Kambi’s market-leading sports betting technology and services?
NL: Kambi has some of the best APIs in the world and we already have years of experience integrating with those. As a matter of fact, we were the first to launch a fully Kambi API-driven offering with BetWarrior years ago.
Partners can add the Shape Games front-end offering on top of what Kambi provides should they wish to, and we see that flexibility as an added benefit for all parts.
SBC: What benefits will the enlarged group offer to potential partners?
NL: The best sportsbook solution connected through the best APIs to the most customizable and modular native front-end the industry has seen should be a very enticing combination for any operator out there.
SBC: Why is a high-performance front-end and the ability to differentiate so important for sports betting operators?
NL: You can only differentiate to a certain level through marketing. At some point you have to do it through the product itself. To us it is all about winning users’ time and attention from other types of entertainment services such as Netflix, TikTok and Facebook.
To do so, your product must offer a lot more in terms of personalization and engagement features, and deliver to a higher standard than what the industry has grown to expect from white label solutions.
SBC: How will sports bettors benefit from a bespoke front-end experience?
NL: Sports bettors gain unseen product diversity and variety as the offerings are no longer all cut from the same cloth. It means that it gets easier to find betting offerings that suit each user’s personal preferences to a much higher degree than what people have been used to.
