“What we will deliver will be entirely different from anything that the industry has seen before.”
Martin Collins, Soft2Bet’s chief business development officer, is using those bold words about the company’s launch in New Jersey. But, equally, he could be describing Soft2Bet’s approach to entering any new market.
The business has carefully avoided the cookie-cutter approach while establishing brands in the regulated jurisdictions of Sweden, Denmark, Romania, Greece, Italy, Spain and most recently Ontario. Instead it has focused on three pillars – innovation, localization and engagement – as its route to being profitable in each new territory.
With that in mind, it is hardly surprising that Collins is promising a completely new UI/UX concept for the company’s U.S. debut in 2025. Bettors, not to mention competitors, will have to wait to see exactly what that means though.
“I can’t go into too much detail because we want it to be impactful when we go live, but the UI/UX will be something that’s never been seen before,” he says.
“This is really exciting for us because we believe it’s going to be a game-changer. Not to the point where we go and spend loads of money and compete with the big guys, but from a product perspective we think we can drive strong engagement and strong retention, and not necessarily have to spend quite so much to gain a market share.”
That idea of not worrying too much about the brands at the top of the tree is another important part of Soft2Bet’s B2C playbook.
In part the approach is because as a privately-held business, it can afford to focus fully on bottom line profit rather than supporting the share price through expensive attempts to grab market share. But it’s also because it views other iGaming and sports betting operators as only one element of the competition.
“It’s all about the experience of the customer. In the U.S. in particular, but as an industry as a whole, what we find is that the relationship between the consumer and the brand is very transactional,” Collins explains.
“What we want to do is create an experience that comes away from that and actually becomes more like what we consider a competitor in other markets, like TikTok, like Instagram, like Amazon. So people come to your brand not because you’re giving them money or you have the best price, but because they love the brand and they love the experience when they’re engaging with that brand.”
Where innovation meets nostalgia
Central to the strategy is its proprietary Motivational Engineering Gaming Application (MEGA) platform. Developed for use both by Soft2Bet’s own operator brands and as a product for its B2B division, MEGA is an extensive suite of simple to implement engagement tools.
“We take mechanics from other industries like casual gaming, like ecommerce, like social, and we embed them within the customer experience. We believe that what that does is drive engagement and drive screen time,” Collins enthuses.
“We know that because before, with the transactional approach of our industry, it was 15 minutes of screen time for a customer to come in, spend their money and leave. We’re now up over an hour and 15 minutes because of these mechanics.
“Players come in not just to play casino or make a sports bet, they come in to actually engage with the brand.”
That increased screen time clearly demonstrates that the potential exists for online gambling platforms to compete against TikTok, Instagram and Netflix for a greater share of consumers’ leisure time and entertainment spend. Coming this far in taking on the tech giants on their own playing field is something that has required imagination, innovation and technical excellence, but as Collins points out, the success of MEGA owes just as much to familiarity and fun.
“We’re adding products all the time, different things. We have City Builder, we have Stadium Builder for the sports fans, and we have a shooting range,” he says.
“I’m not sure you would call this one innovation, but it’s definitely impactful. We have the (fairground grabber-style) crab. When the customer makes a deposit, they get a go and they can win prizes. That just leans into nostalgia – and that works very well from an engagement perspective as well.”
Where local beats global
That kind of gamification has been instrumental in the success of ToonieBet, the operator brand Soft2Bet launched in Ontario in October. In this case, the most popular engagement tool is a selection of coins designed by the company’s in-house artists – an online collectible that sits perfectly with the company’s localization strategy.
“The reason we went with the ToonieBet brand is that in Canada, a Toonie is a $2 coin,” Collins recalls.
“From the off, we were really trying to localize because we saw that a lot of the brands that were in the market were very international. So rather than go with one of the existing brands, we tried to create something that was very specific to Ontario and Canada itself. Obviously as the other provinces open up we can utilize the same brand and build something across the whole of Canada.”
The localization and gamification parts of the Soft2Bet playbook were augmented by a sponsorship deal that proved very timely.
“We sponsored the Ottawa Senators in the NHL playoffs and that was quite lucky for us because they got drawn in the first round against the (Toronto) Maple Leafs. So you had the two teams from Ontario playing against one another, you had our brand everywhere, so we were really happy with that.”
Where next?
With Ontario bedding in nicely, an expanding European presence, and the long-awaited launch in New Jersey imminent, the big question is what next for Soft2Bet’s growing empire?
The answer could lie in Latin America, although not in the much-hyped Brazilian market, which Collins views as being beset by legal and regulatory uncertainties. Peru and Chile look more promising to him, but only if Soft2Bet can find a way to localize and do something that local players will never have seen before.
“These markets are less mature than a European or a North American market, so as a consequence there’s always going to be uncertainty. So it’s about trying to make the most informed decision possible,” he says.
“That means that you need to have advisors on side and you need to have people giving you an opinion about certain aspects, but yes, if the opportunity presents itself and we believe in it, then we’ll go for it.
“But if there’s high levels of risk and uncertainty we will wait. The simple reason being that ultimately we are a European business. The differences between Europe and North America are there culturally, but it’s closer. When we start looking at other markets, if we want to localize in those markets as well, it’s a challenge for us because we don’t know the culture.”
According to Soft2Bet, its trajectory won’t be about chasing market share, but venturing into markets where it can create compelling experiences for its players. Whether it is through gamification, hyperlocalized brand experiences or innovations that are completely new to users, Soft2Bet’s goal is to provide the best possible user experience and it will pursue regions where the team think that’s attainable. Right now, Soft2Bet is focusing on NJ and if new territories come into view, its approach will remain the same.
