About this app
About Book of Gold
The aim is an on-demand sportsbook capable of offering the right bet to the right customer at the right time. Lamb believes Kambi’s network of more than 70 partners provides an important advantage in pursuing that goal. More than €17 billion in annual liquidity and billions of bets placed each year give its models a depth of information that can improve pricing, risk management and product development.
“The term AI is everywhere across the world of technology, and the betting and gaming industry is just one where its impact is being felt,” Lamb says. “Taking AI beyond being a buzzword, building and deploying the systems and automation necessary to maximise its potential and deliver the right results is the challenge each of these industries face.”
For Kambi, data must be combined with the knowledge of experienced traders who can direct the technology, scrutinise its output and identify where it can add value next.
How to play Book of Gold
But, as Robinson warns, the opportunity to enter Africa doesn’t come without challenges.
“It’s profitable, it’s growing and it was for sale from a distressed vendor,” he says. “That combination rarely appears in regulated Europe, where scaling a B2C brand means paying up for customers against Flutter and Entain on thin margins.
“Africa isn’t saturated, but I wouldn’t call it easy either. Betway and the local incumbents are well dug in. The difference is that you’re competing for a market that’s still forming, at a fraction of the acquisition cost, and the operating margin is there if you get the payments and the product right. The risk is regulatory and currency rather than competitive.”
How to play Book of Gold
“We’re very encouraged with the trajectory of that, but we’re still not where we want to be. But a lot of the work, or some of the work has been done, and we have a lot more planned for the rest of the year. So bear with us. It is happening.”
Bengtsson said the split between casino and sports betting for SunBet was roughly 90% to 10% in favour of casino, with Sun International “under-indexing on sportsbook”.
But Sun International views that as an opportunity, with Bengtsson stating: “We think the market overall is probably somewhere around 35%-40% sportsbook.