Huddle Tech is a software company that focuses on providing services to gaming operators in all regulated markets across the world. The company has an established track record for building intuitive products that operate at low cost and in multiple jurisdictions and improve the overall end-user experience.
A big part of what Huddle Tech does focuses on Major Leagues and college sports in the United States, with the company’s coverage constantly improving. Most recently, Huddle Tech secured an undisclosed investment from Las Vegas Sands, marking the first move of the brick-and-mortar entertainment company into the digital space.
GamblingNews sits down with Huddle Tech CEO Francesco Borgosano and VP Innovation Ed Miller to talk about the company, recent investments, and how products have evolved over the years.
Q: Can you start by telling us a little more about what Huddle Tech offers?
Francesco Borgosano: Huddle is a software and services provider for gaming operators of all sizes in regulated markets around the world. Our long-term vision is to leverage modern technologies and data-driven solutions to build products to help our partners grow their business, lower costs, and operate effectively in multiple jurisdictions, all while delivering a better experience to the end-users.
On the path to realizing our vision, we started by focusing on odds-making and trading tools. We offer a very compelling odds feed product for US sports, which includes all major professional leagues, as well as NCAA. Additionally, we provide player props and micro-markets, as well as the core markets.
We have spent the majority of our development time addressing the key pain points for operators and have focused on features such as maximum uptime, customizable offering, and flexible integration path. We also offer trading services for customers who need an additional layer of supervision in order to protect and enhance the margin of our betting proposition.
Q: Can you tell us a bit more about your recent investment from Las Vegas Sands and how this is set to impact your product and business future?
Francesco: The funds raised by Las Vegas Sands will be utilized to primarily fuel our growth through hiring. We believe technology can solve a lot of problems for gaming operators and will need to add more skilled engineers to help our existing team build and support those products. The other area of the company that we are focused on growing is our business development team. We want to work closely with our customers to make sure we are addressing both their current and future needs.
Q: Do you see a case for more land-based companies making a move into the digital space, and does this move have to be in the context of launching dedicated sports betting platforms, for example?
Francesco: The sports betting landscape is very diverse and, when it comes to business strategy, a “one size fits all” approach does not work. When it comes to key trends though, it is clear that we are shifting towards digital. This is something that goes beyond our industry and it is driven by the society we live in.
And, yes in my opinion if an operator wants to be competitive in the digital space, they must leverage solutions built for that purpose. Ideally, an advanced solution should be able to address all the customer touchpoints to ensure an engaging experience, seamless transition and complementary features between physical and digital channels. The development and delivery of such solutions are very challenging and, in my opinion, operators who don’t have a strong digital and technical DNA are better off outsourcing that function and identifying a reliable partner who can address their needs.
Q: How has your product offering evolved over the past few years?
Ed Miller: Our approach to product development has been to tackle the hard problems head-on so that we have the strongest possible foundation upon which to build out our offering. In that vein, we created industry-leading pricing solutions for the main markets, premarket and in-play, for major US sports NFL, NBA, MLB, and college sports first. Once we were satisfied with our industry-leading positioning with that product, we expanded upon it to offer a full modern pricing menu including myriad derivatives, team and player props, micro-markets, and so forth. We aim to have the most reliable – both in terms of availability and accuracy – pricing for all the markets in these sports available anywhere.
Francesco: We believe that our core competencies will give our partners the necessary confidence to bring innovative products and a more engaging user experience to market while ensuring operational excellence.
Q: Can you tell us how Huddle helps create “differentiation, innovation, and operational efficiency” for your partners?
Ed: We’re focused on building long-lasting relationships with customers who are open to innovation, believe in the vision for Huddle’s technology and proposition, and want to grow with us. Huddle’s tech stack and product design philosophy are built around flexibility and innovation. We look to collaborate with partners to help design new, differentiated customer experiences, and then because of the power and flexibility of our technology, we can very quickly build out what’s necessary to power those experiences.
Q: What is Huddle excited about for the remainder of the year?
Francesco: The recent business combination has drastically increased our competitiveness in the marketplace. And, the whole team is energized and excited by our capabilities and the potential opportunity.
Ed: We are consolidating our tech and we’ve been building out new and industry-unique products like crazy, and we’re thrilled to be able to deploy it with our customers for this coming football season and beyond.