Joakim Renman: “We Close the Gap between Sports Betting and Fantasy Sports to Create Significant Value”

Scout Gaming Group is an established B2B provider of daily fantasy sports and betting solutions with a focus on the European market. International growth has always been part of the company’s strategy as indicated by a recent partnership between the company and Betsson targeting the Brazilian market.

Offering a fully licensed product, Scout Gaming is in a position to bring and provide brands with an authentic and worthwhile experience that will stick with their customers and generate high engagement, conversions and inspire loyalty.

Fantasy sports are an interesting market that Scout Gaming has braved and decided to bring over to Europe through its licenses in Malta and the United Kingdom. The company is listed as NASDAQ OMX Stockholm First North and it is a continuous source of innovative solutions in the betting and fantasy markets.

Q: Could you tell us a little more about Scout Gaming and where the focus of the company lies – is it traditional sports betting, fantasy, or simply both?

We are firm believers that there should be little if any distinction between Fantasy Sports and sports betting. Fantasy Sports is an integral part of the modern sports fan and the crossover is near perfect. Often people tend to care more about their Fantasy team than the actual teams playing. By closing that gap and removing the distinction we create significant value for the players and in return, our operators benefit heavily. As the first company in the world to have developed the first, natively-integrated Fantasy & Sportsbook product built on the same technology – this gives us a massive competitive advantage.

Q: How has the pandemic impacted both segments, that is fantasy and regular sports betting? Was there higher interest for one or the other from your business partners?

Like I said, we don’t want to and really can’t see any distinction between the two. They strengthen each other since the players are the same. Much like how Bingo and Poker are to Casino or a physical casino is to an online one, DFS allows companies to attract and keep players through by offering an omnichannel experience. Overall, we have seen a continued strong interest with a maintained three-digit % growth in the number of players – we don’t expect this trend to end in the foreseeable future.

Q: How far have you penetrated the European market? Are there places where you want to continue and double up your efforts?

We’ve only just started scratching the surface by establishing market leadership in markets such as Greece, showing players what a truly engaging and feature-rich fantasy for money experience looks like. We are particularly keen on seeing the growth accelerate in the Nordic region, with giants such Norwegian state monopoly Norsk Tipping, as well as the current market leader in Sweden, ATG, in the starting blocks to start heavy marketing pushes based on the interest that we have already stirred up. Norway is experiencing a fantasy craze at the moment and Sweden is not far behind.

Q: In purely technological terms, what are some of the innovations that Scout Gaming brings to the table?

Our international, real-money network liquidity solution for paid Daily Fantasy Sports has, in effect, put us miles ahead of any competitor trying to break into the market. Add to this our long list of additional features, including our bet recommendation engine “Betflex”. We also offer unique playing features like Pursuit, Late swap, Safety net, bet-on-my-team, player performance odds, a Player Sportsbook and Player Matchups… the list goes on. Considering the fact that we’ve done all this on a new technology developed by Google called Web Components, which is poised to become the standard in the gaming space, it allows us to maintain a much higher pace of development than what I have ever experienced in my 15 years in the gaming space.

Q: What are your immediate plans for 2021?

We’re going to continue to push the boundaries of the world’s largest paid Fantasy Football league when the leagues start again in August. We’re looking to launch several new partners including two Tier 1 operators, both firsts in terms of scale and size. Our Sportsbook is also gaining significantly increasing traction of late and we’ll be “completing” the offering by addition of key features such as Live Betting, Bet-builder, cash-out and of course a few easter eggs spawned from the intersection of Fantasy and Sports betting.