- Caesars Sports Chief Operating Officer Ken Fuchs talks about betting tech stack improvements for the new NFL season
- BetMGM also announces sportsbook enhancements
- Users looking for end-to-end experience that is faster, more intuitive and trustworthy
This is an ideal time of the year for sportsbook operators to roll out technology enhancements to their platforms, with the betting tsunami that is the NFL about to get going.
$30 Billion in NFL Betting
The American Gaming Association yesterday announced its NFL betting estimates on legal sportsbooks for the upcoming season, which gets going Thursday night with the Dallas Cowboys in Philadelphia to play the Super Bowl-defending Eagles – USD $30 billion.
Then you have a situation like Thursday, when the Cowboys shockingly traded four-time superstar Pro Bowl edge rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers, for two first round draft picks and three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark in return.
Reacting to Line Shifts
And with that came a sudden odds shift – at FanDuel, Cowboys odds to win the Super Bowl before the Parsons trade was +4500, after the trade it was +6000. Sportsbooks must be nimble when massive trades out of left field like that one happen.
For Ken Fuchs, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Sports at Caesars Sportsbook, speaking with Casino.org exclusively about the Caesars Sportsbook app and improvements ahead of football season, it doesn’t get any bigger than this.
Upgrades to Tech
The same upgrades have been applied to the William Hill mobile app and betting platform in Nevada as well.
“This is the time when everyone turns their TVs back on, back from summer, and football is America’s past time,” he said. “It isn’t any different with other sports betting providers. For us, it drives a lot of the business, especially this time of the year. There’s excitement across every aspect of the business this time of the year.”
Fuchs said the company’s proprietary tech stack gives them the flexibility to make fast improvements on the fly in response to what their customers are looking to see, further improving the experience for sports bettors on its platform.
Big Increase in NFL Market Options
Caesars this season offers a two to three-time increase in market options compared to previous seasons, with themed same game parlays and the most prop bets they have ever offered, including head-to-head props.
The re-designed homepage features more streamlined navigation making it easier to build parlays and explore player props, and a brand-new search functionality enables user to find bets faster.
The company has also focused on cash out functionality, upgrading that to support player props, same game parlays and super parlays.
BetMGM Announces Sportsbook Tech Enhancements
Caesars Sportsbook has also improved ways to bet live on games – Live Quick Pick Parlays allow for faster parlay options, with live player stat tracking and a rebuilt bet slip experience.
Another upgrade is the Universal Digital Wallet, currently available in 19 jurisdictions, more streamlined for managing funds and Caesars Rewards credits in one place.
“[With a proprietary tech stack] you can develop the features that you want to develop, not just what’s in a vendor’s road map,” Fuchs said. “You get control, and so you can be responsive to the customer, which is ultimately the goal. You see customer trends, you get feedback from them. Users want to be able to create the best experience for them, that’s fun and easy and fast, and only way to do that is to own your own technology. Otherwise, you’re just subject to somebody else’s priorities, resource constraints and outcomes.”
Sign up with Caesars to make a bet in Las Vegas, when you’re there for a Raiders or Golden Knights game, and soon to be a Vegas MLB game, then go back to wherever your hometown is, and your bet and money stays with you.
Tracking Your Bets
BetMGM also announced a suite of enhanced features for its mobile app ahead of the new NFL season – including what they say is a smoother, faster user experience, live same-game parlays, cleaner presentation, redesigned rewards dashboard so players can better understand their BetMGM Rewards Points balance, and technology improvements so when users are exploring different options, they’ll see a display of recent team and players performances, current season trends, streak indicators and insights from the past five games.
“This is the fastest, most user-friendly and best product we have ever offered,” said BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt. “Every detail was designed with players in mind. By blending years of customer feedback with the ingenuity of our product development team, we’ve built a premium sports betting app with a level of detail and insight that sets BetMGM apart.”
Rebuilt Bet Slip
Fuchs said the big priority for users is using a platform that’s easy when it comes to registration, seamlessness when getting into the app, simplicity when it comes to depositing money.
“We’ve worked really hard on those core early journey experiences … just make it easy to get your bet down,” he said.
“You want to be able to get in there and be able to find a market you want to bet on … whether you’re searching for it in our search tool, or whether you find it on the homepage or you’re going into an event page. And then you want to be able to add to your bet slip, combine it with other bets, and then get the bet in. Then you want to be able to track it.”
“If you’ve got Josh Allen, 300 plus yards, and he’s got 249 in the third quarter, you want to be able to see that in the app and see how you’re doing, and then you can decide, do I want to keep that bet, or do I want to cash it out and bet on something else?”
Fast, Intuitive, and Trustworthy
Ease of use getting in and out of bet slips, get the transaction done, track players and games, then withdraw money quickly and securely if you win, an end-to-end experience that is fast, intuitive and trustworthy, is where the rubber hits the road with sportsbook operators.
“Focusing on the customer, understanding their friction point, understanding what they enjoy, then just building towards that every day,” said Fuchs, summing up their process.
After spending years building the foundational layers of the technology, now Fuchs said Caesars Sportsbook is in a position to focus more on what is fun for the customers.
The post Sportsbook Operators Roll Out Tech Enhancements as NFL Betting Season Ramps Up appeared first on Casino.org.
