Pulse

10star: unlocking the true power of proprietary data

By William - 21 February 2024

Oil might have been the single most important wealth creator since the 1900s, but data is expected to be the driving force powering growth in the 21st century. A mathematician coined the term “data is the new oil” back in 2006 but that prediction has proven premature for the betting industry, explains 10star’s strategic advisor, Simon Trim.

In 2006, the in-play offering that is ubiquitously powered today by real-time game state data largely didn’t exist. Most operators at the time offered little betting action after the start of an event, even on football. Some didn’t offer in-play at all. On the surface, the availability of data has driven industry growth.

However, in those markets that were regulated in 2006, such as the UK, once the substitutional effect of pre-match to in-play turnover is considered – alongside the shift from retail to online – the growth in overall gambling expenditure over the last two decades has only been roughly equivalent to inflation. In that light, data hasn’t driven betting industry development at all.

Now we’re in 2024 sports betting operators – and more pertinently the supply chain that feeds them – are still not fully utilising the data that is available. However, how operators utilise different forms of data in future will likely determine who the next generation of industry winners are.

Future value growth for sportsbooks lies with a better use and interpretation of the customer data they already possess. While oil has driven growth and innovation, in its unrefined state it is virtually worthless. This is where the most interesting parallel with data exists. Ninety per cent of the world’s data has been created in the last two years, and operators are now sitting on a huge wealth of potential value given to them through the information provided via the betting activity of their customer base.

However, to date, the tools that are available to sportsbooks to mine this information, refine it, understand it and objectively use it to drive increased profits are rudimentary at best, meaning that most of its value goes untapped.

Conversely, 10star is built on objective, data-led decision making. Using a combination of techniques inherited from financials as well as sports betting, we make automated trading decisions based on the information we extract in real-time from the bets customers place, alongside a range of other underlying data sources. Our processes have been refined since the dawn of in-play, and the way of using data in this way is unique in the industry.

Now, we have packaged these algorithms and made them available to our operator partners to use through a range of SaaS tools called neural.

Using neural, our partners can leverage our machine-learning capabilities to get a deep, real-time insight into all aspects of their sportsbook’s performance – customers, sports, events, markets, pre-match and live. Neural can determine everything from the levels of skill that customers exhibit, to how good the underlying model is at producing prices in the first place, to how vulnerable certain elements of your client base are.

Delivered through four interconnecting modules, neural gives insight and understanding to all the prices that are offered and bets that are struck on your book, enabling our partners to protect their margin whilst also protecting their customers in a way that has never been available before.

Going further, the algorithms that power our SaaS neural proposition are also those at the heart of our integrated alpha service – our industry-leading risk-management solution. Existing suppliers are using in-play models that can’t incorporate or react to the pace of data evolution.

While these same models have enabled operators to make great strides in the arena of supplying additional content, the way that they are built means they are not capable of automatically managing risk in real time based on aspects such as book liability, customer skill or the other information neural can deliver.

Our integrated alpha service is designed to overcome these limitations, ensuring all our partners optimise their prices in real-time, based on their risk preferences and the objective analysis of their proprietary data that neural provides.

The outcome for operators is clear and – in terms of the existing supply chain – unique. Utilising neural can lead to increased margins, higher profits, lower volatility, improved brand differentiation and a sustainable increase in market share, delivered with customer safety at the heart of the equation.