## The Natural Progression of Player Prop Wagers – iGB

The growing availability of player prop wagers and the incorporation of betting insights are unavoidable trends. Daniel O’Boyle chatted with Sporting Risk CEO Henry Newman regarding his company’s comprehensive pricing and factual tools for player props.

**The Natural Progression of Player Props**

Two significant forces have emerged in the sports betting realm recently: the drive to incorporate more player prop wagers from a pure trading and market standpoint, and the increased effort to integrate insights into products from a user experience standpoint.

It’s logical that these two forces would converge.

However, the first company to bring a consumer product that combined player prop trading and facts to market might astound you. It wasn’t a data behemoth or a well-known sports betting provider, but a team that has long served betting companies.

Sporting Risk CEO Henry Newman remarked that the company’s history of operating successful betting groups played a role in helping it deliver the Prop Futures product.

“The manner in which we gather data is that every action can be recorded as an ID,” he stated. “So all of our models are based on the smallest common factor in a football match, which is any single player’s action.”

This has been the driving force behind alliance pricing for a long time, and now it has the potential to truly soar in the B2B market.

**Pricing and Information**

Prop Futures products combine player proposition betting pricing with bettor information.

“Essentially, Prop Futures is the first product available that brings together player proposition market pricing and key proposition information, so both pricing and information are front and center for the player,” Newman stated.

He also mentioned that the product’s marketing focuses on integration.

“One of the biggest obstacles operators face is their integration plan for existing or new products. Therefore, when you can offer a solution that integrates seamlessly, it reaches the market faster than one that needs multiple integrations.

“If trading and information are provided separately, it might require connecting multiple APIs, which involves coordinating teams, markets, player IDs, and mapping. Furthermore, you might find yourself integrating into an iframe, and then you have to integrate the information into that iframe.

“It’s common knowledge in the industry that when there are two providers, there are usually two agreements, which means departments like legal take longer.”

**Competing Thoroughly**

Its simpler to introduce a stand-alone product than to integrate independent player prop tools and insights into existing sports wagering platforms. But how do you compete with companies already providing core sports betting features?

Newman states that the key is to provide a wide range of markets that standard sports betting providers may have difficulty keeping up with.

“We’re not just offering odds and information,” he says. “The extent and depth of our coverage is another crucial factor. We cover over 100 leagues. We offer every match we cover, and if a player is on the field, he’ll have a price in every market we offer, and we offer over 20 markets.

“So whether you’re watching the English Premier League, the German Bundesliga, or the Japanese J League, you’ll get the same user experience, which is completely unavailable in the current market. We have in-depth data and detailed data that allows us to do this.”

However, this does present difficulties. While some aspects of the product are automated, there’s still a considerable amount of manual work involved. The more markets offered, the greater the workload for the individuals providing those manual functions.

“The scale of the markets has increased, not exponentially, but it’s a pretty substantial increase,” Newman says. “Being able to handle pricing is definitely a challenge.”

Weve dedicated a great deal of energy to leveraging our expertise in forecasting results to ensure our prices are accurate.

The World Cup is on the horizon.
It’s difficult to ignore that the product is being launched precisely when the 2022 FIFA World Cup is taking place. International football matches are distinct from ordinary club games, particularly tournaments. Keeping this in mind, Newman stated he believes prop futures could be highly successful during the event, as it’s challenging to obtain reliable information about this type of wagering.

“You often lack substantial data for international tournaments,” he remarked. “Therefore, if you can encompass a wider range of aspects and incorporate propositional facts, it will provide a significantly greater volume of data for bettors.”

Therefore, preparing for the event is undeniably the next major milestone for sports risk. However, Newman expressed his aspiration to witness the product expand into a broader range of sports, particularly American sports (prop betting enjoys immense popularity in American sports) and esports.

“We’re already undertaking extensive and costly endeavors with models for American sports and esports. But we also aim to be innovative in creating novel markets. We possess the capability to readily launch new products within the propositional domain, and we anticipate these products will be engaging and enhance bettor participation.”

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