"The customers always come first" - Sarah Robertson, Sr. Business Development Executive at Kambi

Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to talk with you today. How are things there in London at the moment? Well, we're on day two of our second lockdown, so just kind of adjusting. Hopefully the month will go by quickly. Things have been busy, which is great, so the weeks of working at home go by very, very quickly.

Sure, I mean, as an associate member of both the WLA and the European Lottery, Kambi is very pleased and excited for this partnership. We think it's a great opportunity for us to develop our place in the European and global lottery world. We are excited about this partnership in particular because, as you probably know, the Belgian Lottery is a very forward-thinking and progressive lottery and an important lottery within the European lottery space. We are partnering with them after a very competitive tender process because they wanted to gain a new sports betting partner that would allow them to enable the strategy they have, where they are actually relaunching and refocusing their Scooore sports betting brand. They're doing a full rebrand and relaunch of that brand, and they've selected Kambi to take them forward through that piece with our product. A big piece of why we're so excited about this is that they are a European lottery, and we are very excited to work with them across their retail network. They have a large retail footprint within the Belgian space of over 300 point-of-sale locations, and Kambi will be powering a dedicated sportsbook product across those locations.

So for us, that's really an interesting addition to our portfolio because we have retail as a core piece of our business. We power a lot of different iterations of retail, from a US casino environment to a partner like the Belgian Lottery, where we have point-of-sale locations across 300 newsagent-type environments. It was very important for us to look at the flexibility of our technology and how we can support the different needs of someone coming from a lottery background with that retail footprint, versus a US casino or US race track. I think it really adds to our portfolio and speaks to the flexibility of our technology to be able to support those different strategies.

Yeah, I think, I mean, although the pandemic has posed challenges, I think it's a really great opportunity for a lot of operators to look at their overall strategy and to look at their strategy not focusing on silos. You know, online, retail, mobile, you really need to have a unified approach across the different channels. I think the lottery is very keen to do that. The core of their refocus of their sportsbook brand, the Score brand, is to look at a customer-centric approach. Some of the things we're looking at doing with them in retail is bring your own device, where players can make their bet selections at home on their mobile device, bring that mobile device into the point-of-sale location, scan to place a bet. They're really crossing the line between having a siloed approach for retail and online. I think that's important not only for diversifying in the event of a pandemic, but also when you're looking at reaching a new demographic of customers, you need to make sure you're looking at a technology partner that is at the forefront of technology.

I think that was a big piece of why they selected Kambi in the tender process. Product, technology, and product development in our roadmap were key sticking points for them throughout the sales process and the tender process. They know it's a little different for the Belgian Lottery in that they work in Belgium, which is a highly competitive sports betting market, so they knew they needed an industry-leading sportsbook to compete with many of the private operators who have retail businesses in that space. The lottery is unique in that they have a very wide retail footprint that gives them a unique advantage, but they knew product would be very important to make sure they could take advantage of that retail footprint and get a good piece of the marketplace.

Yeah, I think the key thing is that the customers should always come first. When you're looking at selecting a supplier, you want a supplier that is flexible in terms of how you can utilize their technology to enable your strategy with your customer. I mean, you look at Kambi's different types of operators we work with. You look at someone like the Belgian Lottery, who has a very specific customer database they want to leverage. You look at someone like Mr Green, LeoVegas, Penn National, Barstool Sportsbook in the US. These are all operators that have very different strategies and very different ways they want to push their sportsbook product forward. They've all selected Kambi for various reasons, but I think the core reason is our technology and the ability to have flexibility to build on top of our technology. Kambi gives a very full open suite of flexible APIs that our operators can then build on top of. So when you look at a Mr Green versus a Belgian Lottery versus a Penn National, those sportsbooks all look and behave very differently because they built their sportsbooks to enable their strategy. Kambi's flexibility of our technology is really how we've allowed them to do that. That's the core of how we build our sportsbook: there's a sportsbook core and then open APIs that operators build on top of, because we know that someone operating in Germany, Belgium, or the US all have very different needs and need very different sportsbooks.

I mean, we are obviously a global operator, so we're continuously looking at markets that are re-regulating, new markets opening up globally. We have a big focus in the US as you will note; we've been first in many of the states we've gone into. Again, that speaks to the way we built the core of our technology to be able to pivot the offering and technology to meet different regulatory requirements. As you can see, even within Europe, the Belgian requirements versus German versus upcoming Netherlands and German requirements are all going to be very different in terms of regs. To be able to pivot the technology to meet those requirements but also offer to beat those requirements is key to success in being able to launch quickly, because as you know, when a new market regulates or opens up, speed to market becomes very important. You want to be first in the marketplace. Kambi's technology allows our operators to do that while ensuring compliance. You see a lot of these very tight regulatory frameworks where in places like Sweden, operators oftentimes get fined for breaches of regulation. I think Kambi has a really proven track record of supporting our operators in highly regulated markets. I think that also ties back to why we were well suited for partnering with the Belgian Lottery because compliance and integrity were a key factor for them in making their decision of a supplier.

I mean, I think the core of our focus in terms of sales and business development is looking to where we can offer value with product development in new markets. It's not about just going into a new market and being first; we want to make sure our offering and product is market leading. We've done that by working on the core technology of the sportsbook and building everything with thoughtful design. Most recently in the past year, we developed an in-event multi-bet builder. That's the next step in the evolution of that builder, where punters can place bet combinations across different events. It allows a limitless approach to how you build a bet, which is really engaging for customers. It's something that no other B2B provider is doing right now, so that's been a key area of focus for our business in terms of product. And again, I've already mentioned it, but reiterating, bring your own device. I think we're really looking at how we can combine the online and retail ecosystems to ensure cross-sell capability and to ensure the retail product isn't a stagnant product. We want that product to be forward-looking. We want, you know, where there are regulatory frameworks in a lot of places we work in the US, there are retail-only frameworks in certain states, so we want to make sure that retail product is still engaging and that you can still have that online experience.

I think it's definitely going to continue down that route of making sure you have the ability to cross-sell between those two segments, because that line is going to continue to come together. Excellent.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you for your time. Take care.