Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | January 2012 38 ONEworks revenues, realising the growth potential of this new sector. Then, it represented considerably less than 10%; last year, that had risen to over 50%, and both listed operators forecast this to be “above 75%” for 2012 and beyond. Just a few years ago, around 80% of bets on an individual football match would have been placed BEFORE the kick- off; now it’s around the same percentage being placed AFTER the game starts, which is a remarkable shift in consumer preference. Margins have improved too, from perhaps 2%-3% gross win five years ago, to a far healthier 5%-6% nowadays. This improvement has been achieved through “less guesswork, less human error, better tools and more accurate prices”, according to one respected industry analyst. More volume, and improving profits means it’s also easy to see why operators are continuing to invest in new betting platforms, better prices and smarter trading tools to sustain the growth. The trading director of any major (or minor) sportsbook, wherever they are based or licensed, nowneeds a robust, scalable and proven sports-betting platform to compete effectively, plus reliable prices and smarter trading tools. So with as much as 80% of the global IRB market being bet on football, it’s also essential to ensure that same trading director has both the range and depth of markets and prices on the number one sport. In Asia, IRB has always been a key feature in the market, with the first in-play betting opportunities arriving perhaps ten years ago, initially on the top European football leagues, and dominated, in the early days, by both Asian handicaps and the always- popular “under/over” goal markets. Due to its Asian origins, ONEworks™ offers an unparalleled range of in- play events and markets, with 150,000 concurrent bettors at peak hours, 18,000 in-play markets and over 5,000 football events per month. All of this is supported through an exclusive relationship we have with an Asian-based service provider which has a team of 700 traders—one of the biggest, if not the biggest— sportsbook trading teams in the world, who also add value and expertise on more than 30 other sports. IRB on football is already popular, fast- growing and increasingly profitable. To compete effectively, you need as many markets as your competitors, if not more, and no-one offers more in-running football markets than ONEworks™. Built for exceptional profitability, efficiency and reliability, ONEbookSM from ONEworks™ is a special breed of sports betting platform. By Tom Hall, Business Development Director, ONEworks™ www.oneworks.com Tom Hall is recognised as one of the world’s leading experts on interactive gaming. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and investor forums and has been actively involved in gaming since 2002. Mr Hall was the founder in 2002 of AsianLogic—one of the pioneers of online gaming and betting in Asia. He remains as non-executive Chairman of what is one the largest and most established operators in the region. In parallel to AsianLogic, Mr Hall was instrumental in the development of Playtech, the world’s largest supplier of software for online betting. He joined the Playtech board in 2002. He subsequently became the CEO, with responsibility for overseeing global customer growth. He then swapped over to Global Business Development Director shortly before Playtech’s 2006 flotation on the London Stock Exchange. He remained as a Playtech director until 2010. That year he joined ONEworks™ —one of the world’s largest sports betting platform providers—as Global Business Development Director. ONEworks is at Stand #4245 during ICE 210.