Giannis Papakonstantinou, Director of Sportsbook Product at Altenar, speaks to Focus Gaming News about operator priorities, trading quality, gamification and the role of personalisation in sportsbook development.
What are operators looking for in a sportsbook provider today, given that their expectations continue to evolve?
Several factors come into play, but one of the most important is trading quality, which is not necessarily the most glamorous aspect of a sportsbook.
Many operators can offer a variety of sports, markets and pricing options, but strong trading is what makes the difference and ensures profitability for operators. This profitability can then be used for customer acquisition and marketing, allowing operators to continue growing.
We are also talking a lot about product, because it is what attracts players to a website and keeps them engaged. There are two key aspects to consider: attracting players through the product offering and retaining their interest once they arrive.
It is essential to offer a variety of promotional markets, such as Super Early Payout, which has become increasingly popular across many jurisdictions. At the same time, operators need to focus on personalisation and gamification to keep players engaged.
Alongside these elements, localisation is also important. As a global B2B supplier, we understand that these factors make a long-term difference for operators.
What does Altenar offer in terms of gamification?
We allow third-party CRM systems to tag players within the sportsbook engine. Operators can then run targeted promotions for specific player groups. These can include boosted odds, Golden Boosts or different types of bonuses. The process is seamless for both the operator and the player.
Super Early Payout, also referred to as One Up in some jurisdictions, is another example. In football, a player can place a bet on the 1X2 market and receive a payout if their selected team takes a one-goal lead. The same principle applies to winner markets in US sports.
It can be an expensive feature, but it is also an effective marketing and acquisition tool. The right product attracts players, while gamification helps keep them engaged.
Last but not least, Altenar provides a variety of different gamification tools like free to play games and social chats that allow players to interact with each other.
Players are increasingly looking for features such as Bet Builder and more ways to interact with the sportsbook. Is this an important area of development for Altenar?
Absolutely. Bet Builder is a major focus of our product development. We are adding more markets and improving our in-house models. A variety of promotions are also centred around Bet Builder, or Same Game Parlay, as it is known in the US.
How does Altenar manage the data feeds required to deliver sportsbook content across different markets?
We currently use around 25 different data feeds. Maintaining all these integrations is challenging, but it is also what makes our product stand out.
We decide which feeds are best in terms of quality and latency. Our operators do not have to manage individual relationships with feed suppliers or deal with the complexity of those integrations. Instead, they receive a fully managed service directly from us.
Is the integration process complicated?
After so many years of experience, we have become experts in this area. Today, you could think of a sportsbook as a kind of casino aggregator for data feeds.
You mentioned the importance of trading in improving operator profitability. Does sportsbook trading also create financial risks for operators, and how does Altenar manage those risks?
We handle trading on behalf of our operators, so this is our responsibility. We are confident in our approach, and our operators can see the results of our work.
What distinguishes us from other competitors is our ability to provide customised margin control for each operator. We apply different trading strategies at jurisdiction, operator and brand levels.
More recently, we have combined this approach with what we call automated segmentation. We use machine learning to identify player categories much faster than we could in the past.
We continue to improve our models to ensure operator profitability while minimising the operational burden on our partners. Ultimately, that is the goal.
The product is already established, but Altenar is also working on new developments for 2027. What can operators expect?
One of our major development priorities for 2027 is personalisation. We are expanding on the work we started this year. In 2026, we laid the foundations for what is coming in 2027.
We have already released personalised recommendations at the player level. The feature is fully automated and uses a player's betting history and patterns to recommend content that we consider relevant to them.
This is increasingly important because, a few years ago, in 2020, a successful sportsbook was often one that offered the widest range of markets, including player specials, fast markets and micro-betting. Today, successful sportsbooks offer broadly similar content and market depth.
The difference now lies in how operators promote the markets that are relevant to each individual player, helping them cut through the noise.
Does this personalisation relate to the messages players receive, or to the content they see on the sportsbook?
It relates to the content they see. The experience is customised in a similar way to Netflix, with recommendations tailored to each individual player.
