Exclusive interview.- Dinos Stranomitis, COO and co-founder of Altenar, mulls over the future of the industry and the path ahead for the company.
Over its decade in business, Altenar has gained a reputation for being a flexible and versatile online sportsbook provider adapting to meet the vision of customers in a range of markets.
Where does it go fr om here? The biggest challenge is going to be meeting the increased demand, says COO and co-founder Dinos Stranomitis, in a new interview with Focus Gaming News.
It’s important to understand the post-Covid situation, Stranomitis says, noting that things have changed perhaps more than we sometimes appreciate. Some companies struggled, but Altenar is “here and much stronger than before“.
“We have moved to an online-mandatory approach.”
Dinos Stranomitis, COO and co-founder of Altenar
“What is eventually coming up after the recovery is a completely different world than it was before,” Stranomitis says. “We are not going back to 2019. On the contrary, we are going forward ten, 15 years in the future. Definitely, nothing is like before.
“We have health protocols, we have different approaches to how to do business. Very conservative institutions learned to work remotely. People have a different approach to day-to-day life. Personal freedom has been changed dramatically – I’m not saying whether it’s bad or good.”
He notes that people are more agile and business orientated, and, perhaps most significantly for the industry, online has become mandatory.
Expanding markets
Altenar’s ploughed ahead with new developments in this period, including going live in Colombia with Betsson, but the largest percentage of its business is still in Europe, particularly in Italy, Spain (wh ere it has two new partnerships coming), Belgium, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, and Bulgaria, where it leads the market.
In LatAm, it’s going live with many smaller operators from different countries to create a strong footprint.
And the US? Stranomitis admits it’s the questions he’s asked the most.
“The US is something for the future,” he says. “We just don’t have the date yet.”
He adds: “I believe that a customer must have a need to invest. I’m not of the opinion that the investment brings the business. I’m of the opinion that the business brings the investment.”
The challenge for 2022? How to manage the increased demand. Altenar is growing significantly year by year at a time in which “everything is urgent.”
Now with a staff of around 240, Stranomitis says the company is continually recruiting. The other challenge is how to work together with the banking system, and Altenar is giving a lot of priority to compliance
Future products and the importance of data
Altenar has a strong roadmap, and Stranomitis highlights the growing importance of data. One thing in the works is the company’s own pricing models. This will be a great step up when it comes to the product for a sportsbook provider that already has its own bet builder and a trading team of 65 people.
“Altenar is planning to have its own pricing models very soon,” Stranomitis says. “I think this will give us a sort of independence that will definitely drive us to the next level.”
“We are moving very fast when it comes to big data analysis,” he adds.
“When you log in to the website, you should get what you usually look for, not a standard layout of what we decide to give to the customer. Algorithms will decide what to serve to the customer. This is coming.”
Check out the full interview with Dinos Stranomitis on the Focus Gaming News YouTube channel. Don’t forget to subscribe!
