888Sports by BetBright - Almost a year after the acquisition

The online sports betting portfolio of 888 has always been of huge importance to the company for many years. Up until last year, 888 has had to rely on offers and odds provided by Kambi, which is one of the largest online and offline odds providers operating in several regulated markets in the world.

Why work with intermediaries?

This practice is not unique at all, as many sportsbooks prefer to work with special platforms that focus on the collection, aggregation, and distribution of the data from various events. With the ever-increasing number of competitors, the need for fresh odds, and the tremendous success of the live betting sector, keeping up with the demand is very difficult to handle for sportsbooks. Especially for small brands that don’t have the means and budgets to provide new odds by the minute. This situation imposed the need to work with larger companies that provide full sports betting portfolios allowing sportsbooks to simply plug and play the technology on their sites.

The need to break free.

Although making use of external providers may seem like the most efficient and budget-friendly solution, the idea of not using in-house technologies has never been considered as the best business model for 888 Sports. The company’s core values and ideologies are built on its ability to stand out from the competition and provide independent products.

To recover its lost identity and establish its dominance over the sports betting business, 888 acquired BetBright in a €17.5 million deal back in April 2019. Founded in 2013, BetBright was one of the leading actors in the online entertainment and sports betting industries. The company provided odds and betting offers in 16 different sports in all the major European leagues. With the acquisition of BetBright, 888Sports’ clients' bettings odds are directly provided from the company's servers without passing through intermediary providers.

Almost a year has passed, was it a good investment for 888?

For 888, the strategic decision to acquire BetBrightly was the winning ticket that propelled the company into a status of undisputed leadership in the sports betting industry. The acquisition of BetBright included not only the technology but also the company’s experimented employees and management.

The online sports betting market in Europe has been in constant evolution for many years. There is still a lot of room to grow for the company offering the best products. Overseas, 888 is already working on its expansion to the US (already active in New Jersey since 2019) and in new emerging markets in Asia.

Sports Betting Forecasts in the United States: 2019 – 2024

Now that 888 has reaffirmed its independence by controlling the entire funnel starting from odds aggregation to the delivery to end-users, we are eager to see the company's growth and return on investments.

The other major activities conducted by the company

Besides its sports betting activities, Online Casinos and Poker are the second-largest verticals in terms of activities and revenue. Today, the company offers several online gaming brands such as 888Casino, 777, 888 Ladies, 888 games and 888 poker and many others.