Genius Sports announces move into free-to-play games vertical
Genius’ free-to-play offering will include weekly and matchday games, tournament games and daily retention games. These are intended to meet purposes such as activating a sportsbook brand and delivering segmented daily player interaction.
Genius will also offer bespoke free-to-play solutions to meet operators’ objectives, including gamification strategy design, as well as custom game development.
Additionally, Genius is integrating its advertising solutions, helping operators to drive players from free-to-play games into their sportsbook. Genius will use advanced analytics and reporting in its advertising sector to assist operators in measuring paid media impact.
The provider’s launch aims to enable operators to boost customer acquisition and loyalty. Josh Linforth, Genius’ chief revenue officer, stated: “From encouraging users to register for an account to giving them a compelling reason to return and then converting them back to bet, our new suite of games provides betting operators with incredible value across the full player lifecycle.
“We work in partnership with 300+ betting operators and we’re excited to expand our partnerships through proven gamification solutions.”
New strategy for Genius after mixed FY2023
Genius’ move into the free-to-play vertical comes after it recently announced mixed 2023 financial year results.
The company increased its revenue by 21% over 2023. It reached $413.0m (£324.5m/€379.3m) for the year, beating Genius’ prior guidance of $391m.
The revenue rise was aided by improvements in two of Genius’ operating sectors. This was visible in the 31.1% rise in Genius’ Betting Technology, Content & Services segment, which was responsible for $274.2m of the total revenue.
Adjusted EBITDA also more than tripled, rocketing by 238.3% year-on-year to $53.3m. This again exceeded the initial guidance of $41m.
However, despite jumps in revenue and adjusted EBITDA, Genius still recorded a loss of $85.5m for the year. This was less than half of the $181.6m loss reported the year prior, though, with Genius lauding “improved underlying performance”.
Genius set to extend Premier League data deal
Earlier this week, Genius also announced it had been chosen as the successful bidder to extend its official betting data partnership with Football DataCo, which holds data rights to the English Premier League (EPL).
The move also covers the rights to data from the English Football League (EFL), containing the Championship, League One and League Two, as well as all leagues overseen by the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), including the Scottish Premiership.
The provider has now entered into an exclusive period of negotiation with DataCo in order to finalise the deal. The fresh deal would last until 2029 and see Genius Sports continue to distribute data from over 4,000 UK football fixtures per season.