Andy Phillips: “Player Props were gaining serious traction across the industry”

Could you explain how Sporting Risk was established and what inspired the team to transform a profitable betting syndicate into a data-driven company?

When I joined the business, Sporting Risk had recently spun out from a successful betting syndicate and had already made early B2B progress – supplying data products to organisations such as HKJC, Starlizard, and BetPrompt UX/engagement tools to Betfred and ComeOn Group.

The operation had a wealth of unique IP, giving us several potential avenues to explore. However, we could see that Player Props were gaining serious traction across the industry, and given the advanced player modelling the company was already providing to clubs like West Ham and Atalanta, we knew we had the raw materials to build something special.

Reflecting on the company’s early history, what are some of the key moments or challenges that influenced its path?

Fortunately, we found an excellent partner in Retabet, who saw our potential and helped get the product off the ground. The natural next step was to make those player markets combinable through a BetBuilder. At first glance, we assumed the market was already saturated – with multiple suppliers and Tier 1 operators looking to bring solutions in-house. However, once we dug deeper, we discovered significant opportunities across the industry, and the simulation-based approach  has become core to what we do. More recently, we were asked to deliver team cards and corners markets, followed by a complete soccer offering. Being able to build that on top of the Betbuilder, rather than try to bolt it on afterwards is leading us to be able to offer new product concepts, customer UX and back-end risk management tools.

What do you think distinguishes Sporting Risk from other providers of sports data and trading solutions? How do you stay ahead in a field where data and technology rapidly change?

We have a distinctive heritage from outside the industry, combining two worlds with very different outlooks. Our syndicate foundation has driven a bottom-up modelling approach, giving us a unique platform for product development. Understanding sport from a professional’s perspective then provides insight into what the data is truly telling us – what’s the signal and what’s the noise.  We need to anticipate the tactical approaches teams will take in upcoming games based on historical data – and that’s incredibly difficult to second-guess so having people in house who’ve actually done the job is invaluable.

What new sports, features, or improvements can operators look forward to in the upcoming months, especially related to your fully Managed Trading System?

We’re building out a complementary product set to cover both basketball and ice hockey, with a particular focus on serving European competitions alongside the core U.S. offering. Our data science team has scaled rapidly, enabling us to tackle multiple sports in parallel.  We’re also introducing new features across our micro markets and in-play multis, including “or” options and insurance clauses, as well as strategically adding bonus settlement mechanics (extensions of the 2 Up or Supersub concepts) to create more real-time value for players – especially in moments where it’s algorithmically beneficial to do so.

You were at SBC Lisbon and G2E Las Vegas recently, what were your key take away messages?

For us, SBC Lisbon was about securing face time with partners and prospects. This year was particularly rewarding, as we met with many operators committed to delivering more engaging, recreational UX backed by unique and innovative product concepts. It was also the perfect lead-in to G2E, with the World Cup coming up next year and operators recognising that now is the time to invest in their soccer products. Thanks to our Sportradar distribution deal, we’re able to move quickly and overcome the usual integration hurdles to make those opportunities happen.

This season, what trends are you seeing in player prop markets, whether it’s demand for micro-markets, bet combinations, or regulatory changes, and how is Sporting Risk adapting its offering?

A lot of the current innovation in the U.S. is focused on repackaging the sportsbook concept to exploit legal loopholes. By contrast, much of what we do centres on leveraging the inherent advantages of a fixed-odds sportsbook over an exchange or pari-mutuel model. Essentially, it’s about asking: what exciting experiences can we offer customers without all the constraints of the fixed-odds space? We don’t need to source liquidity to power the product, or exhaustively price every outcome in a market or worry that your counterparty is a room full of 145 IQ maths grads who’ve made it their life mission to smash you to pieces for any minor error.

Elsewhere, our Micromarkets are being extremely well received. It’s a product that has traditionally struggled to find its footing in soccer because most existing frameworks have tried to apply a U.S. sports model to a game that’s slower, with fewer scoring events and natural stoppages. Our approach instead focuses on creating greater market variety – adjusting fluidly based on game state, rather than breaking a match into artificial time segments.  We also intermix Micromarkets with pre-built multis and regular player props, promoting them dynamically through our in-house BetPrompts, which keeps the experience both intuitive and engaging for players.