In our ongoing series of tech forecast outlook, we interviewed Chris Conroy, Chief Data Officer of Future Anthem, to gather his expert insights on the leading technologies set to dominate the industry in 2023 and the online markets that operators will prioritise. Additionally, we will explore his views on the progression of Bet Builders and the influence of the FTX collapse on cryptocurrency usage in the realm of gambling.
GE) Which technologies do you feel will dominate the gambling industry in 2023?
CC) I think 2023 may be the year that AI becomes dominant in the industry. It’s been around for a long time, and some of the bigger gambling groups have had data scientists in the business for nearly ten years. But the key is the overall system that delivers an improved experience to players, driving retention, revenue and sustainability.
From a technology perspective, with the data volume and velocity in our industry, Spark (and platforms like databricks) for large scale processing, and streaming technologies like Kafka for real time decisioning, are key.
GE) What online markets are going to be the focus for operators in 2023 and what technical challenges will this face in gaining market share?
CC) Obviously, the focus on the US markets will continue – I think the key technical challenges in gaining market share will be around being able to personalise experiences and using data for intelligent acquisition and conversion, rather than the high cost acquisition we’ve seen so far. However, it’s worth noting that this is technically challenging due to the relative immaturity of the markets, and lack of historic data.
GE) How do you see Bet Builders evolving throughout 2023?
CC) Again, personalisation is top of the agenda in my opinion. I believe once operators adopt personalisation, they’ll open up new avenues that allow them to automatically offer players recommended bet builders based on things such as players they like and their favourite markets. Bet Builders are a further addition to the exponential growth in betting opportunities available to punters – this is why personalisation is critical.
GE) Do you think that the FTX collapse will have an impact on operators' outlook towards crypto during 2023?
CC) Possibly at the edges – but I think the reality is that most mainstream operators won’t be doing much around crypto (beyond accepting it at its current fiat conversion) in 2023. The FTX collapse is almost a ‘normal’ event in the crypto landscape – although it will definitely be a wakeup call for those who thought that those days were over. It’s very important to separate crypto from blockchain and web3 – there are a small group of operators who will continue to focus heavily on web3 and metaverse plays.
About our contributor
Chris Conroy joined Future Anthem in 2019 having built a strong reputation for himself as an industry leader in data science. He joined the company with the goal of delivering machine learning at a vast scale after spending seven years at The Rank Group where he served as Head of Customer Data Science. Visit https://www.futureanthem.com/