Leigh Herdman, Founder and CEO of Algosport, delves into the explosion in popularity of bet builder products, while assessing just where a continued upsurge in popularity could lead.

SBC News: Algosport is recognised as a premium provider of bet builder products. How does the market look now?

Leigh Herdman: When we started Algosport in 2017, at that point we couldn’t have predicted the explosion of bet builders as a sports betting revenue driver, nor could we have foreseen how it would move from a niche product, to one that is a pre-requisite for sportsbetting operators who are looking  to service the needs of end-users across the globe. 

However, that’s where we are today, and Algosport are immensely proud to be at the forefront of providing innovative solutions for operators wanting to raise their game and provide exciting and engaging sports betting products. 

Over the last 12 months or so we have seen some significant changes to bet builders and how smart operators are using them to enhance customer experience. 

This has seen an evolution of the product, from a pre-match soccer service to what is now a multi-sport, multi-feature service, both pre-match and in-play that is harnessing the voracious appetite for a new breed of end-users who want to test their knowledge and opinion against operators trading teams. 

What started as a ‘novelty’ product, with the ability to request prices for combined bets on major events, has now become one of the key drivers of innovation within sports betting, plus a highly important driver of client acquisition, retention and revenue.  

Whilst a lot of this momentum could be said to be being driven by the seemingly never-ending growth of bet builders (or same game parlays/multis) in the regulated US market, as a UK-based business, we have seen significant growth for bet builders for European sports, including what could be called minority or local events.

SBCN: What are the market trends that Algosport is seeing from customers or the wider sports betting ecosystem?

LH: At Algosport we are very proud to be supporting over 200 retail and online operators through both B2B partnerships and direct B2C deals. 

These customers operate in multiple regions and countries, and range from the largest global tier-one brands to single-territory challenger operators, and we are pleased to be able to offer modular services and flexible commercial mechanisms to support all our clients. 

What makes Algosport different is we effectively provide a third-party service that is akin to an in-house product, and it is this increase of ‘control’ that is becoming the main trend within bet builders. 

For our existing customers using the Algosport ‘Blackbox’ to calculate bet builder offerings, this has meant that our clients have full price consistency across their wider trading strategy, and are able to combine virtually any market that they currently offer. 

This flexibility also means operators who use our service are able to flex margins to achieve a long-term sustainable revenue proposition. In some instances, our customers have taken the view that they can increase margin for certain potential high-return same game multiples, but others have a strategy to offer at a lower margin and then leverage this as a value-add for end users. 

We are well aware of the competitive pressures our clients face, and to be able to differentiate with a product that is very attractive to recreational customers is seen as a hugely important weapon in their arsenal. 

As a lean and efficient company, we are also able to offer our premium offering at highly competitive commercials, where previously the only other real option was an in-house product, that could be both expensive and time consuming, complete with all the attendant risks of an internal project. 

This ‘best of both worlds’ approach has created significant interest in our product, and we have recently expanded our customer base with numerous new clients, including tier-one global players in both B2B and B2C sports betting.

SBCN: What do Algosport think will be the ‘next generation’ of bet builder products?

LH: Having been involved in bet builders since the dawn of this product, we believe we are well placed to drive the further advancement of these products in 2025 and beyond. 

As one of the first suppliers who predicted that bet builders would expand out of soccer, we are looking at a number of brand new sports in the next 12 months that will complement the twelve sports we already offer.

We know that these will be well received by our growing number of customers who are already seeing significant revenues from bet builders for ‘minority’ sports such as darts, snooker, volleyball, handball, table tennis and even soccer esports! 

We are also close to completing our project of making all of our bet builders available in-play – unlike some other providers or in-house solutions, we already have ten sports available with live features, and have done so for many years.

However, 2025 will see us add ice hockey for the start of the next NHL season, with the final remaining sport of soccer esports the next to be developed. These will be key developments for our customers, as we are very aware that interest and revenue from in-play same game multiples has ramped up significantly in the last 12 months, with an expectation from savvy end-users that they should have the ability to place their bet builders whenever they want, and also to have a cashout option throughout the lifecycle of a match or event. 

Outside of the increase in sports and features, as well as a continual expansion of the number of markets supported for bet builders, we are looking at some concepts that will remove barriers for bet builders and make it a truly ‘sandbox’ product, with end-users able to ultimately create their own bets and not be limited to the operator’s current market offering. 

We are really excited about what this could do, not just to bet builder revenue, but also in creating a new style of sportsbook where the ability to personalise is user driven, and almost limitless. 

We believe we are uniquely placed to be able to meet these new demands, with our ability to not only deliver an industry leading bet builder product, but wider trading services including a full range of sports betting derivative markets, plus in-house cashout logic that can power the entirety of a sportsbook. 

SBCN: What will the next 12 months look like for Algosport?

LH: We are lucky to have grown the business over the last few years, with support from our valued and loyal customers, so the next 12 months will see us building on this as the business matures, but keeping our clients at the centre of our plans. 

As well as our exciting plans to continually improve and augment our core bet builder products, we’ve actually looked at a couple of products that we initially worked on when we created Algosport.

These are more generalised sportsbetting trading products, but it’s been highly interesting that the problems these advanced trading products were meant to solve in 2018, remain as much as issue today for sports betting operators and suppliers – in fact, we see the ability to improve efficiency, increase revenue or reduce costs to be even more important now for what are generally highly-competitive and expensive markets to operate in.

Also we are, like the rest of the industry, looking at the World Cup in 2026 and are already working on some innovative products that could revolutionise how end-users are able to interact with bet builders – we really think these new products will be a step-change and will provide a watershed moment in sports betting, so watch this space in 2026!  

As a consequence of all this planned activity, we will be looking to expand the team to be able to meet the demands from our valued customers, as well as introducing new products to the market. We will also ramp up our marketing and commercial efforts, with the SBC Summit in Lisbon in September a key driver of our activity in 2025 and beyond.