Ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, betting companies are placing a large focus upon the ‘home betting experience’ – and one way to do this is through enhanced data offerings.

According to Andy Wright, CEO of Sporting Group, the launch of the new Betting Innovation Centre will enable operators to offer more in-depth player stats markets.

Discussing Sporting Solutions’ recent agreement with Stats Perform, Wright began: “Stats Perform are market leaders in providing data across a variety of sports, and Opta Data is the oracle of soccer stats.

“Combining that with our heritage of sophisticated trading and risk management, we’re going to build a compelling product leading up to the World Cup to tap into that new market anticipation for player stats betting – we already see some sportsbooks doing it now.

“But with the richness and depth of data, we believe there’s so much more that we can offer through the combination of two companies.

“The response [from customers] has been fantastic. I think the panel that I took part in was one of the most well attended panels that I’ve been on over the last few years. Immediately after the panel discussion ended, customers were coming up to us to ask when they can have this product.

“We’re gearing towards the World Cup as our launch date. And that’s going to be just for soccer. But eventually there’ll be more and more sports that will be coming off the conveyor belt in the future.”

At the time of the launch, Stats Perform and Sporting Solutions noted that partners will benefit from access to a new range of market and product options, including contextual bet engagement content, such as singles and bet builder markets, as well as pre-match and in-play markets.

When pressed on the reasons why this new product focuses on player stats betting and bet builder innovation, Wright answered that this was quite simply due to the growing demand for such products.

He continued: “I think the number one reason is because our customers are demanding these products. We’ve seen the success of bet builder products over the last five years – so we’re building upon a product that already exists.

“I think the player betting that is included within that builder is going to be key for the growth of that product in the future. We know that the younger demographic likes that product. We’ll continually evolve, as we put more rich data in front of the customers alongside the propositions that we’ll be putting forward.”

Watch the full interview HERE