Differentiating from the pack is critical when occupying a space within such a clustered environment. This formed a prime ambition for Stakemate when entering the UK alongside Racing and Sports.

In the conclusion of a two-part special, Arya Tayebi, Founder and CEO at Stakemate, and Jack Kelliher, Managing Director for UK and Europe at Racing and Sports, detail how this has been achieved during the early stages of the partnership, what we can expect to see during the coming weeks and months and more.

How important is fostering an inclusive feel within your operations? How crucial is this considering the wealth of entertainment options available for players?

AT: It’s part of our vision to have simple social betting and to make it fun through that. It’s very important for us to get that right and nail it because It’s such a competitive space, not just in betting but the entertainment sector in general.

For us, we had to make sure it’s really part of our company and product DNA in order to have some initial success in this space. 

Starting with that and really believing in it as a business, and then displaying it to our player base through the product is how we’ve seen it work out well.

How has Racing and Sports supported Stakemate during the initial months of this partnership? What results have been achieved?

JK: In terms of performance, the industry would say that you’d expect a double-digit margin from a racing product. 

We can safely say that there’s not been a month below double-digit margin in our partnership. One of the things that I want to caveat that with is that, at the moment, Stakemate’s offering has less international racing on it than some of the other sportsbooks around the UK. 

There is a potential for even further growth. Our product’s outperforming market standards for UK racing, and not by a small percentage, 

That’s down to the team, people, technology and tools that we’ve got from a managed trading solution point of view. 

Building on what Arya has said regarding the way that Stakemate is 

approaching their business of being fun, not only from a product side, but the way they’re engaging acquisition and retention through media and marketing side of the business, we see as an opportunity to manage those customers into profit, 

We’re getting a good recreational customer base that’s coming through. The combination of Stakemate doing what they need to do to grow their business and then Racing and Sports having the right tools and technology to manage that to profit has been good. 

It’s been brilliant, and we’ve been outperforming the market for the whole of this year. 

AT: We’ve been live for just over a year now, and I think from both sides we were not expecting it to kick off as well as it did, especially on the margin side which have been phenomenal since the start.

That’s a big testament to the data that RAS is providing, and the trust that we have built in them with their MTS product. 

On our side, we;re making sure that we’re bringing in the right player base and retaining them the right way to see growth. 

Horse racing is quite big in the UK, and following the Cheltenham season, where the product was tested properly, we came out quite strong and with no major issues.  

That validated us picking the right partner.

How do you envisage this progressing during the coming months?

AT: At Stakemate, we’re just getting started. We’re still a relatively small player compared to a lot of the tier-ones in the space, but we see that over the next 12 months we’re going to be making a bit more noise. 

We’re going to be doubling down on our growth journey, not just in the UK, but also looking at other markets. That means not only growing on the marketing side, but doubling down on having a great product as well.

There’s a few gaps that we want to close on the sports betting product side of things, and part of that is the horse racing product. It’s great to be partnered with a group that we know has all the data, markets, and tools for us to succeed in this vertical. 

It’s gonna be a lot of investment on our side in making a better product overall, and that includes the horse racing side as well. 

JK: From our side, we’re excited. We said early on that we will read about Stakemate a lot more as a business in the industry in the future. 

The way that Arya and his team are building out their product and opertions is second to none. We’re excited to be part of that. We’ve got the right tools and technology to help them on that horse racing front to grow not only revenue but also the margins that we’re achieving. 

For example, there’s extra scope to bring in more international content and greyhounds into the product portfolio. We’re working with Arya’s team to look at that at some point in 2027. 

For us, it’s about understanding Arya’s and the business’ goals over the next 12 months and how we can align with that from a racing point of view. 

There’s definitely an opportunity to grow the product in terms of coverage and markets that are available to the betting users on the Stakemate platform.

You will read a lot more about Stakemate in the future. They are a business that is going in one direction for sure.