iGaming is a fast paced, energetic industry where no two days are the same and things change very quickly. It’s often likened to a rollercoaster, but for Uri Poliavich, CEO of Soft2Bet, it is just like motor-racing. 

With some businesses sponsoring race cars and displaying cars at industry events, one might think of Formula One, but Poliavich instead makes comparisons with NASCAR. 

“NASCAR is very challenging. Each race is 500 miles, there are 39 different tracks at 39 different stadiums that each racer needs to learn and understand how to race at. Like in our business, you can just run out of fuel and be out of the race. You can be stuck in the middle of the race and it happens in our industry. You can run out of track, too.”

That’s what Soft2Bet’s CEO told staff members at the company’s Q3 Town Hall meeting. For the first time ever, Soft2Bet allowed industry press into the meeting to get a glimpse of its performance throughout Q3. 

But while Poliavich sees similarities between iGaming and NASCAR, there are key differences, as he told staff: “We have an indefinite number of miles to go. We have indefinite numbers of tracks and markets and, of course, new racers. You see them at each expo. More and more racers are coming in. More and more platforms, more and more operators, game providers, payment providers. That’s something that never ends.”

Q3 results demonstrate strong progress

Soft2Bet’s CEO ran through some top line numbers before breaking the business down into its core functions, assessing growth OKRs against targets and outlining operational milestones. 

For Q3, which was labelled ‘lap 37’ for Soft2Bet, the company saw 15% EBITDA growth quarter-on-quarter and 7%  revenue growth QoQ. On a YoY comparison, EBITDA growth was 96% and revenue was 88% up. 

Though impressed, the CEO outlined he wanted to be even more ambitious in Q4.

On the casino side of the business, Soft2Bet during Q3 grew its game GGR by 20% QoQ after using 43 new integrations with over 1400 new games in the platform via its aggregation engine. In its sportsbook, Soft2Bet’s game GGR grew by 174% QoQ compared to a target of 4%. 

New brands, new features and new licenses

Operationally, Q3 was a very busy period for Soft2Bet, which launched new brands, secured new platform certifications and launched several new features as part of its B2B offering. 

Firstly, the company launched four new brands including TopBet in Romania, where tax hikes have caused some uncertainty. Poliavich noted that the brand launched prior to the tax hike from 21% to 27% which occurred earlier this month, and that management would “see how it goes” moving forward. 

The other brand to launch was Swiper, Soft2Bet’s social media driven online casino brand which has gone live in Romania, Sweden, Denmark and Ontario. Swiper has been designed so players can discover, select and play games just using their thumb, as the platform has been designed around “swipe-driven navigation”.

Soft2Bet has boosted the standing of some of its existing brands with several marketing activities yielding strong results. ELABet in Greece has worked with local marketing agencies on TV campaigns and video promos which resulted in +30% in brand search, +30% in impressions and +29% in active players. 

In Romania, Don.Ro partnered with FC Cluj as a front of shirt partner, resulting in +33% in brand search, +16% impressions and +2% active players. Similar stories have been written in Denmark, where the Betinia and CampoBet brands have naming rights deals with the top three football leagues, and in Canada, where ToonieBet has an agreement with the Canadian Football League.

Meanwhile, the company’s legal team, under the leadership of General Counsel David Yatom Hay, earned praise for securing authorisations for new brands and platforms in Ontario and Romania. Further approvals are anticipated in Spain next year. 

Soft2Bet’s flagship B2B product, its Motivational Engineering Gaming Application (MEGA), was bolstered by several new mechanics throughout Q3, including MEGA Round, MEGA Island and a new football related mechanic. 

Maximal uptime and localised customer support

Poliavich shared technical data from Soft2Bet’s Q3 operations, highlighting a platform uptime of 99.98%. He noted that the remaining 0.02% was primarily attributed to broader outages among major global infrastructure providers.

Across its global operations, Soft2Bet enjoyed an 81% CSAT score, which measures customer satisfaction across a number of different measurements. This, Poliavich stated, was because of two factors: the company has 100% native coverage so teams understand the needs of customers; and it has local customer support teams in nine different countries. 

The CEO stated: “It’s a big challenge to be in those locations and establish them within six months. But on the other hand, it gives us a huge perspective and huge advantage on others that are not present in the country and they don’t feel how the market works.”

Ambitious targets ahead

As Poliavich closed up the Town Hall, he outlined some Q4 targets – headlined by 18% GGR growth in casino and 30% growth in sportsbook. 

Overall, the firm is chasing 25% EBITDA quarter over quarter, and 20% growth in revenues as it chases four more brand launches, more platform certifications including in Spain, and five new gamification mechanics in MEGA. 

Poliavich closed the session by coming back to those NASCAR races, noting that he wants to be fast, winning races, but that Soft2Bet is much more focused on long-term gains rather than short-term wins. 

His parting comment was, “speed can win a quarter, but consistency wins a decade. That’s why we are planning our business for steady and consistent growth.”