iGaming Daily

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There are a few things that are synonymous with Christmas. The turkey, the in-laws coming round, but for some, for the sports fans, it's the darts. It's become an absolute staple of the sporting calendar around Christmas time. Today's iGaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming market. We are gonna be talking darts and how darts has evolved in the sporting world and as a betting product. I've dug deep to find SBC's two most avid Darts fans for today's podcast. Firstly, Jessie, how are you Jessie? You're all recovered from the Christmas party, Jessie. Oh yeah, just about. We won't talk about the Christmas party or anything, Joe. I'm very, very pleased to be talking about my favourite sport today. Brilliant. And Christian, you're a Leeds fan, so Darts provides a solace. You actually win some things in Darts recently. I don't know. We're top of the table at the moment, so. It's not going too well, but yeah, darts is something. It feels like Christmas now that darts is on the horizon. Nice. It definitely does. It definitely has become just an absolute fixture of the calendar. When you get to December, that is when you know Christmas has started. They've done a really good job and I think definitely part of that is down to Sky Sports and just the Sky Sports machine being behind darts as a product. Jessi, in terms of this year's tournament, we obviously saw a real surge last year with the rise of Luke Littler. But in terms of this year's tournament from the darts community, how much excitement is there for the PDCs? I think it's huge. I think it's bigger than ever. Obviously, like you said, Luke Littler going to be in the finals last year. Obviously, he won the Premier League this year. I think it's obviously harder to get tickets than ever before. Oh really? That says a lot. Um, yeah, I think, I think everyone is excited for it. Everyone wanted to go after the final last year. And there's been other stuff like as well, like Skies just, um, put out like Game of Thrones documentary and your Darks documentary. There's so much excitement around it. You've just had the WDF World Championship final, which got a lot more views as well. Um, the normal, so yeah, I think everyone, everyone is focusing in on it. So for the, uh, uninitiated for the non-Darts fans out there, the WDF? World Darts Federation, so they have their own World Championship and that was literally on a couple of nights ago and that got a lot of views. You had Paul Lim, he's like 70 years old, he was in the final, so it was amazing to watch, but a lot of people watching that obviously getting ready for the main event. Yeah, it's like, I guess it serves as an appetiser and also it kind of serves to prove... With the story you mentioned, it serves to prove that the narratives are what's key to darts really. Exactly. You've got to keep building the stories and that's what we've got. So many of them going into this year, right, Christian? How excited are you? I guess you speak from a wider sports perspective. How excited are you for the darts this year? How excited are you to kind of add it to your entree of championship football and Premier League football? It becomes part of that as well, right? Yeah, 100% I would say I was in the classic darts fanning that I always enjoyed it but seeing what happened with Luke Littler last year, it captured the nation and it captures me as well so it's something that more than ever I'm not going to miss out on and I would say that in terms of the wider sporting public it's just this continued momentum from last year. Over the last year it feels like everything to do with Luke Littler, I know that everything what everything he's done because in the mainstream media he's always in it in somewhere or the other. So that's just helped to keep the momentum going and keep the wider public interest in that. As Jess said with people watching the WDF darts, if it wasn't for last year, I don't think that many people would have tuned in. So it's just the momentum keeps going and we'll see what happens. Yeah. And that's, it's kind of important that we tap into that, right? Like from a betting operator perspective, you kind of mix it in with your football and I guess you're going to see a lot of kind of accumulators or hackers that or promos where darts is kind of integrated into football at the regular football calendar that we have over Christmas? Yeah, of course. I think for Ben operators, this must be the perfect scenario because over Christmas there is so much sport. That's just another one to add into the mix, give more options for punters. You've got your football then in the sort of three round three o'clock and then even you've got your darts, you can put them together. just a lot more options out there for betting operators to activate and use to increase player acquisition and retention. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and as you mentioned, the schedules, they sync up perfectly to where you don't have to talk to anyone. You can just lead straight in from the football to the darts. And it's really beautiful. So, yeah. And Jesse, obviously Christian mentioned the rise of Luke come to the forefront last year. His surge last year was incredible. It brought so many more eyes to Darts. We've seen him kind of evolve this year. He got the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. But between that, he won the Premier League, as you mentioned, but he's kind of found his niche and it's been really interesting to see from a kind of sports engagement side of things. He streams FIFA, he engages with some of the most important Just how pivotal has his evolution been and how big can it be to bringing in a new, younger audience to darts? So him himself, he's got so many fans just of him as a person, like people who are not even into darts really like him. And I think people are going to watch him. So obviously last year was like people were starting to watch him was slowly, and then everyone was watching him at the end. But this year it's going to be at the very start. So I think there's going to be more views than ever because people just want to watch him straight away to see how he does. And I do. I think I do think he's gonna win it. I'm not gonna lie. Okay But like you said as well he's had like loads of like brandy I think he signed like a brand deal with Xbox yesterday So that's like kind of bringing in different like type of people. Do you know what I mean? Like more interest from people who you know, it's expanded the commercial ceiling of dogs, isn't it? Really? Yeah, truly. And there's a few narratives in the bracket as well. Like as you mentioned, I think every Luke Littler match, whether it's the first round or whether it's the semi-final, it's going to be something of a sporting event, especially with the BBC Sports Personality of the Year nomination. Are there any things we should look out for in the bracket of who he could play? Did I see that he could play Fallon Sherwick quite early, which would be quite the story? Yeah, I think if Fallon Sherwick wins her first round match, it's then set for her to play Luke Littler, which I think from a market's point of view, that's a dream scenario. Because Fallon Sherwick is arguably... one of or if not the face of women's darts and women in darts. So she's coming up against the biggest name overall in darts. That will be the round two fixture to tune into. I think Sky will be secretly hoping that she does win that first round match because they'll have a lot more eyes on it and a lot more storylines. Yeah, and Christian, obviously the other Luke is the big story. Luke Humphries. He is a leads lad like yourself. How much is the leads behind Luke Humphries? He's very likeable as well too, isn't it? He's a very likable man. I would say that in some sense, Leeds is behind Luke Humphries, but I think he suffers from the fact that he's not actually from Leeds. He's from somewhere down south, but he has that family connection with the club. So I think if he was born and bred in Leeds, I think he would have more of a wide diversity of support. I also think he suffered a little bit from the fact that he's come up and being world champion was around the same time as Luke Lytle. I think you saw in the aftermath, he sort of got a little bit forgotten. as much as everyone appreciates his prowess in terms of darts, he's still a little bit of the forgotten man in this partnership between the two Lukes. I think that if he wins it again and Luke Littler doesn't go as far in the tournament, that could change. So I would say that he hasn't got the biggest personality on our offstage. So it hasn't really captured as much attention as say if Luke Littler was a Leeds fan, he would have done. But what I would say is just like Taylor needed Van Barneveld and Ben needed Eubank and... You know, Ali needed Frazier if we can kind of compare the two. I think both of these two surging at the same time, the little bit of the Leeds man United niggle. I think they'll benefit from both of both doing well as much as there's no spite between them. Sport needs rivalries like that. And if we see it, you know, if we see them to have another good rivalry this year, I think they'll both only benefit in terms of how they both grow in terms of their wider sporting world. And I think if Humphries can beat him again, the calls for this kind of outside, this guy to beat the Golden Boy is kind of interesting because there were also calls when Luke Littler was nominated for Sports Personality of the Year. Well, Luke Humphries won the tournament, so it kind of, but yeah, there's no need all between them, but it's definitely going to be a really good rivalry and one that I hope the... Darts World can tap into to continue to grow engagement. Like you say, it's like another narrative that people want to watch, isn't it? Of course, like you've done so many things like that. There's like, you just don't know what's going to happen. That's what I love about it. Like you don't anyone could win it really. You just don't know. Like you've got narratives like amazing comebacks like last year. You've got unknown players that people have never heard of. Like it's great. I love that about it that you just don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. Even looking at like the kind of. the outside odds. You've got like Van Gerwin who's a little bit away. What a story that would be if he could come back and upset the new status quo and kind of take back his title. That would be crazy. But they've got to keep playing. With the help of Sky Sports as well and with the help of documentary series, like you said, they've got to keep just building these narratives and I think they're really good at it. And somebody else who will be hoping that these narratives continue to flourish is Paddy Power, obviously the principal partner of the darts. They're the partner again this year. Yeah, they've enjoyed real success with this sponsorship, right? Yes, 100%. They've done a lot around it. Last year they had their big 180 campaign, so they've donated £1,000 for every 180 hit. I think in the end they ended up donating £1 million to prostate cancer, UK. And then this year they've got the bigger 180 campaign, so they've gone even bigger. If a nine-dollar is hit, they're going to donate £60,000 to... the player who hits it, £6,000 to a fan in the Alexandra Palace crowd, and then £6,000 to the charity as well. So that just shows that there's a lot of talk in sport around like the efficacy of sports betting sponsorships and what is being done about those sponsorships. This just shows that you can get a sponsorship right when you buy into the sport and also use a sponsorship in the right way in terms of giving back to the community, giving back to charities and using your reach to help others as well. Yeah, Christian is definitely a good sponsorship. They definitely utilise it as a sponsorship for good. But as the Darts audience continues to grow, what can Paddy Power do to further tap into that? I think they've got to look at what they can do the rest of the year. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that the World's Darts Championships is the only competition that they sponsor currently, but I feel like if again, this goes as well as it did last year, the chances could look to expand that sponsorship to different tournaments and look to do things around the year to keep the attention on the sport, keep the attention on paddy power. Mason- Yeah, that kind of goes to other sponsors as well. I think Bet MGM sponsors the Premier League. So yeah, it's interesting how you kind of keep that buzz going all year round. I think one way that operators and partners can do that is through this rise of influencers, I think. We saw kind of Paddy Power get quite innovative, get quite creative with their, yeah, get quite creative, not necessarily innovative, but with their marketing around Christmas with Eddie Hearn and Danny Dyer. Bring some of these darts players, some of these darts influencers into the darts marketing. We've seen them do some things with Stephen Bunting and just really bring out the stories of darts. And yeah, I think they can kind of embrace the new audience that darts has found through Luke Littler. And yeah, just. kind of tap into the rise of the sport. Yeah, I think as well, if any company is able to do that, it is paddy power. You see what they do with the Premier League every week. There's always something that's reacting to what's happened during the games. So they are a company that is at the forefront of marketing, I would say in the UK. So there would be silly not to sort of jump on board and get these influences as part of their marketing efforts. Yeah, well, I actually, you know, I give a shout out to BetMGM again here because they do sponsor the Premier League and they have been quite creative with their ambassadors. We saw Chris Rock coming in. So, you know, they've also been known to think outside the box in terms of bringing in different ambassadors. So yeah, there's definitely scope, like you say, to see more darts content all throughout the year. And very interesting. They've got they've got good with the tournament too, like the nightly tournament certainly boosts engagement. But yeah, I definitely could see operators tapping into a wider scope of ambassadors for Darts sponsorship. Yeah, in terms of Darts as a betting product though, obviously we mentioned that it will run alongside a lot of football over Christmas. It runs at Christmas when, you know, people have got more time to bet as well and it's quite a big opportunity. But yeah, what type of markets do you think we could see? How can operators? even beyond Pani Power, get kind of creative with the market. I think there's a lot of options. The good thing with that, in terms from an operator's point of view, is that it's fast pace. Legs are both won and lost in a matter of minutes. There's a lot of different options. For example, if a checkout will be under 100 or over 100 in a match, the amount of checkouts over 100 players to hit 180 is in consecutive legs. There's just a lot of things going on in each leg and in each match that, similar to football, where you've got the first goal scorer, number of fouls, number of corners. just a lot of different options for operators to use to put into bet builders and things like that. Mason- And I think the other thing that kind of separates it from football, I guess, is rarely would you bet on something to happen for the full round of fixtures, but for darts you can have say over amount of 180s for the day and then you kind of invest it for the whole day. you know, and you're not betting constantly, but you've got a little bit of action for the whole day. So that's something that I think operators can tap into kind of round betting if you like, and yeah, just, just engage in punters for, for a long period of time. And Jesse, I wanted to ask you about the demographic shift we've really seen in darts. How much of that is kind of, how much have you seen that change in recent years? And how much of this is kind of underpinned by influencers? embracing darts and yeah, how much can we tap into that as well to bring a wider audience to darts, continue bringing a wider audience to darts? I think massively this year. I mean, I take like a lot of my girlfriends to like darts events now and they absolutely love it. And I think that has been a massive shift this year and like influencers like the, I think Modus are doing great, how they get like influencers like Angry Ginger and Jack Mate. Obviously they just had the influencer event. And that is like bringing so many of their fans in, it's like an, like an opening the door really fans of them to like maybe they'll like darts as well. Do you know what I mean? So they've done really well in kind of capitalising on that and like people who don't know anything about darts are watching Jack Mate play on stage because they've watched him on YouTube for 10 years. So yeah, it is opening that door. I think as well like with TikTok, I do a lot of darts TikToks, it's so easy to reach new people on TikTok. Like I looked at my stats like at the start of this year because you can see like... male and female sets. It was like 93% male and like 7% female on most of my videos. Now it's like 80-20. I think that is quite a big difference. 80% male, 20% female, which yeah, it is a huge difference. So, and also you don't really have to be like a darts fan to get these like darts influencers videos on your page. Like they can just come up like even if like you know nothing about darts. Like say I do a lot of like crowd interviews. and you don't have to be a darts fan to laugh at drunk people answering what would be their best walk-on songs. You don't have to know anything about darts in order to enjoy that video. But yeah, again, it's kind of opening the door to, oh, that looks a fun event. Maybe I'd quite like to go to a darts event. But yeah, obviously there's a lad on TikTok as well called Minimize who I think he posts literally 10 second videos of him just chucking at a dart board and it gets millions of views every time and I don't think that's going to change. I think that's going to carry on. on growing, especially obviously at the minute, like video views on like darts influencers is already going up and it doesn't even start till Sunday and it's already. Okay. So here's my follow up there, right? So I guess, uh, you know, if I'm an angry ginger fan, if I'm part of the younger demographic, I'm an angry ginger fan or a Jack mate fan. I kind of get it, get, get the taste for darts through them. And then I guess the, the gateway drug if you like is Luke Littler because he's also kind of part of that community, right? He's kind of... Yeah, because he's friends with them and stuff now. Yeah, and he streams with them. And then I'm in. Then I'm all in, right? And then I'm watching the tournament. Let's say disaster strikes and Luke Littler goes out in the first round. Highly unlikely, I know, but let's just say something happens. Luke Littler goes out early. How much of this new demographic being engaged with darts is hinged upon his success? Can they continue to build narratives? even without Lutelet. Yeah, I think they're in now. Like it's not just about Lutelet, it's about the sport as a whole now. So I definitely, I think I don't think it would affect it that much. What about you? Yeah, I agree. One of the things I thought about for the podcast was what would happen if that did happen while Lutelet went out early? Would the fans abandon the rest of the tournament or would the hype around it be as big? But I think it would be just because once you're in, you're in, even if Lutelet does lose, there'll be... plenty of the narratives going on throughout the rest of the tournament that will keep people engaged. Yeah, loads of people watched the Grand Slam and he didn't go all the way there. Nice. And as you mentioned, there's more than just one narrative. There's so many narratives. But the big narrative, obviously, this year is likely to be... who gets crowned at the end of the tournament. And Jesse, you are not sitting on any fences. You've already given your game away. Oh yeah, but Stephen Bunting for the win, really. Stephen Bunting for the win. He said it himself when I spoke to him. He said, I said, who's going to win? And he went, you know, I am. He did. And I believe him. I think he can do it. And I think if Stephen Bunting wins, the world will go mad. That would be the only- The world will go mad if you're unreal. Bigger outcome than Luke Little winning, I think. Yeah, it would. It would. And also got the best entrance too, right? Oh yeah, of course. Christian, who you got? Outside of one of the two Luke's, do you think one of them will win? I would say maybe Gary Anderson. He's shown flickers of form throughout the year without really putting it together at any point. So if he can have a good run where he does find his form, I'd say he's one of the hardest people to beat on the tour. And I guess all the press, both Luke's are kind of young, aren't they? Obviously one is very young, but both Luke's are kind of young and it just feels like all the pressure is on them to go and win. So it's not a bad shout. Somebody outside, he's very composed, he's nerves are steel. Yeah, I like that shout. Yeah. Outside the two Luke's maybe, I don't know what type of year he's had, but Van Gerwin at wide odds is crazy to me. Maybe that's me just showing how uninformed I am. So, but yeah, it's going to be a fun one. Incredibly excited and enjoy Christmas, enjoy the darts. Make sure you dial in because it is going to be good on Sky Sports.