iGaming Daily

Joe Streeter (00:01.776)
Good afternoon and welcome to the iGaming Daily brought to you by Optimove, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming market. Today we have a really good episode. I think we're ending the year with a real bang. And I'm joined by Jonathan Smith and we are going to discuss boxing betting engagement in general and with a large focus on this weekend's massive heavyweight rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury.

Jonathan, before we thanks for ever so much for joining us, by the way, and before we kind of get into the nitty gritty of the conversation. Yeah, just tell us a little bit about where you're from, what you do and your overall thoughts on the fight this weekend.

Jonathan Smith (00:34.062)
Pleasure.

Jonathan Smith (00:44.706)
Well, I'll try and be as brief as I can about me because the fight itself is much more important. I've been in the betting industry for

35 years now, probably best known actually for boxing odds compiling, certainly in the 1990s, the 2000s and the 2010s. And that shows you how far back I go. I run my own business called Sportsbook Training Services, where we teach people the mathematics principles and practices of odds making, which is basically what I am, an odds compiler.

But at the same time we build algorithmic models for the betting industry to own or lease one of those happens to be boxing builder, which was one of the Impetuses behind me coming on here today. But yeah, I'm sort of steeped in in the sport of boxing. I boxed amateur. I'm now England boxing level one coach as well. So plenty of experience on that side

Joe Streeter (01:47.814)
Brilliant, doing good work still in the game, still training those, looking to kind of make a better life through the sport. So yeah, doing good work there for sure. So I commend you for that. And yeah, let's get into it because there is really so much to discuss about this fight. And I think one thing I kind of want to provide a little bit of context before we go into it. I just want to talk about the kind of Saudi influence in general and two elements of that.

Jonathan Smith (01:55.993)
That's it.

Joe Streeter (02:17.66)
One, the time is just beautiful, right? We're so used to kind of sipping on coffees and staying awake until ungracily hours to watch fights. How nice that we get a 10.30 ring walk. And I guess that is such a plus for European operators as well in terms of betting engagement.

Jonathan Smith (02:35.766)
In terms of turnover, absolutely. mean, when pay-per-view and Skybox office and so forth came in, turnover did drop as a result. But people are bought into the idea that, yes, they will have to pay a little bit extra to watch the really big fights. But those really big fights, and we were talking off air about Lewis and Holyfield and...

Holyfield and Bow and so forth. They would always be three, four, even five o'clock in the morning. And certainly I'm too old for it. And you probably are getting too old to stay up. And it wasn't good for turnover. Now we're talking about a 1030 PM, 11 PM ring walk. In actual fact, even in the UK cards, they're bringing them forward because they know that they need to find that perfect pinch point where people are ready on a Friday or a Saturday night to sit down and watch a good fight. The other thing that the Saudis have brought,

whether we like it or not, is the fights that people want to see. And boxing does have competition in terms of combat sports with MMA and UFC in particular that always bring competitive fights.

Boxing had a wilderness period where people were just not willing to fight each other. Now they are, simply because the money is irresistible and that's why we've had so many good fights. We've got Yusik Fury 2 now, we've got Batorbyov and Bevol. That rematch in February and all of that wouldn't have got made, I don't think, without the Saudi influence.

Joe Streeter (04:06.224)
Yeah, and they really make it a full night as well, like top to bottom. I think we're to kind of only dialing in for the main fight, but top to bottom. These cards are very strong. They're very engaging. And that's also brilliant just to engage a casual audience. One more thing they've done that I didn't really notice before, but this Christmas slot, kind of, we have the sports that are kind of synonymous with Christmas. We know the Boxing Day Football, the darts runs throughout Christmas.

They've done a really good job of just nailing down a Saturday around Christmas and putting on a big fight and everybody's home, everybody's watching it. It's quite a smart move, I think.

Jonathan Smith (04:45.228)
Yeah, I mean, for the Americans and the Mexicans, they have the Cinco de Mayo slot, which has been going forever. I can remember Julio Cesar Chavez back in the early 1990s dominating that. have Canelo doing the same now. It doesn't mean as much to the UK public, of course, but Christmas does. Darts, as you say, is traditional. And now we're getting big world title fights, unification fights in that slot at a great time.

For the viewing public, it's great. For the betting public, it's wonderful because it's on at a great time. And as we'll discuss, gone are the days where you could just bet fight winner. You can bet absolutely anything. And it's engaging this new social type of punter that is used to the bet builder, the type of bets by offering the same thing in the sport of professional boxing as well.

Joe Streeter (05:34.362)
Yeah, let's talk about that, right? There's, there are so many innovations within betting and the bet builder one is a, probably possibly a more challenging one to translate to boxing, but you've done a great job. Can you just talk more about how you bring the bet builder to boxing and what, type of elements of the sport you kind of embrace with, with the bet builder?

Jonathan Smith (05:54.882)
Yeah, and-

When we think about bet builder and what was originally request a bet that Skybet sort of kicked off in 2016, 2017, when I speak to my colleagues, we missed in the odds compiling industry at any rate, we missed an opportunity by declining to offer these sort of bets in the 1990s to 2000s by just holding up the white flag and saying, well, that's a related contingency. Yes, it is, but that shouldn't prohibit you from being able to price it.

and

In many ways, request of it, which was a precursor, was just old fashioned, have a think and a guess and an educated bit of guesswork and come up with a prize. Well, I endorse that. Of course, somebody ran with the ball and turned it into bet building. It was a very sleek product now. But yes, this is what the public want and whether we like it or not. Well, they love it in football. Why not have a go in boxing? And it was an idea I was approached by a company.

about six or seven months ago and I built a prototype and it seemed to go down well. I thought we'd turn it into a commercial product. Well what have you got that could attract the small stakes high reward punters? You've obviously got fight winner but you've got a particular round which is usually a big price. You've got knockdowns. Everyone likes to see knockdowns in the same way that they do goals and corners and cards and so forth.

Jonathan Smith (07:21.102)
Point deductions is another thing, but crucially, if you can get hold of the data, you've got punch stats, CompuBox are the official provider of punch stats. You always get punch stats in the very big fights like we have now.

Total Punch is thrown, landed, jabs, power punches, body punches, it's all there, any number of combinations. So it's fine, you can build your own little story as a punter and decide what you think will happen. And so I think it's a good product for that type of customer.

Joe Streeter (07:54.864)
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly and I didn't want to go too much into kind of being sports pundits on this, but you mentioned body shots and I've got to follow you up there because I think they're going to be such a… I think they were a big weapon in the first fight, maybe Fury didn't follow up enough. But I think the body shots, if we see him using them body shots early, I think they could be a really big weapon for him this fight. I think it might be one of Usyk's very few weaknesses.

Jonathan Smith (08:21.462)
Well, we know obviously as an amateur he was dropped by Baterbiev with a body shot. Dubois, whether that was illegal or not, I don't know, but he certainly hurt him with a body shot. So he is man, he boxed amateur against the likes of Sean Porter that went on to win the World's welterweight title. But it's not just about Fury's body shots. I noticed in those CompuBox stats from the first fight that actually

Usyk, because he is much smaller, he threw a lot of jabs to the body. And it was the jab to the body that would set up the backhand left, left hand that us Orthodox fighters never seem to see coming. So they're a weapon for him, mainly because he's a lot smaller and Furious Head is a lot more difficult to reach. But you're right. In theory, the big man should start looking for the body and offer the jab. So I believe we will see that as well.

Joe Streeter (09:16.176)
Yeah, and how much when you're pricing a fight obviously you've got but terby F Bival as well like you mentioned but when you're pricing a rematch how challenging is it and how much do you look at the first fight and Do you have to take it with a pinch of soul or yeah? What extra element does that kind of present?

Jonathan Smith (09:33.61)
Yeah, I mean, again, thinking historically, very seldom does the loser of the original match win the rematch.

That's why the really outstanding heavyweights, and we go back to Holyfield, of course, beat Bo in their rematch in the early 1990s. Ali, of course, came back beat Frazier after Frazier won their first fight in 1970. But you have to be really exceptional to turn something around. As it happens, although the fight was clear cut insofar as, yes, Juzic did win it, it was close.

clear cut at the same time. So it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that Fury could turn that around. And of course, just as we saw with Beterby, Evin, Bivol, you know, couldn't definitively say that anyone actually really lost that fight.

And so you wouldn't be surprised if Bivogol are not next time. So definitively, I don't think Fury suffered a huge loss. It was a close loss. It was clear it was close. So it's not quite the mountain to climb that, let's say, Holyfield had after he was well beaten by a bow in their first match, but it does take an exceptional fighter to win rematches. Fury, whether we like him or not, is one of those exceptional fighters.

Joe Streeter (11:02.46)
and we've, in a sense, we've seen him do it before, right? Like he didn't lose to Wilder, but he certainly overcame a lot of adversity in that first fight. He came back, he completely changed the game plan on its head and just dominated him. And so I guess he's got a track record for being able to, you know, switch up the, throw out the old blueprint and change strategy and come out with something new and win a rematch.

Jonathan Smith (11:31.052)
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Against Wilder, he boxed on the back foot in the first fight and because he thought he could out box Wilder, well that's dangerous when you're facing a puncher and he threw over 200 jabs in the first Wilder fight.

in the rematches there were around I think 107 and 117 jabs thrown respectively because he changed tactics and decided right I'm going to come forward keep Wilder on the back foot stop him getting his power punches off and it worked perfectly he still had to walk through fire and whilst Wilder perhaps it won't go down in the pantheon of heavyweights as an all-time great he was an all-time great puncher and Fury to his credit walked through fire to beat him so that was a complete change of tactics

Will he have to change tactics against Jusik? Yes, I think he probably will. He won't be able to sit back quite as much. I think he's going to have to use his weight and size advantages because he really is much bigger and much heavier and press forward on the front foot and trust his fitness a little bit better this time. And that may make the difference. Jusik is absolutely entitled to be favorite, but not by much. And now I think the market's reset correctly.

and it's very, very close. You say when I last looked on the exchange was in the low 190s. I don't think you'll touch even money, but I think the market's found the right balance at the moment.

Joe Streeter (12:56.558)
That shifted from the first fight, The first fight it was just on the other side a little bit.

Jonathan Smith (13:01.496)
That's correct. it was pretty close to begin with. think you could sort of 4 to 7, 11 to 8 in fixed odds. it's an acknowledgement that the first fight was bet close. They thought it was close. It was pretty close. We think we'll get the same again this time with Jusik, a small favorite, which he's entitled to be. So think the pricing is very good. But I have no idea as to the outcome.

Joe Streeter (13:27.292)
And how much of that pricing is down to not just necessarily the outcome but the was it the ninth round or the eighth round when We've seen the legs go and fury's flying all over the ring and it many people said it should have been stopped How yeah how much of the pricing is down to that? Could you ever make a guy favorite in the rematch after he kind of went through such a first thing in the first fight?

Jonathan Smith (13:50.724)
Well, that's a good question. mean, that was a pivotal round and I think if memory serves when I was scoring, I think I might have had fury five two up or something going into the eighth and yeah, Usyk came on and to his credit, he turned it around without that 10 eight. I think it would have been even closer. Should it have been stopped? I think the referee probably did the right thing by calling a knockdown because only the ropes were keeping up, but Usyk actually

possibly missed a trick by not clobbering him when he was against the ropes. But you know, that's history. It is a close fight. And bear in mind, Jusik has had more than one moment of adversity. Joshua was coming on in the second fight and Jusik really had to turn it around after a torrid ninth round. So both men have shown themselves capable of adapting at the highest level and dealing with all that pressure that it brings as well. that's another reason why it's

Joe Streeter (14:23.216)
Yeah.

Jonathan Smith (14:50.422)
It's very close. Both men are capable of winning. I'm rarely dogmatic in things anyway, but I think the pricing reflects the fact that anything can happen in this fight.

Joe Streeter (15:02.49)
Yeah, it's captivating as well because I think like you say, whoever's winning at a certain point, no matter how far ahead, this fight could turn in an instant. We've seen that with both of these guys before. So yeah, really captivating fight. And just to kind of put you on the spot as you kind of a final reflection on the first fight, as we kind of as your price in the second fight, which is more of a decisive factor, the fact that Fury was so on top, he racked up such a lead before.

before he was wobbled, or that moment where he was wobbled and nearly stopped, which is more of a deciding factor as you kind of head into the second.

Jonathan Smith (15:40.728)
That's a good question. mean, it will differ from person to person, but for me, actually, the first thing that you mentioned is more persuasive. did surprise me that he was so badly hurt. I mean, we shouldn't be surprised because he'd been down, I think, eight times prior to that, albeit half a dozen of those were against a massively destructive puncture.

but he was dropped by a couple of small lads as well earlier on in his career, Steve Cunningham and Nevin Pavich, if memory serves. But he was in bad shape, absolutely, from just perfectly timed punches. And it's a reminder that even if you're only 200 pound against a 250 pound guy, if you hit them right, they'll go.

His powers of recovery are good, although he was fortunate that it was the end of the round. And I actually think the referee did use it a disservice by giving Fury such a long time to recover. Whereas if we think of the first Wilder fight where he was given plenty of time to recover, it was a thing of beauty that Jack Reese let that fight go anyway for him to get up. But as far as...

I mean, old timers like me will tell you that styles make fights. think they do. I think Fury has the right style to to beat Usick. But, you know, we should see. So I think, you know, as soon as that fight was over, Joe, I thought, do you know what? I think Fury can win that rematch, which may be counter to many people's observations. And I still think he can. Do I think his value now?

five to four, whatever it is, and know I do not. And, you know, had I been right minded, I would have backed him at the 13 to eight or whatever it was by then. So prices are right. Both men can win. Do I think Fury can win? Yes, I do.

Joe Streeter (17:35.886)
And how, how Boyd, if you were a Fury backer, how Boyd would you be by this kind of, he's not the class clown coming into this one. He's not the jovial jokey. He's quite, he seems quite focused. How would you think that can play a factor? Do you think that could be big? It just shows that he's not taking his foot off the gas.

Jonathan Smith (17:56.482)
Well, I hope not. I think he has taken his foot off the gas in the past. He did against the MMA guy in Ghana, who didn't take that seriously at all. And as Marvin Hagler, the late great Marvin Hagler said, it's very hard to get motivated when you wake up surrounded by silk sheets and pillows in the morning.

I think he will have taken this more seriously. He knows it's a tough fight and let's bear in mind he talks nonsense 99 % of the time. This is a hard fight. Usyk is an Olympic champion. He's a world champion at multiple weights. There's nothing easy about this for him.

I just think he will possibly be better prepared and I've got the feeling that that was the absolute very best and it was magnificent what Jusik did. But that was the very best that he could be. I wonder if Fury can actually make a few minor adjustments. We shall see.

Joe Streeter (18:52.784)
Yeah, I want to ask you one more on Usyk and I guess kind of this new evolution of fighter that we've seen. I'm not sure if you're in the game of live pricing, but how difficult must it be to... I always think this when I'm watching these guys to kind of price a fighter live when, you know, they can be kind of five rounds down, six rounds down. I think we saw it with Usyk against...

Tony Bello and everybody kind of expected us it to come in and dominate and he let Bellew have success but he was downloading the data and then as soon as the moment was right he walked him onto a shot and Finished him off and it was kind of all part of the plan even though by the time he finished him He was sort of four or five rounds down How yeah, how tricky is that to price when you're watching a guy lose rounds? But you kind of know that he's it might be part of his wider plan. Does that make sense?

Jonathan Smith (19:48.492)
It does make sense. I wouldn't say I'm any better than anybody else at doing it. I in play boxing pricing is really, really difficult. Everyone can remember the times when they were right. And I'll give you one example of that. But that was a long time ago when Ryan Rhodes fought Jamie Moore.

Jamie Moore started like a train and I just thought Rhodes is just tucking up nicely and he was a great fighter anyway and very awkward to beat and a hard puncher and he was just absorbing that information in the way that Macklin started fast against Moore as well. And I thought, well, yeah, Rhodes is going to win this fight at some point. And he was a massive underdog after three or four rounds. And indeed he did, but that shouldn't prevent me from realizing where I've got it wrong.

And look, let's think about Lomachenko. He downloads plenty of information, but he did it too late against TFEMO. All the commentators are saying, well, yeah, he's processing that through his computers, but he ran out of time. So it's really difficult. I suspect the Betfair market is persuasive for oddsmakers and live traders nowadays. I don't do any of that myself because I'm a teacher now.

Joe Streeter (20:48.315)
Yeah.

Jonathan Smith (21:07.01)
But you could position yourself if you could come up with a...

coherent reason why you think this fight will change over the course of time. yeah, in fairness to Bellew, he of course, he was a top class amateur as well. He did better than we thought, but he was firing on all cylinders to try and keep up with Usyk's intelligence, as many people do with Lomachenko as well. They have to be boxing at a hundred miles an hour just to keep a pace. So yeah, Usyk is one of those clever

Joe Streeter (21:29.798)
Yeah.

Jonathan Smith (21:41.142)
Eastern Europeans that is a cerebral fighter but you know Fury is an intelligent guy as well he can box in many styles so yeah it has all the ingredients of a good fight but I absolutely understand what you're saying in terms of how difficult it is

Particularly when the odds compilers have to stay for their particular supplier as well and you have to be truthful to whatever the underlying market is out there. It takes a brave man to say, well, actually, I think this is wrong. So good luck to them. I'm glad I don't have to do that myself anymore.

Joe Streeter (22:15.918)
Yeah. It's a tough job. And yeah, for Bellew and for those guys, it was all going so right until it wasn't, I guess. And obviously, you I've got a kind of pay homage to the fight you mentioned as well, especially Matt Macklin and Jamie Moore. That was one of my younger selves as an amateur fighter. That was one that, yeah, I lived and died by that fight. It was incredible. Anybody that kind of wants to get the taste buds tingling.

for this weekend, go and find that one in the archives, because it was an absolute war between two...

Jonathan Smith (22:47.172)
It was a beauty and you could see that Macklin, highly competitive, but the sands of time are running out slowly. In a way, Foreman and Ali was like that. In that Foreman started fast and Ali was just absorbing and absorbing until there was nothing left in the tank.

Joe Streeter (22:55.888)
Yeah, yeah.

Joe Streeter (23:07.505)
Yeah.

Definitely. And we are in kind of the final round of this podcast as well. We are approaching the end. We could talk for hours on this, but before I let you leave, I'm not going to push you for a prediction, but what I will push you for is I just want to know how big and how defining you think, you know, we're dealing with two guys in their late thirties as well. How defining could this rematch be for the winner in terms of their career? Both have incredible legacies anyway.

Jonathan Smith (23:15.885)
Indeed we could.

Joe Streeter (23:37.392)
But how big could it be in terms of, yeah, just, just, yeah, for building their legacy. And when we look back on the greatest heavyweights of all time and where could this help these guys rank?

Jonathan Smith (23:47.948)
Yeah, mean, of course heavyweight boxing, professional boxing, only been going a hundred or so years anyway.

under the Queensbury rules. It's only after the fact and quite a long time after the fact that you get to see people fighters in the in context of the sport and what their legacy actually means. it's know, cranky, it's nearly 30 years since Holyfield and Bo Holyfield is now viewed as an all time legend, as is Lennox Lewis, who remains, you know, king of the heavyweights as far as I'm concerned. I don't think we'll really know just how influential Fury and Newsyk were until

until another 10 years time. I suspect if Yusik wins on Saturday for the second time, they won't have a third one. Of course, it makes complete sense if Fury wins to have a trilogy. And wouldn't it be great to have a trilogy anyway? Holyfield and Bogue did have it.

Most of the other big heavyweights have had at least two fights together and, know, Joshua and Newsyk had a couple of fights. We don't want to see Fury and Shizora Ford, we want to see...

Music and Fury 3. let's hope we get another good fight on Saturday night. Happily, I'm not in the business of having to make predictions. So I'll leave that to the other people. We just hope for a good fight. think it's a very good opportunity for suppliers and operators to exhibit what they can do in terms of the boxing brand. it's a good time to be a fan of professional boxing.

Joe Streeter (25:23.386)
Yeah, 100 % agree. I think you're safe with that prediction that it's going to be a cracker on Saturday night. yeah, enjoy. Thanks ever so much for joining us Jonathan. It's been a real pleasure and most definitely enjoy the fight on Saturday, wherever you're watching from. Have a good one and yeah, have a great Christmas as well.

Jonathan Smith (25:31.214)
Thank you,

Jonathan Smith (25:40.216)
Thank you and hopefully I'll be able to stay up till 10.30 at night now to be able watch this. Thanks very much, Joe.

Joe Streeter (25:43.772)
Thank you.