In the months leading up to the repeal of PASPA in 2018, my co-founder, Jeremy Jakary and I contemplated the ways in which we could add value to the newly launching sports betting and iGaming industry. We had almost a decade of experience working with the founding team of Glassdoor.com, Zillow.com, and Expedia.com as well as previously becoming the number-one online affiliate for identity theft protection company, LifeLock. The obvious choice would have been to launch a similarly structured ratings and reviews website to help sports bettors make better decisions.
Not blessed with technology development expertise, but instead a combined two decades worth of executive recruiting and high performing team-building experience, we opted instead to tread a different path by building a company with a genuine people-first ethos.
In July 2018, Betting Hero was born—around a campfire at our annual July 4th family camping trip to be exact. We would become the first and more importantly, the most successful live activation company in the sports betting and iGaming industry, reinventing the way sportsbook operators think about engaging with and educating their consumers. With very little gaming experience and a novel idea in a nascent industry, we had many early doubters, including some tier one operators. They would ask, “What is it that you actually do?” Our answer was simple and happened to be the same as our company mission, “We Help People. Enjoy Their Experience. Betting On Mobile.”
Now to dispel a common misconception: helping people enjoy their experience betting on mobile is more than just guiding a customer through what can be a tedious registration, funding, and betting journey, although we are experts at that when needed. Helping people largely depends on the ability to educate a customer. Our teams that represent operators at events all across the country find ourselves educating customers on a variety of things including how to understand the pricing of a certain market, how to find a particular bet of interest, and how to build a parlay or teaser.
Responsible Gaming Education Month helps remind us, however, that often the most important way we can educate customers is by helping them enjoy gambling responsibly. Whether that be educating customers on the difference between a legal and illegal sportsbook, why geolocating and KYC questions are so valuable, how to set up their own betting limits, how to link a prepaid funding card instead of a credit card, or where to find responsible gambling resources if needed. At Betting Hero, we believe that responsible gambling is paramount to a healthy, thriving industry with great longevity. It is our responsibility as the industry’s leading live activation company, with more in-person interactions than anyone else to ensure that we see out our mission.
Responsible gambling is one of the many reasons that our mission has remained core to our business for over four years and will continue to be at the core of our business in the future.
As we continue to understand what matters most to consumers as well as our strategic partners, we are more acutely aware than ever of the need to be more than just a live activation company but a true customer experience company. With the additions of Betting Hero Research, which focuses on analyzing the beliefs and behaviors of consumers, and a soon-to-be-announced tool geared toward bringing our unrivaled expertise and education to consumers at scale, we strive to help any customer, on any app, anywhere, at any time. Our most important education? Responsible gaming.
