Sportradar Buys Optima Sportsbook in Landmark Deal

Sports data companies like Sportradar usually don’t get involved in betting, until now. Sportradar has now acquired a sportsbook for a bargain price of £25 million (AUD47.5 million). Their new portfolio piece, Optima, is a Spanish sports betting platform. Sportradar will become a “global one-stop-shop” that provides all aspects of tech and services.

The Switzerland-based company is the “biggest provider of sports data” to hundreds of sportsbooks. It also has multiple deals with the top sports league worldwide. In addition, it supplies data streams for many in-play betting services. Further, they monitor markets for match-fixing, helping many regulators nail syndicates.

Growth for Sportradar in the Works

Reportedly, the deal will allow Sportradar to offer a “turnkey sports betting platform”. Turnkey projects are commonly defined as a solution that can be integrated immediately into processes. Since their products already analyse data, the sportsbook will be the most up-to-date offering yet. They hope to use the service to offer gaming and betting solutions to emerging markets.

According to Carsten Koerl, Chief Executive Officer of Sportradar, their aim is to “become a leading supplier” to betting services. He also claimed that Optima already uses the best technology to provide “advanced and flexible platform” with a comprehensive product portfolio. Allegedly, this is a goal for the company’s future growth.

Sports Data Business Boom

A liberalisation of sports betting in the United States has also allegedly provided “huge opportunities” for operators and data providers. Since data is a valuable business, Sportradar embraced the US almost immediately. A demand for sports data has been driven by live betting, and this means that operators need as much data as possible.

Included in this is the need for every aspect of a game as it happens during a match. From ball speeds to tallies of free kicks in Soccer, there’s a need for the data in a split second. Using this demand, Sportradar has some major deals with US sports leagues like the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL already. Thus, the Swiss company is in a great position for their newest products if they take advantage of mobile betting. See how they do it below.