Sportradar Moves Into iGaming With Launch of Playradar

Sportradar has launched iGaming services via its new brand Playradar, with an initial rollout taking place in the UK, North America and Latin America.

As its name suggests, Sportradar has previously supplied to the sports betting, data and technology industries, but this marks a diversification of its offering to now include online casino in various forms.

Playradar will leverage Sportradar’s live and historical sports data and audio/video streams, combined with casino games, which will create hybrid products.

What’s included?

Those hybrid products will feature a live 24/7 experience centre, where players will be offered an online casino game and a live sports stream to watch simultaneously on the same screen.

Playradar will also blend live and historical sports streaming with casino mechanics to create hybrid gaming experiences. A live prediction product will also be powered by Sportradar’s live data. In the more traditional sense, players will be able to play virtual sports and a suite of casino games, including slots, table games, arcade games and crash games.

A natural extension

Carsten Koerl, Founder and CEO of Sportradar, said:

“iGaming represents a natural and scalable extension of our business, and a strategic acceleration of our long-term growth roadmap.

“Playradar content is designed to provide optimised cross-sell between the worlds of sport and casinos, helping operators to increase player value and session length at a time when engagement and retention are key to operational sustainability.”

An experienced head

The launch of Playradar follows Sportradar’s appointment of Edo Haitin as Executive Vice President iGaming in October. Haitin was previously CEO of supplier Playtech Live. Prior to taking that role, Haitin was Playtech’s Managing Director, Live Casino, and his industry experience also includes stints as CEO of suppliers Euro Live Technologies and Games OS.

Koerl said:

“In Edo, we have an experienced and proven industry leader to drive the business forward, with the support of a passionate and dedicated team.”

Haitin said: “By combining our unrivalled experience in sports data and live streaming, along with a proven track record of product development, we aim to create hybrid content and gaming experiences to capitalise on the rising popularity of sports casino consumption.

“We’re uniquely positioned to seamlessly blend live and historical sports events, innovative gaming mechanics, and casino content, and have the advantage of being able to distribute games to an already licensed portfolio of operators. I’m incredibly excited to be further strengthening our iGaming business through Playradar and to grow it into a leader in iGaming content.”

UK issues

This is an uncertain time for Sportradar to be launching iGaming services in the UK, with taxes set for a sharp increase. From April, remote gaming duty, paid on online casino bets, will rise from 21% of gross gaming yield (GGY) to 40%.

Sportradar will also be impacted by an increase in general betting duty, paid on online sports bets, which will go up from 15% of GGY to 25% in April 2027; bets on horseracing will be exempt from this.

In other UK operations, Sportradar announced an extension of its retail platform technology partnership with Betfred in February. Sportradar will upgrade Betfred’s retail platform technology, in the next stage of a partnership that has been in place for more than a decade. Sportradar’s retail technology is designed to allow operators to manage data loads and scale in real-time as bets are placed.