iGaming is a fast paced, energetic industry where no two days are the same and things change very quickly. It’s often likened to a rollercoaster, but for Uri Poliavich, CEO of Soft2Bet, it is just like motor-racing.
With some businesses sponsoring race cars and displaying cars at industry events, one might think of Formula One, but Poliavich instead makes comparisons with NASCAR.
“NASCAR is very challenging. Each race is 500 miles, there are 39 different tracks at 39 different stadiums that each racer needs to learn and understand how to race at. Like in our business, you can just run out of fuel and be out of the race. You can be stuck in the middle of the race and it happens in our industry. You can run out of track, too.”
That’s what Soft2Bet’s CEO told staff members at the company’s Q3 Town Hall meeting. For the first time ever, Soft2Bet allowed industry press into the meeting to get a glimpse of its performance throughout Q3.
But while Poliavich sees similarities between iGaming and NASCAR, there are key differences, as he told staff: “We have an indefinite number of miles to go. We have indefinite numbers of tracks and markets and, of course, new racers. You see them at each expo. More and more racers are coming in. More and more platforms, more and more operators, game providers, payment providers. That’s something that never ends.”
Soft2Bet’s CEO ran through some top line numbers before breaking the business down into its core functions, assessing growth OKRs against targets and outlining operational milestones.
For Q3, which was labelled ‘lap 37’ for Soft2Bet, the company saw 15% EBITDA growth quarter-on-quarter and 7% revenue growth QoQ. On a YoY comparison, EBITDA growth was 96% and revenue was 88% up.
Though impressed, the CEO outlined he wanted to be even more ambitious in Q4.
On the casino side of the business, Soft2Bet during Q3 grew its game GGR by 20% QoQ after using 43 new integrations with over 1400 new games in the platform via its aggregation engine. In its sportsbook, Soft2Bet’s game GGR grew by 174% QoQ compared to a target of 4%.
Operationally, Q3 was a very busy period for Soft2Bet, which launched new brands, secured new platform certifications and launched several new features as part of its B2B offering.
Firstly, the company launched four new brands including TopBet in Romania, where tax hikes have caused some uncertainty. Poliavich noted that the brand launched prior to the tax hike from 21% to 27% which occurred earlier this month, and that management would “see how it goes” moving forward.
The other brand to launch was Swiper, Soft2Bet’s social media driven online casino brand which has gone live in Romania, Sweden, Denmark and Ontario. Swiper has been designed so players can discover, select and play games just using their thumb, as the platform has been designed around “swipe-driven navigation”.
A number of existing brands also strengthened their positions thanks to marketing campaigns. For example:
- ELABet (Greece) – cooperation with local agencies led to a 30% increase in brand searches, a 30% increase in impressions, and a 29% rise in active players.
- Don.Ro (Romania) – a partnership with FC Cluj resulted in +33% searches, +16% impressions, and +2% active players.
- In Denmark, the Betinia and CampoBet brands hold naming rights for the country’s top three football leagues.
- In Canada, ToonieBet became a partner of the Canadian Football League.
The legal department, led by General Counsel David Yatom Hay, received strong praise for securing authorizations for new platforms and brands in Ontario and Romania. Further approvals are expected in Spain next year.
Soft2Bet’s flagship B2B product – MEGA (Motivational Engineering Gaming Application) – also received new mechanics: MEGA Round, MEGA Island, and a new football-related mechanic.
Poliavich presented the technical performance metrics for Q3: platform uptime reached 99.98%. The remaining 0.02% was attributed to global outages among major infrastructure providers.
Globally, Soft2Bet achieved an 81% CSAT score. Poliavich explained the strong results with two factors:
- the company provides 100% native-language support,
- and customer support is localized, with teams operating in nine countries.
“It’s not easy to enter a market and set everything up within six months. But on the other hand, it gives us a huge advantage over those who are not present in the country and don’t understand how the local market works.”
Poliavich concluded the presentation by outlining the goals for Q4:
- 18% GGR growth in casino
- 30% GGR growth in sportsbook
- 25% EBITDA growth QoQ
- 20% revenue growth
- launch of four more brands
- certification of new platforms, including in Spain
- introduction of five new MEGA gamification mechanics
He returned to the NASCAR comparison again: the company wants to be fast and win races, but its main goal is stable long-term growth.
His parting comment was, “speed can win a quarter, but consistency wins a decade. That’s why we are planning our business for steady and consistent growth.”
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