Finding Opportunity in Adversity | iGaming Business

Since Sergey Portnov became CEO of Parimatch Holding in 2015, he has transformed Parimatch, a bookmaker carrying out transactions outside physical stores, into a cutting-edge online sports betting platform and a recognized international lifestyle brand.

Sergey’s main responsibilities at Parimatch include: developing and implementing a high-level strategy, making important decisions for the business, overall management of trading operations and resources and the main point function of contact between the board of directors and the whole company. Under his leadership, Parimatch has grown into a united team with shared values ​​of unity, integrity and responsibility.

Parimatch, an international sports betting company, is no stranger to the challenges many operators face in the face of global cancellations of live sports.

With a drop of 30 to 40% of its turnover, Parimatch and many other bookmakers find themselves naturally strongly impacted by COVID-19, but Sergey Portnov, CEO of Parimatch sees many opportunities.

He says: This crisis has affected the whole world and has influenced all sectors of activity, including book making. The number of sporting events on which to place bets has considerably decreased. Now, users are betting on certain lower leagues.

In addition, there is a microeconomic panic about exchange rates and trade. The depreciation of local currencies is also one of the reasons for the decline in turnover in dollars.

A change of culture

As many of us probably understand as we continue our lives on our remote workstations, the world of COVID-19 is confused and unique.

This is no different for the employees of Parimatch, who, according to Portnov, are getting used to their new way of life.

As a people-oriented business, Parimatch does everything it can to keep people calm. Communication within the company has intensified considerably, workers stay in touch all the time, we encourage people to work remotely to communicate in zoom, chats; people can take the technical devices they need to work at home.

We are consulting people on different aspects of this situation: insurance, medical services. We are taking all measures that can help protect people from the virus. Now there is also a major information threat that is causing people to panic.

We communicate closely within the team and this distracts us from the subject of the virus and allows us to continue to do our work. Everyone in the company has rejoiced, and we can even see an increase in the productivity and work efficiency of the company.

Ways of working

For the foreseeable future, the industry will feel the impact of live sports cancellations – and not just because of the diminishing betting opportunities for bettors.

Portnov says: I think the current situation and the uncertainty of the future have changed the plans for the year of every company in the world.

There is no clear understanding of what the world will look like, how it will affect digital, consumer behavior and the main goals of the world, which is why long term planning is put on hold, but in the short term, we continue to develop a roadmap, which helps us achieve the goals of improving our business regardless of the current uncertainty. We are used to working under limited conditions and will develop our roadmap on this basis.
Businesses also need to take into account wasted investments in support services, says Portnov: the IT tasks we performed last month are no longer relevant and we are starting completely different tasks.

The same goes for marketing, all our marketing campaigns for Euro 2020, with great shootings and celebrities, are suspended.

In general, everything has changed: our work approaches, our marketing campaigns, all the tasks and technical functionalities. We will see which way the wind is blowing. We are sticking to an adaptive strategy, and now is not the time for long-term planning.

Innovation means survival

In his eyes, the future of any business is simple – the strongest will survive and those who are not ready to adapt will try to get out of the financial crisis resulting from the ineffectiveness of the entire structure of a company.

His warning to those who are not prepared to take a proactive approach is harsh: such companies will be on the verge of bankruptcy. Their share price will be extremely low and they will be in debt.

Despite the upheaval, he says, new opportunities are already emerging. For example, he suggests traction in fast sports, such as table tennis, FIFA betting and esports.

For the time being, people seem to be enjoying these sports. Another opportunity is to create more live, honest and competitive content so that people can make bets.

For adaptive companies, this will be an opportunity to take the lead due to the digital disruption, to experiment, to add new games that are not related to the best sports. It is important to keep bets not with the best games, but with live content, such as table tennis, FIFA, etc., to create your own sports content or find a contractor who can provide tournaments exclusively.

According to him, this is the future of the industry: I suppose that many bookmakers will only have exclusive championships. The casinos will be extremely successful; they are part of the industry resistant to such crises.

The industry will certainly change, but it’s hard to predict exactly what will change. The next conferences will address the crisis and how to survive it. One thing I can say for sure is that the adaptability and speed of the business will determine who is strong and who is weak.