Having performed remarkably well with online casino players, sports betting enthusiasts and customers that regularly enjoy a combination of the two, we talked to Bitblox CEO, Brandt Page, to discover the secret behind the cross-market appeal of his company’s crypto prediction games.
When marketing any new iGaming vertical, one of the main things that can really help businesses hit the ground running is having a product that boasts broad cross-market appeal – and I definitely think this is something that could be said about all of the games we’ve launched so far at Bitblox.
Just the other day, I was talking to the Head of Marketing from one of the operators we work with and they told me they weren’t sure where to place our titles. Initially, they’d put them under the crash and instant win games tab in their casino, only to discover customers who normally only bet on sports were playing them.
They’d then moved them to the sports betting tab and saw the exact same thing from the casino-only players. All the while, users who bet on both were still playing the game, so they even moved it to the front page at one point – and all of this with no promotion!
I think the crux of why Bitblox is seeing success across all of these different player verticals is that our releases are a combination of games of skill and games of chance, they have features that appeal to both sides.
For sports bettors, the fact our games aren’t RNG-based and they are a genuine combination of skill and chance speaks to their primary reason for betting, while the games’ design and simplicity is attractive for casino players who are likely more focused on having fun than winning.
In either case, the fast-paced nature of Bitblox’s games has also been critical. As we’ve developed as a company and learnt more about what users want, we’ve iterated our releases in response to their feedback. What we learnt from Up or Down? is that even waiting a minute for a bet to resolve is too long for some people – and that’s why we created Up or Down? Turbo with 20-second betting intervals rather than 60. As time is a major driver for players used to in-play markets and instant win games, it’s been no real surprise to us that its now the more popular game of the two.
Our upcoming release, 3 in a Row, will again use this rapid-fire format and I’m very hopeful it will continue to broaden Bitblox’s appeal among different player segments. This was definitely the intention behind the game’s design – where you can spin the reels like a slot to pick your three predictions or put them together manually on a separate screen – and we’ve even made plans to introduce a bet builder feature that will allow players to combine more outcomes for bigger odds.
Like our other games, 3 in a Row will also straddle the game of skill/game of chance divide, so while there are definitely features that will appeal to casino and slot players, the potential to win big using your knowledge of the market is also there for sports bettors.
Of course, it should be noted that in terms of pricing, we’re not just putting up odds of 1.9 on both sides either – players are betting on the price of Bitcoin in real time and I wouldn’t underestimate the value that brings.
I’ve seen times in our games when the “up” price has been 1.4 while the “down” price has been 3.35, so whenever Bitcoin is moving a lot, player activity changes. If it’s heading steadily in one direction, a lot of sports bettors will keep making that bet at the lower price as they believe the pattern will continue, whereas a casino player may be more attracted by the bigger potential payout and deliberately wager to the contrary. I think that’s a really interesting dynamic within our fixed odds betting format and is very likely another reason for their evident cross-market appeal.
In the near future, we’re hoping to take this concept a step further with our Crypto Nags game; a kind of virtual horse racing product where each horse is tied to a different cryptocurrency.
I do think the way the mechanics and visuals for that could work has the potential to be very exciting and my hope would be that what we’ve built in Up or Down? and 3 in a Row in terms of combining games of skill and chance can be continued in a format that’s popular with more users worldwide.
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