SBC Leaders is an exclusive & invite-only group of organisations drawn from the upper echelons of the betting and gaming industry. Its members are all international operators or operator associations who have helped the whole industry to progress with their achievements. Last edition of the SBC Leaders Magazine introduced an interview with Dotan Lazar.
“We took our LVision product, which is all about computer vision and really advanced technologies, and from that we integrated it more into LSports and started strengthening the technology around that. I think that has definitely been one of our biggest achievements,” Lazar said.
“Now, we have scouting automation based on the OCR. So today, if you are to create a betting event on TV or in-venue, that can cost hundreds of euros to deploy data scouts. But now, we can actually fully automate this process which can cost only one or two euros per event. We’re the only ones that are doing what we’re doing right now - with the added bonus of a high percentage of accuracy.”
Another milestone was one that was revealed towards the tail end of the year, and was arguably the largest of LSports’ announcements for 2022: the company’s takeover of Polish sports data company STATSCORE.
Lazar shared that STATSCORE was the perfect acquisition for LSports due to the “synergy“ between the pair. “STATSCORE has scouting in venues that we didn’t previously have access to, they also have a visualisation tool that we want to strengthen,” he said.
“We are very fortunate to be able to pursue these opportunities and make the most out of them. In the past, we have seen some M&A deals that have taken place but subsequently failed because that synergy wasn’t there. There may have been cultural differences, different business ideas. But for us, we really feel like we see things eye to eye with STATSCORE.”
Welcome to the family
Acquired for an undisclosed sum, STATSCORE has now joined the LSports “family” as Lazar described it. However, it will continue on as its own productive unit, with its own individual branding. The CEO is confident that LSports can help scale the Polish sports data provider to new heights, and enrich learning for both STATSCORE and his own company.
“We don’t want to stop it operating as an individual company; we want to enrich learning and we want to make STATSCORE even bigger. The company’s speciality is around creating and collecting data, and using that information to create widgets. That is an area where we want to strengthen our focus. We are going to sell STATSCORE’s products, they will then have their own development and scouting units. We will also benefit from each other’s technology,” he continued.
When chatting with SBC, it became abundantly clear that Lazar was incredibly proud of this new partnership with STATSCORE.
“STATSCORE is a perfect match for LSports, both culturally and from a product perspective. That’s the primary reason why it has been the perfect addition to our company. Do you know that feeling when someone just completes you? That is the story of LSports and STATSCORE. It’s a modern day Cinderella story,” he expressed.
Lazar is confident that they will continue this mutually beneficial relationship as long as they continue to nurture their shared values: “We found a company that actually suits us in every way possible. We see the world the same - technologically, culturally and in respect to business too. We both want to succeed with what we are doing.”
A new era
With a larger company than ever before, LSports wanted to ensure that its visual identity reflects its company values. To do this, the company brought in an external design consultancy to assess how the company should now position itself. As a result, the firm now sports a new visual identity which it believes is a true reflection of its recent growth, size, values and goals.
“In order to reflect your size, you need to make bold decisions. Our previous branding was done five or six years ago. I, personally, wasn’t that happy with it - there is a saying that ‘if better is possible, then settling for something that is good is simply not enough. This new visual identity will pave the way for LSports to enter a new era,” said Lazar to SBC Leaders.
“The rebranding really allows us to make that connection with our core ideas. We made that bold decision, we carried out our acquisition of STATSCORE, and we have grown considerably in the last few years. “We have taken one of the best design companies in Israel to rebrand our company. I think that what they have done is fantastic. We still have plenty of work to do, but we are winning from behind.”
Disrupting the industry
Even with a different look, LSports still plans to remain true to its roots by creating disruptive technologies that can create new and innovative experiences for its partners. One such way that the company plans to do this, Lazar told SBC, is with scout automation, new technologies and further integration of machine learning models.
“There are so many things that we’re doing that I truly believe will disrupt the industry going forward - our Computer Vision is just one, which is enabling us to reduce the costs of data scouts by almost 90%. That’s a major disruptor."
“The other thing is that we have our Outliers model that is based on machine learning. This helps to detect outliers in odds and suspend them. We have 360 radars scanning the industry and if something is off with prices, we can detect that and suspend those odds."
“The third thing is the scouts. We are going to bring our scouting to venues in much faster latencies than the market is used to by using new technologies and new applications. This is another massive force that we are going to bring.”
Looking forward to the year ahead
Lazar kept his cards very close to his chest when quizzed on what we can expect from his company in 2023. He did, however, allude to further product development and steps being taken towards “data feed perfection”.
He concluded: “I can’t quite share much more than what I have already told you. But in 2023, we are going to focus even more on sharpening our odds models and stabilising our data feeds. We’re not aiming to get 99.8% accuracy - we want 100%. Why settle for less?
“To get there, we have a long way to go, but we are on the right track. It’s like a pyramid, once you have the best data in the world, every product that you build using that data is 100% bulletproof. That’s really what we’re aiming for ”
Source: SBC Leaders
