Q&A, Ladbrokes director of mobile and devices Andrew Bagguley

Andrew Bagguley talks excusively to eGR Mobile Intelligence about the importance of tablet-optimised products for egaming firms

eGR Mobile Intelligence (eMI): What’s important about the tablet sportsbook’s launch?

Andrew Bagguley (AB): It’s a fully optimised site and app for tablet, the UX and the layout has been changed and designed to fit on the bigger screen. The key thing for us is that it builds on the Watch and Bet video streaming functionality, and that really comes into action on the tablet with the way it’s laid out. It’s the first part of our progression into the larger screen, and it’s different to our competitors in that we haven’t chosen any one platform to go down. We’re not just doing the iOS or Android app, we’re going down the route of HTML5 so it supports all devices and platforms, including Windows.

eMI: What will the tablet optimised version allow you to do that the mobile version wouldn’t?

AB: We’ve bulked out the cross-sell promotions to games and offers because the size of the screen and real estate gives us a lot more space for that, and what’s also interesting from a strategic point of view is that it’s in line with our mobile development. It’s not a separate app, it fits in with the current app and scales up or down depending on the device you’re using. It sounds simple in its description, but it’s more complex in its execution. It’d be a lot easier just to create another app but we really wanted to make the current app as scalable and distributable as possible.

eMI: What’s triggered Ladbrokes’ push into tablet-optimised apps?

AB: I think the 7 inch device is due to be the biggest shipping device next year rather than 10 inch, which is interesting, and you can see that with iPads as it’s the iPad Mini which is driving everything at the moment. It’s important that we go and we can scale, and it’s really important that we look at all the screen sizes and account for all the devices out there.

eMI: So can we expect more apps to be launched specifically for tablet in the future?

AB: We’re just about to launch bingo on tablet and we’re also in the process of launching casino. It’s exactly the same process for those and it’s focusing on tablet as a platform, we try to use the same technology and its scalability. For instance we don’t want to have the My Accas feature on mobile and then not have it available on tablet.

eMI: How has Ladbrokes’ Watch and Bet feature performed since its launch, and how do you expect it will fare on the tablet platform?

AB: The video functionality has been the focal point of what we’ve done. It’s done well, we’ve had multiple increases in video usage since its addition but tablet has a different usage profile to mobile. It’s a little less daytime specific and more evening usage when you come through the door after work. It’s a similar pattern to that of the desktop and I expect the format and the timings to mimic that usage.

eMI: And will this lead to an increase in cross-selling opportunities with the ability to integrate casino content?

AB: We’ve been doing that since just after the World Cup. We had the carousel live in Q2, and this is a bit of a further push behind it. We measure everything quite forensically and we’ll use that space depending on what yields or what really works for the customer. We’ll be looking at that and measuring that, and cross-sell has done quite well in a number of areas. It’ll be nice to see some in-play or in-session games coming into that area.