Peer-to-peer betting app Wager set for public launch
App will push paid ads through Instagram and Twitter and investigate partnerships with the likes of Footy Accumulators
Peer-to-peer betting app Wager is set for its full public launch this weekend, EGR can reveal.
The app, first covered back in May, was soft-launched to friends and family at the start of the Premier League season, but will be pushed to the public over the weekend.
The product will be marketed via paid social on Instagram and Twitter, with the firm also looking at potential partnerships with the likes of talkSPORT and affiliate brand Footy Accumulators.
Co-founder Elliot Robinson told EGR the soft-launch had seen around 50 friends and family sign up on the opening day of the season, which had already swelled to 300 users organically.
“Feedback has been brilliant and the product has held its own,” Robinson said. “We’ve seen a a kind of unintentional network effect as people are referring their friends and challenging them to bets, which is great to see.”
The firm has been refining the product based on user feedback ahead of full launch, including new special markets like Salah to score more goals than Kane, alongside the traditional markets like 1×2 or BTTS.
Wager in action
When asked about the difficulty of scaling the business based on relatively infrequent and low-stakes wagers, Robinson said the app combined the best parts of a traditional betting app with increased user engagement.
“We have all the efficiency and usability of bookmaker apps with things like instant deposits and withdrawals, instant settlement, in-play odds, but the difference is the bets are being sent and played against your friends rather than the bookmaker.
“And we believe that is a lot more fun and social and drives engagement. There’s a bit of a FOMO effect when people are seeing these bets going back and forth between their friends.
“They’re receiving notifications to say, ‘your friend has challenged you, would you like to take them on?’ and that’s a much better engagement tool than scrolling through hundreds of markets on a bookmaker.”
The app’s pricing comes from Sportradar via the provider’s Acceleradar programme which offers free data for betting start-ups for a year.
Wager previously secured a £500,000 investment from early-stage VC fund Forward Partners
Wager co-founders Elliott Robinson and Leo Barnes