Over at Sisal, Flutter’s leading Italian omnichannel operator, in-person communities have been integral to the businesses’ success since its foundation in 1945, with 40,000 retail outposts in Italy today. While a communal atmosphere around betting is nothing new – whether friends placing a group bet in a shop or planning the same via WhatsApp – a major shift taking place is sports betting enthusiasts sharing their predictions more widely via online channels. As Francesco Taricone, Head of Sportsbook Product at Sisal, explains: “For the first time, this phenomenon started to become a full-time job for some, and we started to think about how to build this kind of experience into our product.”

Launched in December 2020, Sisal’s response to this trend, Tipster, blended social media with sports-betting through a dedicated product, with customers able to share their bets within that community. The more skilled a ‘tipster’ proves to be, the more visibility they enjoy on the platform, and so their following grows. More than 60,000 monthly players now use Tipster – which is fully integrated within Sisal’s website and app – representing a monthly average of 15% of Sisal’s almost 400,000 active users, a percentage that is increasing even as Sisal’s wider betting community grows also.

In addition, Sisal is also building community elements into products that sit outside its traditional sports betting focus, as seen with Fun Club, a football-themed mobile game featuring leaderboards and players competing for grand prizes, like cars and iPhones, which drew 100,000 players to its HTML version even before its official launch.