If you’ve read through our reviews you’ll know that we have given BetTech based sites a lot of flack. So we thought we’d do a brief posting as to why we give it such a hard time and what we really think of the software. This is not an article against BetTech so before you bash us for giving them a hard time give it a read and come to your own conclusion.
To start off we don’t actually hate BetTech, what we hate is the fact that any Tom, Dick or Harry can open his wallet and basically (licensing aside) purchase a fully fledged betting site. We feel this dilutes the market with similar products as most of these cookie cutter sites have a similar feel.
We understand that by having a BetTech site you get the full package of trading, design etc etc which is incredibly helpful and cost efficient, especially for new entrants. The issue is in a highly competitive market why copy someone else? Rather think out of the box by looking else where for your software. Heck Playabets were on the BetTech platform but saw it’s limitations and decided to move onto a different provider. So our biggest issue is that so many bookmakers decide to go with BetTech. Now BetTech have a great business model going on and are obviously making heaps of money from the bookmakers they service.
Now why is it an issue? Well, BetTech’s customers seem to be of the same ilk. They’ll take the basic product and stick to it. There is no invention or ingenuity to the sites, now this it not BetTech’s fault as they are providing the platform, it’s the cheap bookmakers who buy the basic platform and then do nothing with it. In order to be successful in the South African betting market you need to stand apart from the competition. How do you do this? Well investing some more money and effort into your site is a good start. Use the BetTech software until you have a decent customer base, then expand upon it, make changes and grow your business. Imagine visiting a 7/11 20 years ago, would you still visit that 7/11 today if nothing inside the shop had changed? No, you’d head down to the local store that is keeping up to date with the retail trends.
There are a few BetTech sites that get it right because they did something more than just used the BetTech software, they added their own promotions and increased their sign on offers. We don’t mind this one bit as it shows independent thinking. Grandplay(Now defunt) and Bet.co.za are examples of Bettech done right, they’ve customised the site nicely and added many of their own promotions. Admittedly they do look very similar to each other. On the flip side you have Gbets who are a perfect example of a generic BetTech site, dull and uninspired.
So to sum things we, we don’t hate Bettech. They’ve done a lot for the local betting industry but the product in the hands of Joe Public has become a bit stale and almost mass marketed. We’d like to see bookies using the BetTech product roll out a few changes and keep things fresh, in order to keep us punters more interested.