Category: General

Algosport: driving World Cup success

As 2025 comes to a close, global operators are becoming keenly aware of a FIFA World Cup that is looming on the horizon, and looking at what they can do to upgrade or enhance their related sports betting offering.

Leigh Herdman, Co-founder and CEO of sports betting supplier Algosport, sat down with SBC News to discuss the tournament and other plans for 2026, how 2025 has shaped up and all things Bet Builder.

SBC News: What plans do Algosport have for the FIFA World Cup in 2026?

Leigh Herdman: As one of the pioneers of Bet Builder from as far back as 2017, we have seen soccer as arguably the main driver of interest, and revenue, for Bet Builder as it has moved from a ‘novelty’ or nice to have product, to an essential service for sports betting operators across the globe.

With soccer being arguably the biggest betting sport for most non-US facing sportsbooks, we have continually developed our Bet Builder product since launching in 2018, coincidentally for the World Cup of that year.

Since then, we have constantly developed new features and functions, and this will continue for the World Cup in 2026. As ever, we have listened to our valued customers and partners, and our roadmap leading up to the tournament in June will include us making available a vast array of new markets that our customers will be able to offer to their end-users, further expanding the Algosport soccer Bet Builder.

SBCN: Bet Builder has been one of the drivers of sports betting revenue and innovation in recent years. Will this continue in 2026 and the World Cup?

LH: We believe so, and we think the trends we have seen over the last few years are likely to continue. To give an example, the Euros and Copa America in 2026 saw a real step change for soccer Bet Builder in that our customers and partners saw a significant increase in the uptake of In:Play Bet Builders, a feature that some of our competitors and in-house Bet Builder solutions cannot provide, and we have no doubt that this will continue for the tournament in North America.

On this, we believe Algosport is uniquely placed to support these endeavours, as our solution not only features In:Play Bet Builder functionality, but our operator customers and partners are also able to offer cash out to their end-users throughout the lifecycle of a bet, game, event or match, and it’s these sort of features that have really given our partners a much needed edge.

Over recent years, we’ve also seen a huge increase in the appetite of sports betting end-users for player and team related markets, across soccer but also a myriad of other sports. Throughout 2025, we’ve been steadily adding the functionality for these newer betting markets, and this will continue throughout 2026.

For our operator customers and partners, this will give them a competitive edge and an opportunity to deliver an exciting soccer Bet Builder experience to their customers for the World Cup and beyond.

Whilst some of the kick off times aren’t perhaps ideal for some of our European facing operators, the increase in matches and staggered nature of the schedule, means that we are expecting to break all records in regards to usage, and by extension revenue.

Our message to operators who aren’t supplied by Algosport is clear – if you want to support your World Cup activity with an industry leading Bet Builder solution that has a wealth of features and functions, particularly In:Play and Cashout, they should get in touch as soon as possible!

Our solution does require integration, but we have found smart operators can get our service up and running in a few weeks, so there is still time for operators to get a clear upgrade in their offering before the tournament starts in June.

SBCN: What has 2025 looked like for Algosport?

LH: Obviously we have had challenges like any scale up business experiences, but we think 2025 has been a positive year for Algosport. Alongside developing and releasing new markets and features for soccer, we have also been busy across all other major sports too.

Highlights for us include launching significantly more markets for our tennis Bet Builder, as well as adding In:Play functionality for ice hockey, which has proved to be a valuable addition for some of our European facing customers.

We’ve also had a busy year integrating and launching a number of new partners, as well as working with our existing valued clients with the aim of providing them all with the innovative and engaging betting products that are required in highly competitive markets.

In normal years, the sports betting supplier ecosystem sees a little bit of a slow down as the end of year approaches, but the exact opposite is happening in 2025! We’ve definitely seen a World Cup boost as tier-one and challenger operators and suppliers look at their current Bet Builder offering and see the benefits that the Algosport service could give in comparison to their existing products.

We’re working hard to close out these deals and start integration ASAP, with a view to some significant new clients launching with us prior to the tournament.

SBCN: Aside from the World Cup, what other plans does Algosport have for 2026?

LH: Algosport has always been about more than soccer, and we have developed Bet Builder products for twelve sports, with these in use by hundreds of operator brands across the globe – these include all the main drivers of Bet Builder action such as basketball, ice hockey, tennis and US sports, but we also support sports such as volleyball, handball, snooker, table tennis, darts and even soccer esports!

However, we are always looking at where we can improve our products further, and indeed where our customers and partners see opportunities, and we have been hard at work with a cricket Bet Builder product that we are looking to launch in time for the IPL start in 2026.

We think this will be a great addition to our product suite for our existing customers, but also may mean new partners are interested in what we have to offer. Alongside this exciting development, we are looking at additional sports, plus we in the early stages of some truly innovative projects, that will harness the power of AI to take Bet Builders to a new level! We are incredibly excited about 2026 and can’t wait to get started!

Algosport – redefining the bet builder landscape in 2025 and beyond

Leigh Herdman, Founder and CEO of Algosport, delves into the explosion in popularity of bet builder products, while assessing just where a continued upsurge in popularity could lead.

Leigh Herdman, Founder and CEO of Algosport

SBC News: Algosport is recognised as a premium provider of bet builder products. How does the market look now?

Leigh Herdman: When we started Algosport in 2017, at that point we couldn’t have predicted the explosion of bet builders as a sports betting revenue driver, nor could we have foreseen how it would move from a niche product, to one that is a pre-requisite for sportsbetting operators who are looking to service the needs of end-users across the globe.

However, that’s where we are today, and Algosport are immensely proud to be at the forefront of providing innovative solutions for operators wanting to raise their game and provide exciting and engaging sports betting products.

Over the last 12 months or so we have seen some significant changes to bet builders and how smart operators are using them to enhance customer experience.

This has seen an evolution of the product, from a pre-match soccer service to what is now a multi-sport, multi-feature service, both pre-match and in-play that is harnessing the voracious appetite for a new breed of end-users who want to test their knowledge and opinion against operators trading teams.

What started as a ‘novelty’ product, with the ability to request prices for combined bets on major events, has now become one of the key drivers of innovation within sports betting, plus a highly important driver of client acquisition, retention and revenue.

Whilst a lot of this momentum could be said to be being driven by the seemingly never-ending growth of bet builders (or same game parlays/multis) in the regulated US market, as a UK-based business, we have seen significant growth for bet builders for European sports, including what could be called minority or local events.

SBCN: What are the market trends that Algosport is seeing from customers or the wider sports betting ecosystem?

LH: At Algosport we are very proud to be supporting over 200 retail and online operators through both B2B partnerships and direct B2C deals.

These customers operate in multiple regions and countries, and range from the largest global tier-one brands to single-territory challenger operators, and we are pleased to be able to offer modular services and flexible commercial mechanisms to support all our clients.

What makes Algosport different is we effectively provide a third-party service that is akin to an in-house product, and it is this increase of ‘control’ that is becoming the main trend within bet builders.

For our existing customers using the Algosport ‘Blackbox’ to calculate bet builder offerings, this has meant that our clients have full price consistency across their wider trading strategy, and are able to combine virtually any market that they currently offer.

This flexibility also means operators who use our service are able to flex margins to achieve a long-term sustainable revenue proposition. In some instances, our customers have taken the view that they can increase margin for certain potential high-return same game multiples, but others have a strategy to offer at a lower margin and then leverage this as a value-add for end users.

We are well aware of the competitive pressures our clients face, and to be able to differentiate with a product that is very attractive to recreational customers is seen as a hugely important weapon in their arsenal.

As a lean and efficient company, we are also able to offer our premium offering at highly competitive commercials, where previously the only other real option was an in-house product, that could be both expensive and time consuming, complete with all the attendant risks of an internal project.

This ‘best of both worlds’ approach has created significant interest in our product, and we have recently expanded our customer base with numerous new clients, including tier-one global players in both B2B and B2C sports betting.

SBCN: What do Algosport think will be the ‘next generation’ of bet builder products?

LH: Having been involved in bet builders since the dawn of this product, we believe we are well placed to drive the further advancement of these products in 2025 and beyond.

As one of the first suppliers who predicted that bet builders would expand out of soccer, we are looking at a number of brand new sports in the next 12 months that will complement the twelve sports we already offer.

We know that these will be well received by our growing number of customers who are already seeing significant revenues from bet builders for ‘minority’ sports such as darts, snooker, volleyball, handball, table tennis and even soccer esports!

We are also close to completing our project of making all of our bet builders available in-play – unlike some other providers or in-house solutions, we already have ten sports available with live features, and have done so for many years.

However, 2025 will see us add ice hockey for the start of the next NHL season, with the final remaining sport of soccer esports the next to be developed. These will be key developments for our customers, as we are very aware that interest and revenue from in-play same game multiples has ramped up significantly in the last 12 months, with an expectation from savvy end-users that they should have the ability to place their bet builders whenever they want, and also to have a cashout option throughout the lifecycle of a match or event.

Outside of the increase in sports and features, as well as a continual expansion of the number of markets supported for bet builders, we are looking at some concepts that will remove barriers for bet builders and make it a truly ‘sandbox’ product, with end-users able to ultimately create their own bets and not be limited to the operator’s current market offering.

We are really excited about what this could do, not just to bet builder revenue, but also in creating a new style of sportsbook where the ability to personalise is user driven, and almost limitless.

We believe we are uniquely placed to be able to meet these new demands, with our ability to not only deliver an industry leading bet builder product, but wider trading services including a full range of sports betting derivative markets, plus in-house cashout logic that can power the entirety of a sportsbook.

SBCN: What will the next 12 months look like for Algosport?

LH: We are lucky to have grown the business over the last few years, with support from our valued and loyal customers, so the next 12 months will see us building on this as the business matures, but keeping our clients at the centre of our plans.

As well as our exciting plans to continually improve and augment our core bet builder products, we’ve actually looked at a couple of products that we initially worked on when we created Algosport.

These are more generalised sportsbetting trading products, but it’s been highly interesting that the problems these advanced trading products were meant to solve in 2018, remain as much as issue today for sports betting operators and suppliers – in fact, we see the ability to improve efficiency, increase revenue or reduce costs to be even more important now for what are generally highly-competitive and expensive markets to operate in.

Also we are, like the rest of the industry, looking at the World Cup in 2026 and are already working on some innovative products that could revolutionise how end-users are able to interact with bet builders – we really think these new products will be a step-change and will provide a watershed moment in sports betting, so watch this space in 2026!

As a consequence of all this planned activity, we will be looking to expand the team to be able to meet the demands from our valued customers, as well as introducing new products to the market. We will also ramp up our marketing and commercial efforts, with the SBC Summit in Lisbon in September a key driver of our activity in 2025 and beyond.

Algosport and the challenges of scaling a business

Algosport were formed in 2017 and since then have established themselves as a forerunner in sports betting innovation, powering hundreds of operators with their innovative Bet Builder product, as well as other vital algorithmic sports betting services.

However, the journey has not always been smooth sailing so SBC sat down with founders Leigh Herdman and David Beacham (CEO and CTO respectfully) plus MD Marc Thomas to understand a little more about the company history, the challenges of scaling up a B2B supplier in the ever-changing betting industry, and what’s next for Algosport

SBC News: Prior to setting up Algosport, how did you both get into the gambling industry?

Leigh Herdman: I’d always been interested in the mathematical side of betting, and this led me to start my career within gambling as a part time cashier for William Hill in the mid 1990s, combining this with my studies at Imperial College.

After graduating, I knew that I really enjoyed working within the industry and stayed on at William Hill for a number of years. I did then take a small break and went to run a bar, and work within modelling for an insurance company, however throughout this time I continued building models and algorithms for sports betting, which included some bespoke horse racing models that were used by a host of operators.

This led me to become part of the senior leadership team at what became Botsphere, where I built the quant team from scratch, as well as leading the creation of innovative trading solutions for the sports betting industry.

We had great success at Botsphere, and working in a fast paced start-up environment really guided me on wanting to repeat this process going forward, and be able to create products from the ground up that would generate significant value for operators, and solve some of the problems that a growing industry experiences.

Leigh Herdman, CEO of Algosport

David Beacham: I studied mathematics at Cambridge, and followed this with a post-grad at Imperial, and then in 2010 was looking for my first role. I had an interest in sport and the mathematical side of gambling, so was pleased to join Geneity in 2010, initially as a developer.

Geneity was one of the early platform and service providers, and I worked on some very interesting and innovative projects there. Following the acquisition of the company by Playtech, I switched roles to concentrate more on the Quant side of the business, working across multiple sports betting projects for both retail and digital.

David Beacham, CTO of Algosport

SBCN: Algosport was formed in 2017. What was the motivation in creating the business?

LH: following the acquisition of Botsphere by what is now BetVictor in 2012, myself and the other shareholders took different next steps. Whilst I was keen to continue working within the industry, I was also very keen to carry on focussing on innovative solutions and wasn’t really looking to become an employee again.

However, I was very impressed with what Playtech were looking to do in regards to sports betting, and was persuaded to join as Head of Quantitative Analysis. It was a great time to be at the company, and I led initiatives to build the quant function there to support all of Playtech’s sports betting products.

Throughout this time, I worked on a number of projects as almost an ‘internal consultant’ and started to get some ideas on what Algosport could be. Ultimately, the guys at Playtech were excellent and really receptive to innovation within sports betting trading, but I could see that the workstreams and products I was suggesting could have a benefit to other sportsbook operators, or B2B suppliers.

I found myself having the nagging idea that I could build a team who could create products that the industry wanted and needed, that they didn’t have the resources or expertise to complete themselves in-house, and provide these services in an efficient and cost effective manner.

DB: Leigh and I worked together on a number of projects and had lots of discussions (in the pub as well as in the office!) about doing something together, particularly to solve some of the problems that we were working on at Playtech, and how we might find other operators and suppliers who had the same issues.

We were excited about creating innovative products and solutions, but obviously a move of this scale did sometimes feel like it was a risk.

LH: as with the history of lots of start-ups, Algosport took a lot longer than planned to get going! I left Playtech in 2014 intending to spend the time building the models and products we envisioned for Algosport as well as completing consulting projects to pay the bills.

However, I had such a great relationship with Playtech, and they clearly valued my work, so they became my first client and I continued working with them throughout 2015 and 2016. As well as supporting other operators on similar projects, the time went by far too quickly and I found myself in 2016 having done very little to move Algosport forward.

The industry at this time was very different to it is now, but I looked around and saw that no-one was creating the sort of products that we wanted to build and therefore decided to push the button on Algosport and largely stop all the consulting work I was doing.

To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to having this conversation with Playtech, as we’d had a really good relationship over the years and didn’t want to ‘let them down’. However, this conversation turned into something quite different, and Playtech offered to invest in launching Algosport, kicking off a relationship that has been strong and mutually beneficial ever since.

With this investment in place, I was able to dedicate 100% of my time to setting up Algsoport, and got David to join very soon afterwards.

SBCN: Algosport are known for their premium Bet Builder product. Was this just a ‘happy accident’?

LH: I guess a little. Our original plan was to build an end to end trading solution, including what we called our ‘Advanced Trading Platform’ that was intended to make sports betting trading much more efficient, and drive product innovation and revenue for operators, and we built working prototypes for all the components

DB: Building the ‘APMS’ as we called it was very exciting as we were able to create technical solutions for what we knew were the operational and wider trading problems that sportsbooks were facing.

Alongside working on these truly innovative solutions, we were also creating some more ‘tactical’ products, including a full suite of multi-sport derivative markets with our proprietary in house modelling

LH: We had lots of positive discussions with operators and suppliers about the wider APMS, however most operators had the usual roadmap constraints, and for such a ‘big ticket’ item, progress was slower than we’d hoped for.

However, part of the demo process involved showing our Bet Builder product (or Same Game Multiples/fully automated Request A Bet as it was called back then) and a lot of operators and suppliers were really impressed with this, and it was with this that we secured our first deals.

We were always convinced there would be a market for this type of product, but even we couldn’t have predicted how the interest in the products from both operators and end-users would explode as it did. As we had built the products from the ground up, we were uniquely well placed to capitalise and it’s our innovative Bet Builder that is now our biggest revenue driver, with over 200 operators across retail and online betting using the service, through our B2B partnerships and direct B2C agreements.

As we had full control of the development of the product, we were convinced that Bet Builder would follow the same pathway that other sports betting products had – that is, that operators would offer Bet Builders on Pre-Match soccer initially, but very soon there would be an appetite from end users to be able to place In Play Bet Builder bets, plus extension out to other sports.

With this conviction, we were one of the very first suppliers to market with these innovative features, as well as supporting cashout across all our Bet Builder products, and this allowed us to increase revenue for all our valued customers across multiple sports. As of now, whilst soccer is still generating huge Bet Builder revenues, we are seeing other sports increasing year on year.

This includes some of the existing major betting sports such as Basketball, other US Sports but also European sports such as Volleyball and Handball, plus more ‘niche’ sports such as Darts and Snooker, where Algosport are one of the very few suppliers to offer these. As we live and breathe the product, we think this puts us in a strong position to further power the next generation of Bet Builder, and wider sports betting products.

SBCN: What challenges has Algosport faced?

LH: like many small companies, COVID and the attendant lockdowns were a huge challenge to Algosport, particularly as sports action largely disappeared and with it our revenues.

However, we were able to adapt quickly – a good example is that we noticed the rapid increase in interest and turnover on Soccer eSports products for sports betting operators, so we created a Bet Builder to support this. This was hugely positive for both Algosport and our clients, and the product quickly generated much-needed revenue until real-world sports returned

DB: In recent years, we have developed and launched new products and features, increased our valued customer base, as well as growing revenue and maintaining ourselves as a profit generating company. However, like most start-ups aiming to scale up, we have had issues with growth, and in particular finding new people to come into the team.

This has meant that in some cases development has been slower than hoped, but we are now expanding the team as well as finding smarter ways of working together, and the next twelve months are looking really positive.

Marc Thomas: the challenges at Algosport currently are similar to those that companies in a growth phase often find themselves in. However, we have the benefit of a huge array of global customers, and an ability to grow organically without seeking additional investment. The team at Algosport are true sports betting experts, which helps as well!

Marc Thomas, Algosport MD

SBCN: What’s next for Algosport?

DB: As said, we are looking to expand the team as we have really ambitious plans for our core products, including Bet Builder, in 2025 and beyond. We have a challenging roadmap of adding features and functions, but are confident that we will be able to deliver these innovative products for our valued existing customers, as well as introducing some new products to the market

MT: 2025 is shaping up to be a consolidation period for Algosport, as we look to increase our product range for our existing customers. However, we have huge plans for 2026, including groundbreaking expansions to the Bet Builder product, plus some new sports betting products that are truly innovative and we are very excited about the next 18 months

LH: We are also looking again at some of the products we previously developed such as our APMS. Whilst the sports betting and trading landscape has changed in the intervening years, the fundamental reasons for creating such products still largely exist today, and we still see automated trading solutions as a driver for revenue for our customers and partners, and will be using some of our R&D resources on these type of products in the future

Sports betting innovation stifled by short-term focus

Innovation in sports betting is being gradually hindered by a short-term outlook on financial results, industry experts have acknowledged.

A selection of executives from across the sector offered insights on the latest SBC Webinar, led by Algosport, titled ‘Sports betting needs help – what lessons are sportsbooks failing to learn when it comes to innovation?’.

“As an industry, we’ve become quite risk-averse,” explained Algosports’ Managing Director, Marc Thomas. “A lot of tier one operators and suppliers are now publicly listed companies, and those publicly listed companies need to have a profit every quarter if not every month.”

“What that does is restrict the innovation curve because people are just thinking, what can I do to either keep my business the same or grow at a smaller rate with a reduced amount of risk? What they aren’t thinking about is what is the next big thing that we’re going to do that is going to come to fruition in 12-18 months.

“If you look at some of the innovations that have been within sports betting, such as bet builders and same-game multis, that’s been driven by tier one operators who ultimately took a gamble on a product and said, this product isn’t going to drive us any revenue for the next 12 months so I’m going to put [lots] of marketing dollars behind it and eventually it will cut through.”

Responding to this point, the Head of Sportsbook Product at Novibet, Giannis Paraschos, noted the conflict that operators face when allocating resources.

He said: “We rely heavily on our proprietary platform, so we develop most of the things ourselves.

“This means that resources are scarce. So even if you have a visionary plan and nice ideas, then you have to prioritise. The most challenging thing is trying to balance the brand’s needs in order to be successful.

“They say you have to put 10% of your efforts into innovation, but this can’t always be the case because most of the time you have to deliver something that is valuable to the company now compared to something that will eventually be valuable.”

Innovation in sports betting is often driven by smaller developers, such as Algosport. However, it can often be hard for developers to transition the idea they have into practice, either through their own product or through an integration with a larger operator.

Jamie Hart, Head of Gambling at Conquer Technology, discussed some of the challenges developers face.

He said: “The problem I think the industry has is that we’ve got a lot of these tiny pockets of innovatory thinkers but it costs you so much to come to market as a B2C that you can’t justify starting a whole business based on that one idea.

“And then if you’ve got something that’s great, it’s very hard to get into somebody’s roadmap to integrate something that’s only one part of somebody’s business. And then quite often, they’ll take a look at it and go, we may as well build it ourselves because it doesn’t look that hard but then we’ve got fit it into our roadmap that is backed up to 2026.”

Hart also recalled his time working at William Hill, where innovation was “split off into a separate area” and provided a budget to experiment and develop “a lot of groundbreaking things”.

He explained that this was able to happen as the CEO at the time was someone who understood sports betting, whereas now a lot of the publicly listed companies in the vertical are “run by people that aren’t confident they know how the whole business works”.

Also on the agenda during the wide-ranging discussion were the differences in innovation between Europe and the US post-PASPA, particularly focusing on innovation driven by industry leaders in North America like FanDuel and DraftKings.

You can watch the full webinar by clicking here.