Sportsbook operators have no shortage of acquisition tools. However, in today’s fast-paced and competitive environment, retention is where the real challenge lies.
As part of SBC Digital – Sportsbook 2025, Harel Falk, VP of Business Development at Solitics, joined a panel alongside CRM and marketing leaders from BetMGM and FDJ United to discuss the evolving role of real-time communication in driving long-term player engagement and lifetime value.
Moderated by SBC’s Scott Fulton, the session focused on how real-time personalization, smart segmentation, and gamification are reshaping the way operators connect with players.
Real-Time Engagement: More Than Speed – It’s About Relevance
Real-time marketing isn’t just about sending faster messages – it’s about delivering the right message at the right moment, on the right channel, based on real context.
Sports bettors are very passionate about their bets and often emotionally invested when their team plays. So, a timely relevant offer focused on the current event players are already engaged with, would be engaging and appreciated.
As Harel explained, true real-time means acting instantly, not minutes later, using a combination of:
- Historical player data, i.e. betting preferences, average bet, preferred offer and channel, etc.
- Current user behaviour, i.e. open bets and bet types.
- Live, real-world sports events, leveraging one or more offer types at a time.
For example, sending a push notification immediately after a goal is scored, only to users who placed a bet on that game with the odds booster offer, as opposed to a generic blast to the entire database before the match starts. Simply put: When the message is timely and contextual, players respond.
Why Most Operators Struggle to Achieve Real-Time
While most operators have a wealth of data, many lack the infrastructure to act on it in real-time. Having the data isn’t enough, it also needs to be accessible in a usable format (for marketing, operations or product teams).
What are the top challenges in achieving real-time data accessibility? To name a few:
- Legacy systems – internal or 3rd party, that can’t unify or process data quickly
- Fragmented tech stacks where marketing, operations, and IT teams aren’t fully aligned
- Over-reliance on manual processes or third-party tools that aren’t built for real-time execution
The result? Marketing CRM or Sportsbook operations teams are stuck executing campaigns with limited flexibility, and players get blasted by irrelevant messages.
Harel highlighted that this doesn’t have to be the case. With the right platform, operators can overcome infrastructure gaps without rebuilding from scratch and give teams the tools to act on live data across every channel – from push and email to onsite or in-app messaging.
Personalization at Scale Requires Smarter Segmentation
Edward Solomon from BetMGM emphasized the shift away from the “spray and pray” approach. Sending the same message to every player just doesn’t work -especially in large, diverse markets like the U.S., where preferences vary dramatically by state and team loyalty.
FDJ United’s Georgi Pepelyankov added that successful personalization relies on advanced segmentation and understanding each customer’s place in the lifecycle. Whether a player is new, returning after a break, or actively betting, your message and offer should reflect that.
Operators that succeed here take the time to build lifecycle-based campaigns, with flexible CRM logic and ad-hoc timely offers that respond dynamically to sports events and where players are betting, not just what they did last week.
Practical Takeaways for CRM Teams in 2025
The session closed with actionable insights for teams looking to level up their retention strategies:
Unify your data:
The first step to real-time is getting a complete picture of the player across all touchpoints.
Automate with flexibility:
Manual in-game offers don’t scale. Use triggers and logic to automate engagement without losing relevance.
Align teams:
CRM marketing, operations and product need to work from a shared playbook. Players don’t care who sent the message – they care about consistency and suffer from messaging-overload.
Measure and iterate:
Real-time strategies are measurable. Test what works, track impact on LTV and engagement, and keep optimizing.
Final Thoughts
This panel made it clear: the future of player retention lies in real-time, personalized engagement. Not just faster messaging, but smarter, more contextual interactions that reflect the player’s moment, mindset, and preferences.
At Solitics, we help operators to enhance player experience through personalisation and automated journeys. Our platform enables teams to use live data and execute targeted, omnichannel promotions. Using live data for both lifecycle journeys and ad-hoc in-game offers is a scalable way to higher engagement and increased loyalty. Delivering a solution that relies upon an existing data set with no need for extra IT resources, is a simple and straight-forward way for operators to deliver personalised and better experience with ease.
