ITALIAN GAMING TECHNOLOGY COMPANY ELYS PLANNING A DELIBERATE ENTRY INTO THE U.S. SPORTS BETTING MARKET

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Elys Game Technology, Corp. ELYS ELYS, an interactive gaming and sports-betting technology company, today announced that the management of Elys Game Technology is scheduled to present at the Benzinga Global Small Cap Conference May 14, 2021.

How does an Italian-based global gaming technology company operating in multiple countries worldwide make an impact in a burgeoning United States sports-betting culture? According to Elys Game Technology Corp. (Elys), you do it slowly and deliberately.

Elys, a B2B-focused company, offers its clients a full suite of leisure gaming products and services but is mostly focused on the global interest in sports betting. Even as some states are beginning to allow sports betting, Elys is betting on just one location — Washington, D.C.

"Our go-to-market strategy is to begin with land-based channels and then evolve to mobile platforms. We're not competing against the bigger online sports-betting companies who buy all the advertising," said Elys Chairman Michele Ciavarella. "Our strategy, especially in D.C., is to provide technology and know-how to ground locations who want to run a sportsbook. Everything from casinos to convenience stores. We want to help them serve their loyal customer base."
Elys managed to evade the business perils of the pandemic by reporting record revenue in 2020 and surpassed its financial objectives by reaching $575 million in gaming turnover in 2020. Elys attributed that success to its omnichannel approach, combining its online and land-based retail betting platforms.

Ciavarella says that sports betting operations have gained a lot of retail investment attention in the past few years but warns that those who don't know what they're doing are putting those investors and customers at risk. "We began learning the business aspect of the U.S. in 2018. You have to study the market before you jump in. We have purposely taken a prudent and methodical approach," he said. "This is a marathon. The U.S. doesn't have federal laws regulating gaming. They've left it to the states, and we're in the very early stages of what I believe will be a 15 to 20-year cyclical trend."

Elys believes it's helping change the landscape by engaging small businesses, from bars to coffee shops, and teaching them how to launch sports-betting platforms. It's a methodology it claims has worked in Europe, which bans sports-betting advertising, and although the company currently doesn't have any U.S.-based operations, developed a proven model in Italy it wants to build on.

"At the end of the day, all of our products are identical. The outcomes of sports betting are all the same. People don't care about your logo. The difference is the odds, and in that area, we feel that we offer more than our competitors," said Ciavarella.

Another difference in the Elys sports-betting model is its reluctance to incentivize bettors with bonus money to start wagering because the company believes it brings in the wrong type of customers.

Elys is targeting its initial entry into the U.S. sports-betting market in D.C. on Sept. 9, which is not coincidentally, the first day of the 2021 NFL season.

Learn more about Elys at www.elysgame.com.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.