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Horse-racing and betting site uses live blogs to engage and inform enthusiasts

Case study

For horse racing enthusiasts, data is key to making informed betting decisions. On major race days, real-time updates and in-depth analysis can be game-changers. As Norway’s leading betting hub for horse racing, Rikstoto relies on Live Center’s live-blogging solution to deliver the latest news and insights to its most dedicated audience—while also creating a valuable monetization channel. With approximately 40,000 active unique customers per month and an annual revenue of 3 billion NOK, Rikstoto continues to enhance its interactive features, ensuring an engaging and data-driven experience for its users.

The challenge: Constant updates for highly dedicated audience

Rikstoto is the only national licensed bookmaker for horse racing and focuses intently on user experience. The development and editorial teams recognized a need for near-constant content updates for the most dedicated of the horse-racing audience segment to accompany its live-streaming content from its streaming portal, Rikstoto Direkte.

The idea, according to Rikstoto’s Product Owner, Kristoffer Eide, was to be able to supplement streaming races with up-to-the-second content close to the betting deadlines that would influence bets. “We have long-form articles and more static content on our website, but we wanted something more spontaneous, live and available on the fly for constant updates,” shares Kristoffer Eide.

Before looking into live blogs, the Rikstoto editorial content strategy did not include any ways to share live editorial content. They had social media, such as Twitter or Facebook, but this took users away from the site and didn’t foster the sense of “creating a specific universe on the site” for the most passionate fan segment.

The Solution: The winning bet calls for instant updates

Having seen live content updates on other sites, such as Dagens Næringsliv, Kristoffer Eide discovered Norkon and the Live Center live-blogging platform. As the development team lead, Kristoffer Eide reasoned that an out-of-the box external solution like Live Center would make more sense both economically and time-wise.
Developing an in-house solution would end up taking too much time, costing too much money in development and maintenance, and building up technical debt over time.

“Live Center was exactly what we needed,” Kristoffer Eide shared. “We were able to launch an MVP to get started, and with minor brand-related customization, such as styling, colors, fonts and labels, Norkon helped us get our live blog up and running in less than three weeks.”

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Significant increase in bet placements

Since its launch in mid-2021, Live Center has been used successfully at Rikstoto to push continuous content on big betting nights, such as Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Using Live Center, the editorial team writes horse-racing analysis and content right up until the betting deadline, hoping to provide customers with the correct information to place their bets accordingly.

“Our reporters can push content quickly, right before races, and we instantly see much higher betting percentages. Live Center delivers much higher revenue per customer, according to analytics data. Live content is a trigger for placing bets, making Live Center a no-brainer and an easy ROI justification.”

Kristoffer Eide continues “this kind of live content is time sensitive and specific, and would not make sense on our main website, which is why Live Center is so important. We can also augment this content easily with content from other platforms, such as Twitter or YouTube, as well as images and videos, which makes the content more interactive and fresh. In the 4.5 years we have been using Live Center, it has worked exactly as we hoped and we saw immense benefits.”

“Our top product is V75 on Saturday – seven races that can take up to three hours. We have discovered that user habits have changed in recent years – a lot of customers don’t have time to watch all the races in addition to pre-race analysis. With phone in hand, Live Center provides an excellent possibility to get last-minute insight before placing their bets without necessarily ditching all their Saturday afternoon plans.”

– Kristoffer Eide, Product Owner at Rikstoto

Betting on the future: Growth and interaction

User interaction will shape the future of how Rikstoto leverages live blogging. With the recent introduction of the comment function, the racing and betting platform recognizes the immense value of any feature that fosters greater reader engagement. “The more we engage with our users, the stronger our influence becomes. We continuously develop new features to enhance the user experience, as this is the key to sustained growth,” Kristoffer Eide emphasized.

Looking ahead, Rikstoto remains committed to expanding its interactive capabilities, ensuring that its platform not only informs but also actively involves its audience. By prioritizing engagement-driven innovations, the company aims to strengthen its community of racing enthusiasts while driving long-term success.

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