(AsiaGameHub) – Nikos Zygouris, Head of Sportsbook Product at Altenar, shares insights on the company’s new World Cup Lobby and its impact on user experience.
Interview.- Major sporting events like the World Cup significantly increase activity for sportsbooks, offering more matches, markets, and content than usual, which can complicate user navigation.
In this interview, Nikos Zygouris, Altenar’s head of sportsbook product, explains how the new World Cup Lobby centralizes all tournament-related information. It’s designed to enhance content discovery and provide a smoother, more engaging experience during the event.
Major tournaments generate huge spikes in sportsbook activity and content volume. From a product perspective, what challenges does that create for operators?
Events like the World Cup fundamentally alter how users engage with a sportsbook. During normal periods, navigation is typically straightforward. However, during a tournament featuring over 100 matches spread across several weeks, users are suddenly presented with an immense volume of content, markets, statistics, promotions, and betting options simultaneously.
The primary challenge for operators is to present this information in a structured and easily navigable manner, rather than overwhelming the user. Patrons seek immediate access not only to matches but also to team insights, player markets, outright bets, standings, and trending wagers. If this experience is fragmented across various sections of the sportsbook, user engagement declines rapidly.
This was a key driver behind the development of the World Cup Lobby: to create a single, centralized location for all tournament-related content, ensuring it is contextual and easily explorable.
“The challenge for operators is making all of that feel structured and easy to navigate rather than overwhelming.”
Nikos Zygouris, head of sportsbook product at Altenar.
What was the core idea behind the World Cup Lobby, and how does it change the user journey during a major tournament?
The objective was to craft a fully curated tournament experience, moving beyond a simple list of matches.
With the World Cup Lobby, users can move seamlessly between matches, teams, players, outright markets, statistics, and promotions within a unified environment. We’ve incorporated dedicated navigation layers, team and player pages, standings, knockout structures, and interactive widgets that dynamically highlight relevant betting opportunities.
The aim is to minimize friction and enable users to naturally discover more tournament-related content, rather than requiring them to manually search for it across the sportsbook.
Personalisation seems to be a major part of the product. How important is regional relevance during an event like the World Cup?
It is exceptionally important, as World Cup engagement varies significantly by region and audience. Users in Brazil, Mexico, Europe, or the US all follow the tournament differently and have distinct interests in teams, players, and betting narratives.
The Lobby empowers operators to prioritize content based on local relevance. This could involve featuring specific national teams, emphasizing regional betting trends, or promoting markets that are particularly popular in certain territories.
We also facilitate more dynamic personalization based on user behavior. For instance, if users are heavily engaged with outright markets or specific player props, the Lobby can prominently display related recommendations and betting opportunities.
This results in a far more relevant experience compared to a static, one-size-fits-all tournament page.
The Lobby includes dedicated widgets, carousels, and tournament-specific navigation tools. From a UX perspective, why are these features important?
During a major tournament, the speed of discovery is paramount. Users do not want to navigate through multiple layers simply to find the content they are looking for.
Consequently, we placed significant emphasis on interactive and contextual navigation. Features such as swipeable team and player carousels, integrated standings, and direct access to related markets allow users to move fluidly through the tournament ecosystem.
The UX approach is designed for exploration. A user might begin with a match, then explore player markets, followed by outright betting or team statistics, all without leaving the tournament environment. This continuity substantially enhances engagement and session depth during high-profile events.
“During a major tournament, speed of discovery becomes critical.”
Nikos Zygouris, head of sportsbook product at Altenar.
Looking beyond this summer’s tournament, how does the World Cup Lobby fit into Altenar’s broader sportsbook strategy?
The World Cup Lobby is integral to a broader strategic focus on personalization, engagement, and event-driven experiences within the sportsbook.
While developed specifically for the World Cup, the underlying framework is adaptable and can be applied to other major competitions across various sports. Operators can simultaneously manage multiple event-focused hubs, tailoring them to their specific audience and commercial objectives.
From a product standpoint, the industry is evolving towards more immersive and contextual sportsbook experiences, moving away from static betting interfaces. The ultimate goal is to create a sportsbook that feels more dynamic, personalized, and ultimately more engaging for users during the most significant sporting moments.
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