How Sporttrade is like … pizza dough

It would be fair to say that Sporttrade, in its current incarnation, isn’t exactly what founder Alex Kane envisioned. But it would also be fair to say that he’s still growing his business and having a good time doing it.

“I am still excited because I do still have this long-term vision of wanting to create something different,” Kane told iGB. “I love listening to players and learning from them.”

When Sporttrade made its debut in New Jersey in 2022, it became the first company in the US to offer a different experience known as exchange wagering. Bettors can buy and sell bets throughout a game for an experience that more resembles stock trading than traditional sports betting.

The Sporttrade odds format was “implied probability,” where instead of seeing “+300,” players would see “25%.” With implied probability, players can, for example, “Buy at 25%”, then have the ability to “Sell at 60%” if the bet started to look more likely.

Sporttrade went on to add a “limit order.” This gives bettors the ability to ask for a price that is better than what is currently offered. Not all states allow this feature, Kane said. But as some “gain a bit more comfort around limit orders”, he expects every legal state to eventually allow it.

Sporttrade is live in three states — New Jersey, Colorado, and Iowa — with plans for two more. Since launch, Sporttrade has enhanced the experience with an “American Odds Mode,” which allows players to see prices expressed in American odds, giving them an apples-to-apples comparison versus other sportsbooks.

The company in early August was awarded an event wagering licence in Arizona. And last week, it announced it has secured a Virginia licence. Sporttrade hasn’t launched in either state, but plans to launch in Arizona later this month and in Virginia in October.

Sporttrade’s real-time ticker a draw
Ironically, Sporttrade’s evolution has been from pushing the envelope to backing down to the mainstream.

The platforms that will be available in Arizona and Virginia will more resemble traditional betting platforms. Kane refers to the latest version as Sporttrade 2.1, even though it’s less innovative than the original idea. In terms of how to wager and what to wager on, it is more mainstream.

That said, Kane and his team have found ways to begin to draw attention and carve a niche. In the states where exchange wagering is allowed, bettors can use the limit-order feature, essentially choosing the odds at which they’re comfortable betting an outcome at. In any state in which Sporttrade is live, bettors can view odds by probability or American odds and buy and sell throughout a game.

Beyond that, Kane is now positioning his product more toward high-limit customers. It has a “whale tracker” feature that allows bettors to follow the biggest bets placed. And from that was born “The Tape,” which is basically a real-time ticker of bets made on the site.

TEN Titans @ CHI Bears
Over 43.5 | Total Points
Odds: -115 (52.95%)
Bet Size: $23,002.0
Potential Profit: $20,030.2

— Sporttrade Whale Tracker 🐋 (@sporttradenow) September 8, 2024

‘Let’s be the place where big players play’
“We’ve done so much, and now the product, when we look at it, we see some nice signs,” Kane said. “The limits are $20,000 and $25,000 and we partner with trading teams who manage our risk. We said, ‘Let’s be the place where big players play.’ It’s sort of like making pizza dough. For the first 10 minutes, you feel like you’re not getting there, and then all of a sudden it does.”

Kane said that Sporttrade has been working with DimeLine Trading, as well as another new company that is “helping us take much, much larger wagers at really good prices.”

The Tape, which is available for download on iOS devices (Android download coming), has sparked a kind of interest Sporttrade couldn’t buy. The company markets The Tape on X, and the account automatically sends a tweet for any bet of more than $3,000. Kane says it has “generated a lot of conversation and reposts.”

Introducing The Tape!

Available to all iOS devices, see every trade made on Sporttrade in real-time.

Like a trade? Swipe to tail it! pic.twitter.com/yBntydqPkq

— Sporttrade (@sporttrade_app) May 20, 2024

Growth hasn’t been easy
Getting from New Jersey to the cusp of being live in five states hasn’t been a straight line. It also hasn’t been easy. At launch, Kane said, there were up to 80 people working at Sporttrade. He soon realised that while he might need that number of employees to manage his platform in 10 or 15 states, that it was unlikely it would get that big anytime soon. And he didn’t want to burn through cash that could ultimately help to make his vision a reality.

“There were a series of conversations, and we decided that this concept was too valuable to let it die and be sold for parts,” Kane said. “The intellectual property is just too much to let it die, so we had to make the difficult decision to thin out our team in 2023.”

Kane cut the workforce to less than half of its original number. He compared the decision to Rocky “getting to fighting weight” in the film Rocky III.

“I love what I do,” Kane said. “It’s the ultimate privilege, so I won’t ever complain about my job, but it was hard, closing that proverbial chapter.”

Summer ’24 a key turning point
From there, Sporttrade launched in Colorado and then Iowa. The company spent little on marketing, but was seeing growth. Kane said the summer of 2024 “will be the inflection point.” It might not be what he thought it would be, but Kane and his team continue to evolve.

“In 2022, we didn’t have anywhere near the level of coordination we needed on the team,” he said. “The product wasn’t ready for this. It didn’t have The Tape, Android, big bets, American odds. So, it was kind of like the dough.

“But now it will be a darned good pizza.”