🎤 Bookie Q&A with Betmate

We speak to Ryan Lawrence, Founder at Betmate, about the social betting app. 

Betmate was born out of a desire to provide a more social, less risky, betting platform where users could bet with each other in a more communal format and we discuss the place for their product in the industry, their decision to stay away from random outcomes and what they’ve got planned for the future. 

OLBG: For anyone that doesn't know, can you describe how Betmate differs from a standard sportsbook?

RL: Put simply, Betmate is built around fan-vs-fan gameplay – there is no bookmaker in the middle and no odds trading desk. But we're much more than the old-school notion of "peer-to-peer."

The best way to think of us as P2P 2.0. We’re social, structured, and built for modern sports fans. You enter games like Fantasy Football or our Predictor formats, compete in real-time against other fans, and earn points for real-world actions like goals, tackles, assists, or match outcomes. It’s competitive, engaging, and there’s always multiple winners. There is a deliberate decision by us to avoid “winner takes all” structures that can leave most players empty-handed.

And crucially, we’re built on modern, purpose-built tech, not the legacy operating systems that power most sportsbooks. That lets us build fast, iterate often, and focus on what matters most: product, product, and product.

OLBG: Why did you set up Betmate?

RL: There was a clear opportunity to build something different and that’s games where fans play against each other in a fairer, more social way – not through odds or spreadsheets, but intuitive, well-designed formats that sit at the intersection of fantasy, betting, and sport.

We wanted to bring a new energy to the space, and Survivor is another good example of that, where fans compete to stay in across multiple rounds based on predictions. It’s a format with real old-school football tradition in the UK, but it’s never been truly perfected as an online proposition. We’ve set out to change that.

OLBG: What do you think (or maybe know) sportsbooks think about Betmate and what you do?

RL: The best ones see it as a fresh opportunity. We’ve built something that reduces operator liability, offers layered engagement, and works within full regulation. And while Betmate is our consumer playground, our B2B arm – Engage Games – is already working with major sportsbooks on Free-to-Play games, with Pay-to-Play coming soon. So, in short, we’re not a threat to standard sportsbooks. We’re a chance to innovate without overhauling legacy tech or product pipelines.

OLBG: You've said you'll never offer slots or roulette. Why is that?

RL: Because we’re not here to throw randomness into the mix. Our vision is about skill, social layers and engagement and games like slots or roulette pull away from that. Our main aim alone gives us a massive runway for new formats, new sports, and new layers. That’s more than enough to keep us busy for the next decade. We’d rather be best-in-class at something we believe in than spread ourselves thin for the sake of it.

OLBG: Can you explain a bit about the capping and smaller stakes - how does that work?

RL: So, for our public pots, we set the entry fee and typically never have over £10 an entry. 

Within our public pots, we have uncapped and capped pots. Capped means that we set a cap on the number of entrants (for example, 10), uncapped means that an unlimited number of people can join. Therefore the worst-case day on a pot on Betmate costs far less than a round in the pub, which is a deliberate guardrail that we’ve implemented.

OLBG: And how are the pots/odds calculated at Betmate?

RL: There are no odds in the fixed odds sense that bettors may be used to. We set a guarantee on all of our public pots, which means that there is a minimum pay out. That means if the pot loses money, Betmate eats the difference. However, in the case where it beats the guarantee, the guarantee goes up minus our rake fee. In each of our pots you will also see the number of places paid and the percentage of the pot each place gets.

For private pots that our users set up between their mates, we don’t charge a single penny, so you can see that as a nice way to test your knowledge versus your friends, with every penny going back into someone's pocket.

OLBG: How much do you have to comply with the regulations from the Gambling Commission, compared to traditional sportsbooks?

RL: We hold a full UK Remote Pool Betting Licence, so yes, we comply with the same regulatory framework. KYC, AML, player protections, audits, we do the lot.

What we don’t have is a need for a big trading desk or market-making team, because the structure is all peer-based. That allows us to invest far more into product and user experience.

OLBG: What role can affiliates have with you to help you?

RL: Affiliates thrive on building a strong community and reader interest, which is the heart and soul of Betmate. We’re interested in working with affiliates to drive traffic to Betmate for the new season, so please reach out to me or Paul (Betmate's Head of Growth) if you’re interested in getting up and running. 

OLBG: And vice versa, what do you think alternative (for want of a better word) sportsbooks can do for affiliates?

RL: We give affiliates fresh products to stand out versus traditional offerings. We convert well, retain well, and our CPA is typically lower than traditional operators. In addition to that, our games give you better hooks for editorial: “Who is your top Fantasy pick?” “Who will get the most tackles?” “Will there be a goal in the first 20 minutes?” It’s content that engages and then can convert. We also tend to find that our cost-per-depositor is a lot less than a traditional sportsbook, which shows the interest of our new, engaging formats.

OLBG: How do you see what you offer evolving in the future?

RL: Next up is new sports and we’re nearly ready to launch our next one. Beyond that, we're rolling out Community Pots. These will be fan-created contests where users can set the entry fee and the pot grows with every entrant. It’s the sweet spot between private and public pots, and a big step towards decentralised, player-powered games. We're all about the community and we're on the lookout for super fans to become our Community Champions. They'll help shape product decisions and make the experience even better for fellow fans.

But through it all, our foundation won’t change. We’ll continue to build on our purpose-built tech stack with a focus on fun. Betmate is and always will be about making betting social, responsible, and genuinely enjoyable.