Just over six months after receiving Arizona sports betting licensure from the state’s gaming department, gaming services company Plannatech is on the verge of launching operations in the Grand Canyon State, bringing a brand back from the industry’s dark ages.
That’s because the company will use Latin American gaming mainstay Betcris as its sports betting skin in Arizona, paving the way for a brand that shut down operations in the U.S. in the run-up to the dawn of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) 18 years ago.
The move is a surprise to many in the gaming industry, as Plannatech has previously gone with Prime Sports as its brand of choice in states where the company has sports betting licensure. Those states include New Jersey and Ohio, with a Kentucky launch pending.
Adam Bjorn, Plannatech’s CEO, told BetArizona.com this week that the pending launch of Betcris in Arizona came about as a direct result of the state’s proximity to Mexico (where the operator has immense brand recognition) and the unique demographics in the 48th state.
“We are the only platform provider for (Betcris) in Latin America, where they currently operate, and for me, we’ve seen the struggles of where Prime was at, and we didn’t know if it was the product that Plannatech was providing, or if it was just a brand recognition thing,” Bjorn told BetArizona.com in an exclusive interview. “So, this was sort of an opportunity of Plannatech being the holder of the license – we could have gone with Prime and done a deal with them and used their brand – but for me personally, I saw this as a strategic opportunity where Betcris is in Mexico, so there’s some brand recognition there.”
A Wagering Opportunity in Arizona
The other major motivation for Bjorn and company in going with Betcris over Prime Sports as an Arizona sportsbook apps operator was the retiree community in the state. Many of those people have wagered for a long time and likely remember the former’s brand name from years past.
Bjorn said he hopes that those older bettors will look at Plannatech as a viable alternative to the mainstream operators that he sees as being overly conservative when it comes to things like bet limiting and getting winnings into the hands of customers.
“I mean, this isn’t rocket science,” Bjorn said. “All we’re trying to do is just facilitate everything. The experience for people trying to place bets on sporting events or whatever else they’re able to place wagers on. It’s really simple, we’re not reinventing the wheel or anything here. We just want to put odds up. Let people bet. Take the bets. Pay them out as quickly as possible and there’s an existence of that brand recognition which we’ve seen over the last four days with interest that’s peaked from it.”
For now, Bjorn and the team at Plannatech aim to get sign-ups live this week, with odds being posted soon. That would give Arizona sports bettors ample time to dip their toes into the Betcris waters ahead of Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9.
The goal for Plannatech’s user-friendly setup is to replicate the friction-free atmosphere that many sharp bettors have come to know in the offshore market, with no limits on wagers and the type of product that’s intuitive to use, so the company’s Betcris experiment can fly out of the gate.
“A few of things that I’ve kind of pushed for is regulating the unregulated so anyone that’s betting offshore or betting with their golf course bookie or their bar bookie and then sort of trying to create that kind of product within the U.S. boundaries,” Bjorn said. “And I’m not sure if (other sportsbooks) have struggled with that kind of product or whether they’re just not interested in that kind of product, so I think there’s that kind of product and I think there’s a lot of players that don’t really have a home to play at.”
Goals For Plannatech in AZ
Above all, Bjorn’s main goal in getting Plannatech’s partnership with Betcris off the ground in Arizona is to create the type of user experience that bettors in other countries have enjoyed for years. That means shirking the costly spending that comes from player acquisition and using customer-friendly practices that can help the company take a bite out of the state’s $20.5 billion total handle market share in 2025.
“I will say this, it’s really hard to operate in the U.S. in the regulated market under the exorbitant cost of the legislators and the regulators have put in place,” Bjorn said. “This isn’t going to be easy so you’ve got to find any little edge that you can and we’re hoping that the brand recognition will give us that little bit of edge beyond having to spend the kind of marketing that FanDuel, DraftKings and the brick-and-mortars are currently spending.
“… This is an old school culture or mentality that bookmakers in the UK and Australia have been doing for 100 years. I’ve seen the offshore markets do it now for 30-odd years, and people should be able to just wager very frictionless and simply and that’s our goal here, is to let everybody come in and let everybody wager and use that information to adjust our lines and continue on.”
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