Team of under-21-year-olds believes new social sportsbook can fill void within sports betting industry, appeal to all demographics.
Four Dartmouth College students have launched a new social sportsbook that offers community-centric features and an easy way to break into and enjoy sports betting.
The fresh concept, Rebet, began in a dorm room, evolved inside the Dartmouth Tuck School of Business, survived with a start-up incubator, and intrigued investors enough to gain seven-figure funding all within a year.
Rebet recently launched a fully functional app in 47 U.S. states and gained thousands of users in a matter of days.
The quickly built business, according to co-founder Carson Hubbard, fills a void within the sports betting industry.
Rebet’s free-to-play sports betting experience takes the popular aspects of social media platforms and combines them with picks that followers can see and re-bet themselves.
“The vision was to create a platform that would bring the social and communal aspects of fandom to the forefront of the sports betting experience itself,” Hubbard told Covers. “That’s ultimately what led to the birth of Rebet.”
Social sportsbooks are not a new idea, but Rebet, also co-founded by Bella DiGiovanni, Liam Tassiello, and Edwin Onyango, broke into the space by being the first to offer a social peer-to-peer experience, Hubbard said.
Rebet allows a user’s friends and network to instantly make the same bets with a unique one-click feature.
Users can share, comment, engage with each other, and compete in peer-to-peer contests without ever spending a dime of their own money.
“At the heart, Rebet is the first of its kind, free-to-play social sportsbook where fans can connect and celebrate their love of sports together,” Hubbard said. “We feel very confident that we’ve accurately identified this huge void in the current market and we’re bringing these new features that people actually want to use. It’s features people are using and are loving.”
Several major sports like the NBA, NHL, NCAA basketball, and Premier League are already being offered, with UFC, boxing, and the Masters being added soon.
The app allows users to place bets using Rebet Coins (free tokens) that also help the player rise on leaderboards and establish status within the app’s community.
Rebet Cash can be used to enter sweepstake promotional contests with winnings that can be redeemed for real money. Users can link their bank accounts to Rebet through Plaid (and soon Apple Pay) to add more Rebet Cash.
Another way Rebet feels like it will differentiate itself from other social and traditional sportsbooks is through its patent-pending easy-to-use lines feature that helps newbies get into sports betting.
Rebet takes away the confusing spreads look and the complex jargon.
Rebet wants to appeal to all demographics. Hubbard says his grandmother is a big follower so she can root for the teams he and his family pick, which she can easily view and comment on via the app.
DiGiovanni, who has an entrepreneurial background with the custom-tote bag business SANDS she founded at 18 years of age, has made it a point to go beyond the norm with the demographics. She says her research shows that Rebet’s features hit big with females.
“I’ve found that females have this equal enthusiasm toward sports and the sports betting experience,” said DiGiovanni, a former Dartmouth basketball player. “They want to be a part of it but I keep hearing, ‘I don’t understand the terminology, I don’t understand the odds.’ So as a female entering the male-dominated space, it can create a barrier that women just don’t enter the space. I think we can hit this really big, untapped market.”
The Rebet team is far from done since the launch. The four college students are taking the term off to focus solely on the business.
The enthusiasm and vision of these four under-21-year-olds are what captured the attention of investors and what they hope will continue to fuel the social sportsbook’s growth.
Rebet, which uses Sportradar to provide accurate data and technology, plans on introducing live betting in one of the future updates.
While Rebet has mostly relied on word of mouth to gain users, the marketing department is ramping up its campaign, and the co-founders plan on having celebrities and social media influencers involved in Rebet’s sports betting community down the road.
“This is just the beginning for Rebet,” Hubbard said. “We have so many plans ahead with new features and new elements. We’re adding new partnerships. I think you’ll see lots of innovation coming for Rebet and our team.”
https://www.covers.com/industry/dartmouth-college-students-launch-rebet-first-of-its-kind-social-sportsbook-march-25-2024