To emphasise this focus, the company’s Head of Business Development Evgenii Kiriushin said that it expects mobile development to be a strong focus for the industry.

“The seeds for what we predict will be this year’s most anticipated innovations were sown a long time ago,” Kiriushin explained.

“These days, more and more customers are choosing to access online betting through their mobile devices, so the main aim is to provide the best possible services to those customers.”

Increased online betting access will be a major talking point on the ‘Africa – shop local’ session, held as part of the ‘Global Markets Track’ on Thursday 21 March. For the latest agenda, click here.

This session is of particular interest to 1xBet, who last year secured a long-term agreement to become Tottenham Hotspur’s Official Betting Partner for Africa until 2022.

Kiriushin picked out Global Markets as one of three key components of the #bofcon agenda for 1xBet, alongside the Sponsorship Forum (21 March) – particularly in light of the firm’s recent AFCON announcement – and the Betting on Innovation track (20 March).

“Sponsoring football clubs and federations is a key feature of our marketing strategy,” said Kiriushin. Meanwhile, we were proud winners of the SBC Rising Star in Sports Betting Innovation award for 2018. For this reason, we plan to continue to follow tech news and integrate new technology into our services.”

Finally, Kiriushin dismissed the notion that the speed of innovation might slow in the absence of a major global football tournament, countering: “On the contrary – we think companies will value this time before the next big sporting event and use it effectively so that when the next big tournament arrives they’ll be able to present products that are on a whole new level. We certainly will!”