SoBet Aligns Bettors With Sports Experts

Nashville-based SoBet has created an online home where bettors and sports fans can interact with experts for wagering advice and to share information.

Launched in June 2022, the platform has more than 30 “influencers” onsite, including handicappers and sports-content creators.

These independent experts are available for subscribers to interact with in gaining insight into sporting events and teams. Subscriptions are $9.95 a month.

Mobile App Coming Soon

The SoBet concept puts experts influencers on one easy-to-navigate website, giving bettors and sports enthusiasts instant access to information, said Pavel Zoneff, SoBet’s director of communications. 

“It’s all aimed at giving you the information quickly,” Zoneff said.

He said that new generations of users are accustomed to getting “everything at their fingertips” and are attracted to user-friendly ways of receiving content, including through video and personal interaction.

SoBet founder J. Cooper Lycan said the website aggregates reliable content and brings users into a sports community, offering camaraderie and fun. A mobile app is in development.

SoBet’s one-stop format keeps bettors from having to click around on different social media and pay-for-picks sites, Lycan said. 

At SoBet, users go onto the site to receive an “aggregation of content and to be a part of a community,” he said.

‘A Good Place to Be’

SoBet’s home base in Tennessee’s capital city was chosen because of Lycan’s familiarity with Nashville after serving at a nearby Army base. 

A West Point graduate, Lycan was a fire support officer in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. At one time, he was stationed at Fort Campbell, the 101st  Airborne Division’s home at the Kentucky-Tennessee border. 

Fort Campbell is only about an hour from Nashville, a central Tennessee city known as a music industry hub, but also for its growing tech industry. 

The state capital also is home to two major sports teams, the NFL’s Tennessee Titans and NHL’s Nashville Predators. Memphis has the Grizzlies in the NBA.

The nationally prominent Southeastern Conference also has two universities in the state, the Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville and Vanderbilt Commodores in Nashville, competing in collegiate athletics.

Lycan, who grew up in the Northeast, said Nashville is “a good place to be” for a company like SoBet. 

Though Tennessee doesn’t have brick-and-mortar casinos or sportsbooks, sports betting is legal in the state on a dozen mobile apps.

While SoBet is not aligned with any particular online sportsbook, SoBet can have value for these mobile platforms by keeping bettors interested beyond big events like the Super Bowl, Zoneff said. 

This customer retention aspect is essential to sportsbooks. “It keeps betting on people’s minds,” he said.

The influencers contracted with SoBet can earn money on the site in various ways, including by providing individualized content for bettors and selling merchandise.

Lycan said SoBet welcomes customer ideas and feedback as the site branches out into online meet-and-greets, livestreams and other features. 

The goal is to create a supportive and interactive community, Lycan said. 

“I think we’re doing something really different for the industry,” he said.