Timing is everything for a startup.
Bet Caddy’s has proved to be very good.
Two weeks after otherwise anonymous Golden State Warriors backup guard Pat Spencer was announced as an investor and adviser for the Chicago-based company, Bet Caddy’s new partner moved into a possible bigger role when Steph Curry suffered an injury last Tuesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Bet Caddy users with push notifications activated might have been the first to punch up the broadcast of the eventual 99-88 Warriors win when alerted to the injury.
Bettors input their wagers onto the Bet Caddy app, which collates the sports broadcast channels for the corresponding games, allowing for quick flips to important moments in the wager or fantasy play.
“After meeting the founders of Bet Caddy last year, I saw the evolution from a great idea to a real product,” Spencer told InGame in an email. “I knew I wanted to be involved beyond just writing a check. I wanted to contribute as a partner. A personalized, RedZone-style viewing experience tailored to every fan’s interests is going to be a game changer, and I’m excited to be part of it.”
Bet Caddy co-founder and CEO Tony Ryan told InGame that Spencer was “connected with the problem we’re solving” after being introduced by another adviser.
“He also recognized that while some athletes have pushed back against sports betting –- especially the toxic DMs around parlays –- it’s not going anywhere,” Ryan said. “He saw that fantasy and betting are becoming more and more central to the sports-watching experience and overall sports, media, and entertainment business.”
NBA players represent gambling outfits
The most recent NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement allows active players to serve as brand ambassadors for sportsbooks as long as they avoid basketball content. The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James is believed to be the only player to have exploited the opportunity, providing football content for DraftKings.
Because Bet Caddy is gambling-adjacent and not a wagering platform — the company is adamant about that point — Spencer will serve as an “NBA adviser.”
“We stayed in touch over the year and, once we launched, we reconnected to talk through the progress,” Ryan said. “He had seen Bet Caddy go from idea to product and made it clear he didn’t just want to write a check but be a contributing partner for the long haul. Once the NBA offseason hits, we’re both excited to start working more closely together to grow the platform.”
Bet Caddy’s out to be ‘Spread Zone’ for bettors
Bet Caddy was born out of Ryan’s personal channel-flipping frustrations.
“As a lifelong sports bettor, for better or worse, one of the biggest frustrations I found was trying to watch games that mattered to me: my bets and very particular to my stakes,” Ryan, a former advertising strategist at Google, said. “And so it was one day, 2023, I was watching the NBA and I had my Xbox controller in one hand, my remote in the other, flipping through, checking apps to see what guys were in and out of the game for NBA player props. And I’m like, ‘Man, I wish something would do this for me.’”
Launched before this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, Bet Caddy allows users to upload screenshots or notes files of wagers, which are then processed using object character recognition technology. They’re then presented back to the users with links to the livestreams of the games they’ve bet on. Users must have a subscription to those platforms.
“Part of this for us is to give you more use on a service that you own,” Ryan, 28, said. “I have ESPN Plus, NBA League Pass, Max, anything in between. And even so, I’m like a lot of fans where I just have one screen at a time. I don’t get to go to the sportsbook every night.
“So our premise is that the phone turns into that ultimate sports remote. And with one tap, you can bounce between Amazon Prime for a Thursday night football game, to an NBA game, to a college basketball game on ESPN Plus just very quickly. Anytime you tap that specific game, it will change the channel to that game in a matter of seconds.”
