FIRST.bet's Tom Light sets out sportsbook strategy beyond Latin America
Two years after launch, the SBTech founder's new venture is pushing an AI-built sportsbook tool and eyeing expansion into Europe and Africa, SBC News reports.
FIRST.bet, the sportsbook provider founded by former SBTech executive Tom Light, has used SBC Summit 2026 to showcase its growth plans beyond its established base in Latin America and Brazil, with Europe and Africa named as the next targets, according to SBC News.
Light told the trade outlet that the two years since launch had been built on studying consumer-facing operators such as DraftKings, Betano and bet365 rather than rival B2B suppliers, a stance he said shaped the company's early hires and product direction.
Central to that approach was recruiting Ian Bradley, a former DraftKings senior vice president and Light's former SBTech colleague, as co-CEO. Light described Bradley as "probably the best product guy in the world", saying the aim was to bring in someone who understood the product itself rather than simply the commercial side of B2B supply.
SBC News reported strong interest at FIRST.bet's stand in Hall Four of the summit, much of it centred on SportOS, the company's newest release. The tool is built on artificial intelligence and is designed to let operators and suppliers create a sportsbook and user experience from a prompt, giving them what Light called genuine control over how they launch, run and differentiate their offer.
Light argued that differentiation has become scarce across the industry because casino, live dealer and slots content is largely shared between operators. He said the sportsbook, when it is not delivered as a generic iFrame, is the one area where a brand's marketing team can express its own identity, and that SportOS is intended to make that possible.
Beyond the new tool, Light said he is focused on strengthening FIRST.bet's bet builder so that correlated and non-correlated selections can be combined more freely, while keeping market uptime high and reducing locked bets. He acknowledged the approach carries risk, telling SBC News "there's always dangers" in widening what can be combined.
To support that work, FIRST.bet has introduced what Light called Monte Carlo simulations, running tens of thousands of simulated match outcomes through a random number generator to model individual events such as passes, corners and free-kicks across a full 90 minutes. He said this allows the company to measure how often selected events correlate and to price bet builder combinations accordingly, rather than relying solely on standard mathematical models.
Light said the company's product team is made up of bettors themselves, arguing that first-hand gambling experience is what produces workable ideas rather than theoretical ones. He compared the alternative to a vegan working as a chef in a steakhouse, saying genuine understanding of the product comes from engaging with it directly.
On responsible gambling, Light told SBC News that sports betting is not inherently addictive by design in the way some other verticals can be, noting that the action itself takes place on the pitch rather than on the phone. He said FIRST.bet's policy across its various jurisdictions is to apply its strictest compliance measures universally rather than tailoring minimum standards market by market.