Novibet sportsbook chief teases two major product launches
Giannos Grivas, Novibet's Executive Director of Sportsbook, told SBC News the operator is readying two large new products after player props turnover jumped 180% year-on-year following the World Cup.
Novibet is working on two significant new sportsbook products due within the coming months, according to Giannos Grivas, the operator's Executive Director of Sportsbook, speaking to SBC News.
Grivas pointed to a surge in player props betting as evidence that the company's in-house technology can sustain engagement beyond a single tournament. Novibet recorded a 180% year-on-year increase in player props turnover in August, the month after the 2026 World Cup concluded.
He said the operator built its own player props model through an internal algorithm team in trading and deployed it during the World Cup, where it saw sharp rises in both turnover and bet builder share. The question afterwards, he said, was how to retain customers once the tournament had finished.
Grivas said the continued growth in player props demonstrated the value of Novibet owning its technology stack, which allows it to build bespoke bet builders, enhanced odds and player prop markets rather than relying on third-party suppliers.
Grivas left Novibet before the COVID-19 pandemic after rising to Director of Sportsbook by 2016, having joined as a pre-game and in-play trader shortly after retiring from a playing career that included spells in Greece's top division and the national under-21 side. He subsequently worked at BVGroup and bet365, then spent four years at Kaizen Gaming between 2021 and 2025.
He rejoined Novibet in late 2025 after what he described as a conversation with the company's Chairman, Rodolfo Odoni, in which he recognised a shared ambition. Grivas told SBC News he had come to believe Novibet's platform stood apart because of its ability to build and train its own products and algorithms, despite the pricing and speed challenges posed by larger rivals such as bet365 and Betano.
The company's international position has shifted sharply in recent weeks. Novibet remains the second-largest operator in Greece, according to the Blask Index, but its second-biggest market, Brazil, has been upended after President Lula imposed a blanket prohibition on online betting there last month.
Grivas described the sector as a "battlefield" and said Novibet, which also operates in Ireland, Mexico, Chile and Cyprus, needs to focus on expansion rather than dwelling on regulatory setbacks or competitive pressure.
He suggested that customer behaviour, more than internal planning, is now dictating what Novibet builds next. He said bettors increasingly expect something to happen within minutes of placing a wager, a shift he contrasted with his own earlier experience of watching a full match unfold with friends before knowing the outcome of a single result bet.
Grivas added that Novibet's customer base skews young and is highly familiar with player and team statistics, which he said the operator needs to reflect in the products it builds around its own data and technology.