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THE FOUNDERS’ STORY

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Welcome to the Kambi Founders’ Story, an interactive journey through the key events which led to Kambi becoming the global sports betting industry’s number one B2B partner. The story is recounted by many of those who played an important role in Kambi’s success, not least co-founders Kristian Nylén and Anders Ström.

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A PASSION FOR SPORTS

With a shared interest in sports, statistics and betting, a bond between Kristian and Anders quickly developed and was the basis for a larger friendship group that would also comprise a number of future Kambi colleagues, including Jonas Jansson, Johan Munthe and Tony Johansson.
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1990s
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There were several of us who studied in the same university class. We were all really interested in mathematics and statistics, while I also had an interest in computer programming. We became a group of friends that eventually worked at Unibet and then Kambi.

ANDERS STRÖM Kambi Co-Founder and Chair of the Board

COMPETITIVE CHARACTERS

Although good friends, Kristian and Anders were very competitive, both keen to outwit each other on the poker table or when playing board games.
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1990s
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I recall Anders and I got into a fiery argument over a game of Risk, so we were definitely comptetitive characters – and still are.

KRISTIAN NYLÉN Kambi Co-Founder and CEO

START OF SOMETHING SPECIAL

These sports-loving university mates were blissfully unaware that this friendship was just the start of something special and that, over the next three decades, they would go on to change the face of the sports betting industry.
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When I think back to our time at university, I never once imagined we’d be in the position we are in today.

KRISTIAN NYLÉN Kambi Co-Founder and CEO
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1990s

SPORTS BETTING IN THE DOT-COM BOOM

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With the arrival of the internet, I dropped out of university to start my first company. I haven’t looked back since.

ANDERS STRÖM Kambi Co-Founder and Chair of the Board
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We all moved into very different areas after university. Anders went into sports betting and I moved to Stockholm to work in the finance industry. I don’t think any of us thought we would end up working together again.

KRISTIAN NYLÉN Kambi Co-Founder and CEO
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1990s

UNIBET IS BORN

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After selling his tipping business, Anders used the proceeds, as well as all he’d learned, to start up a new sports betting venture. Sportsbook operator Unibet was launched in 1997, at the height of the dot-com boom, from Anders’ modest office in Earl’s Court, London.

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1997

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Anders was influenced by Swedish businessman Jan Stenbeck who was famous for challenging the status quo.

JONAS JANSSON Former Kambi Chief Operating Officer

ANDERS GETS THE BAND BACK TOGETHER

2000s

Starting with Johan, Anders was able to one by one persuade his old university friends to move to London after Unibet had gone digital and help it become one of Europe’s largest operators.

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When I started Unibet I had those guys in mind because I knew they were smart when it came to mathematics and statistics and all of us were interested in sports. So I called them one by one and invited them to London to work in online gambling.

ANDERS STRÖM Kambi Co-Founder and Chair of the Board
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A MARKET RIPE FOR DISRUPTION

At this point, the global sports betting industry was still in its infancy. Pricing and trading was completely manual, live betting was yet to get going, and mobile betting was a distant dream.

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Listen to Kristian Nylén discuss joining Unibet.
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Live betting barely existed when I started at Unibet and pre-match accounted for about 90% of turnover at the time, but everyone could see this was where things were going.

ERIK LÖGDBEERG Managing Director, Kambi Sportsbook
2000s

KAMBI ON THE HORIZON

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After starting his sports betting career trading golf and soccer, Kristian rose through the Unibet ranks to lead the entire sportsbook operation.

The online sports betting and gaming market, however, was quickly beginning to change and in the latter half of the decade talks of launching a B2B sportsbook operation were already underway.

2000s
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Oddsmaking was a lot more manual in the early years. It’s almost unrecognisable today, particularly with the growth of in-play requiring sophisticated algorithms and models.

KRISTIAN NYLÉN Kambi Co-Founder and CEO
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Running a pre-match sportsbook in the early 2000s didn’t cost very much. In-play and regulation was the start of everything as they were driving costs but at that time we didn’t know the solution was to create Kambi.

JONAS JANSSON Former Kambi Chief Operating Officer
2000s

TAKING INSPIRATION FROM CASINO

These emerging trends were putting enourmous pressure on sportsbooks which were requiring ever greater tech resources to succeed. In their roles at Unibet, Kristian and Anders began to question why sports betting had yet to adopt the successful B2B model seen in the casino vertical.
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Kristian and I always talked about future development and we looked at what NetEnt had done for slots and casino products, and we discussed whether there was a case for this in sports betting.

ANDERS STRÖM Kambi Co-Founder and Chair of the Board
2000s
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At Unibet, we had limited resources which was difficult in the landscape of regulation, live betting and tough competition. So, we started thinking about whether there was a better model to provide sports betting.

KRISTIAN NYLÉN Kambi Co-Founder and CEO
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2000s
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MOMENTUM BUILDS

It was against this increasingly challenging backdrop that confidence in the merits of a high-quality and scalable B2B sportsbook began to grow, and that Unibet should spin off its sportsbook to become
a supplier to the industry and reinvest customer
fees to develop the product into a market leader.
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A NEW BUSINESS PROPOSAL

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In the autumn of 2009, the Unibet sportsbook team, spearheaded by Kristian, put together a business plan that would lead to the founding of what would eventually become Kambi. Within the space of a few months, the board had given the go ahead to create a full B2B sportsbook business.

2009
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Live betting was a major driver of change because it was extremely resource intensive. It was going to be too expensive for many companies to do that on their own.

ERIK LÖGDBEERG Managing Director, Kambi Sportsbook

THE BIRTH OF B2B SPORTS BETTING

Unibet’s newly formed B2B sports betting division was now free to sell its vision to other B2C operators. Soon, Kambi as we know it today would be born.

2010

VISION QUICKLY BECOMES REALITY

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FIRST B2B PARTNER SIGNING

In no time at all, discussions were well underway with Finnish operator Paf which immediately saw the value in taking a full sportsbook service from Unibet. Negotiations were led by Tony Johansson, Kambi’s Head of Sales at the time.
2010

In 2010, Unibet signed a three-year partnership with Paf, placing further confidence in Kristian and Anders’ bold decision to create a B2B sportsbook service for the evolving market.

The following year, Paf was launched as the first customer on what would become the Kambi platform. It remains a Kambi partner to this very day.
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FOUNDING KAMBI

In October 2010, prior to the launch of Paf, Kambi Sports Solutions was officially founded, opting against the floated name of ‘The Sportsbook Network’. Kristian Nylén was appointed CEO.

2010
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We came up with the name Kambi, which means ‘perfection’ in Japanese, which suited us very well as we were a group of perfectionists

KRISTIAN NYLÉN Kambi Co-Founder and CEO

It wasn’t all plain sailing to begin with. Kambi’s business model was new to the market, while some questioned Kambi’s independence due to its association with Unibet.

Kambi had to wait two years before signing its next partner but as regulation began to pick up pace, Kambi signed four in 2012, building an increasingly powerful partner network where efficiencies of scale could be realised.

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Listen to Kristian Nylén on Kambi’s first few years of operation

BUILDING TRUST THROUGH INDEPENDENCE

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On Monday 2 June 2014, CEO and Co-founder Kristian Nylén rang the bell at the Nasdaq Stockholm First North on what was a landmark day in Kambi’s history.
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2014
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This public listing symbolised that Kambi was now a truly standalone company and in charge of its own destiny to become the world’s trusted sports betting partner.

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  • KAMBI Open: 29.3 Close: 34 +16%

  • NIKKEI 225 Open: 14,777.51 Close:14,935.92 +2.07%

  • FTSE 1000 Open: 6,844.50 Close:6,864.10 +0.29%

  • HANG SENG Open: 23,327.51 Close:23,291.04 -5.23%

  • S&P500 Open: 1,932.87 Close:1,924.97 +0.07%

  • NASDAQ COMPOSITE Open: 4,247.96 Close:4,237.20 -1.82%

  • DOW JONES Open: 16,716.85 Close:16,743.63 +4.47%

Trust has always been at the heart of Kambi’s relationship with its partners. Its public listing was a key milestone in building on that trust, giving partners added confidence in Kambi.
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The respect for Kambi management and the board to run the company independent of any customer is incredibly strong. Today, no one is so concerned that one or two customers have more of a say than anyone else – we develop the product for the benefit of everyone in the Kambi network.

ANDERS STRÖM Kambi Co-Founder and Chair of the Board

PLATFORM FOR SUCCESS

As predicted by Kambi’s founders, an increasing number of European countries began to regulate sports betting and live betting became more prevalent. This pattern vindicated Kambi’s outsourced model, as operators faced higher barriers to entry if going it alone, with Kambi becoming increasingly attractive, particularly as an independent company.

A FLURRY OF NEW PARTNERS

Numerous partner signings followed, putting Kambi well on its way to market leadership

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CREATING HISTORY STATESIDE

Between 2014 and 2018, Kambi enjoyed great success, particularly in Europe. However, regulatory change in the United States would soon deliver an opportunity like no other, with Kambi’s outsourced model about to become more popular than ever.
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With a ban on betting in place across the majority of the United States, a change in law would create a market in need of experienced outsourced sportsbook services.

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From day one, Kambi had kept a close eye on the US. By focusing on licensed markets and upholding the highest standards of regulatory compliance, the founders had set up the business in a way that would enable Kambi to enter the US market swiftly upon regulation.
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We always had an eye on the US market and when it would regulate. One of the best strategic decisions we made, as far back as 2004, was to stay away from the unregulated US so we could ensure fast entry in the future.

KRISTIAN FRIBERG Kambi’s former Head of Partner Success

FEDERAL SPORTS BETTING BAN IS REPEALED

2018
On 22 May 2018, the global sports betting market was forever changed when the US Supreme Court overturned a law prohibiting sports wagering, and opened the door to regulated US sports betting.
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Hear Kristian discuss the expansion of sports betting in the US

Kambi was quick to strike several commercial agreements with operators and its experience in licensed markets across the world, as well as the relationships it had developed with US regulators, ensured it was action ready.

KAMBI MAKES SPORTS BETTING HISTORY

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On 1 August 2018 Kambi made history by taking the first legal online wager in the United States.

What started as a friendship group at university

developed into a powerhouse of the sports betting industry.

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Today, Kambi is not only the leading sportsbook provider to the US market, but to operators across the globe with more than 1,000 employees across offices in Malta, Australia, Denmark, Philippines, Romania, Sweden, the UK and the United States

The vision and commitment of the co-founders enabled Kambi to become the world’s number one sportsbook partner, a position they continue to enjoy today. In May 2024, Kristian was elected to the Kambi Board of Directors, taking his place alongside Chair of the Board Anders, where their passion and foresight continues to drive the business forward.

Read the latest Kambi news and insights.
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