Rebet founders and some of their first colleagues. (Photo Courtesy of Rebet)
Four Dartmouth College students are betting on themselves, launching Rebet in March, a free-to-play social sportsbook backed by private investment and available in 47 states.
“It’s a pretty cool story,” says Rebet’s CEO Carson Hubbard, who is from Washington state, of the company’s origin story. He and the company’s other founders—Isabella DiGiovanni (CMO), Liam Tassiello (COO) and Edwin Onyango (CTO)—met through an incubator program run by Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business last year. “Me and Liam both randomly applied to the startup incubator. We came back that night and we were kind of thinking. ‘What’s a need that’s actually in the market that we see today where we could make a difference.’”
Their idea was to change the way sports fans interact with betting information. “We were sitting in the dorm room, and we came up with the idea to essentially transform the sports betting experience into a social experience,” Hubbard says.
The Rebet app offered early access to more than 1,000 users in early March who are now logging in nine times a day, Hubbard says. The app’s social media-styled feed allows users to follow, engage with or rebet by duplicating another’s bet and encouraging friends to bet and root alongside each other. Another feature allows users to stake bets against each other. The Rebet app allows users to access official and real-time data for more than 60 professional and college sports leagues.
Rebet does not offer real money gambling. Instead, the company offers what it calls Rebet Coins that allow players to engage in sports games while climbing the leaderboards and earning status within the Rebet community. Rebet Cash is used to play promotional games on the app and can be redeemed for prizes.
Their idea seems to be inline with industry leaders. At the Next.io conference on internet gambling and sports betting, panelists said online gaming needs to become more social to be successful.
“It’s so much fun to see what your friends are betting, on who your friends are rooting for, and then you can go and root for those teams with them. It’s such a social experience,” Hubbard says.
Hubbard says Dartmouth allows the team to take one quarter off during their four years. Rebet’s founders took theirs this spring to launch the company. “What matters to us is that users get on the app and they have an incredible experience. That’s what’s important to me and to the whole team,” he says. For more information, visit rebet.app.
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