What the live sports betting industry is missing

It's one of the fastest growing segments within the online gaming industry, as denoted by my colleague in his blog article 'Messi - would you bet against him?', yet there are two advancements I am surprised we still haven't seen.

First, football fans (and sports fans in general) are passionate about the players, yet there are few opportunities to bet directly on those players. Second, live data for every touch of the ball is available, yet the majority of live football betting opportunities are still focused on goals.

Why have most bookmakers not taken advantage of the available data? Are technical limitations preventing new markets from being offered? Are the pricing models too expensive? Are these markets too complex for consumers to grasp? Does the customer interface hold everyone back? All of these reasons play a role to some extent, but surely they can be overcome?

The unfortunate reality is that most operators have an existing project list stretching into 2012. How can you prove that the demand exists for new markets without building the pricing models, designing a different customer interface to handle these new markets, integrating the technology and pushing it out to the consumers? It is an expensive and risky investment.

Every technology industry is filled with examples where one company takes a risk and leap-frogs the competition. The followers take years to catch up and in our industry many operators are still struggling to offer the same live betting services that were available elsewhere three or four years ago.

Soon one operator will introduce a game-changing customer interface offering exciting new markets. The goal-based markets will still take the largest stakes, but operators who want to radically increase the number of bets placed will need to figure out how to engage and entertain the customer with products that pay out on events that happen more frequently than three times per game.

Comment below if you have an opinion on where the live sports betting industry may be heading.

Steve Karani

iGaming Recruitment Consultant

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