The future U.S. bookmakers
While different paths to legalized sports betting are looked into in the United States, there are quite a few big established companies lining up in anticipation of what is expected to be a huge shift in U.S. sporting culture.
The usual European and Vegas sports betting companies, such as William Hill and MGM, have their eyes firmly on the prize, with state lotteries and Native American gaming interests also jostling for position. Online fantasy sports sites such as FanDuel and DraftKings, with their already established and proven infrastructure and impressive customer bases are also in a very good position to offer sports betting quickly.
The largest bookmakers in the future are likely to be names you’ve never heard of, however.
Following a recent review into patents in the betting sector, it has been shown that Sony, Microsoft and Reuters to be either current holders or applicants of betting patents. There are a number of sole entrepreneurs also, with a patent in 2014 having been issued for “systems and methods for enabling remote device users to wager on micro events of sporting events.”
Others have built virtual currency-based betting systems that are designed to be used on social media platforms.
Chris Eaton, an integrity monitor and former investigator for INTERPOL stated that “In 10 years’ time, I expect sports betting to be part of major telecommunications companies and data companies,” “I see the large international conglomerates — Bloomberg, Google, the massive data companies swallowing up most of the sports betting operations around the world and operating an international platform, with all of sports betting being essentially offered on the mobile device, the mobile platform.”
A spokesperson for Microsoft stated tat they had “nothing to share at this time” in regard to their patent for a wagering system or any future interest in the sports betting market.
Microsoft’s patent goes alongside a research paper by David Pennock, a researcher and director for Microsoft. Pennock’s paper showed an innovative wagering mechanism similar to pari-mutuel systems that are currently used in horse racing that Microsoft were looking to patent. There are no short term plans for its use, stated Pennock, however he does see a future where tech companies are involved in the world of sports betting.
“I think that there is a lot of technology involved that’s not that trivial, especially for the more innovative things that I imagine are going to happen; so some of the technology companies may be better suited than an old-school sportsbooks,” Pennock said. “I think some of the technology companies are in better position to build the betting exchanges in a better way.”
Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, who is an outspoken proponent of widening legal sports wagering, agrees.
“In the short term, there will be a lot of attempts by companies big and small to use their own versions of big data to be predictive in sports, financial markets and other industries,” Cuban told ESPN. “In the long term, it will come down to what sources of information and which companies will help create the most powerful learning and reproductive algorithms and who will own those algorithms. I don’t have that answer and neither does anyone else at this point.”
So while offshore bookmakers continue to rake in the profits, in the future of sports betting in the U.S. we expect to see many new U.S. sports betting sites arrive online that enable players to bet without the worries of the illegal and shady practices of some offshore online betting sites.
