US predictions for 2020 – including legal betting in Canada and F2P will go in-play

John Levy, CEO and founder at TheScore

The continued growth of mobile betting – The preferred way for sports fans to place wagers is on mobile devices. That’s never really been in doubt. In New Jersey alone more than 80% of the bets are placed online, with most of those coming from a mobile device. This is the consumer’s preferred way to bet on games, which surely makes the resistance to allowing mobile betting in some states merely a temporary phenomenon. New Jersey was visionary enough to realize this would be the preferred model, which is why we were so happy that this was the launch state for theScore Bet.

Product will remain king – With mobile increasingly the preferred way for sports fans to bet, companies must ensure they’re delivering the best user experience possible. So expect to see lots of innovation in this area. Product is king, and the customer always has the final say, which is why we’re so focused on staying at the cutting-edge of integrating media and sports betting. We already have an amazing sports app, with 4-5 million monthly users hitting us 100 plus times a month each. Now we’ve brought that experience to our mobile sportsbook, creating a seamless ecosystem that perfectly bridges the divide between media and betting.

Legalized sports betting coming to Canada – It’s only a matter of time before a fully regulated and legalized sports betting framework comes to Canada. Currently, the country operates with a grey market model. Millions of fans are betting, but they’re mostly doing it via offshore providers. With so many tax dollars at stake, common sense says that has to end. We were very encouraged when the provincial government of Ontario tabled proposals to legalize sports betting in the province, while also recommending the federal government revisit its blanket ban on single-event wagering. We’ve never been closer to the tipping point in Canada and, as the leading mobile sports provider in that country, this will open a tremendous opportunity for us.

More consolidation in the sports betting space – Some people think bigger is better. We actually believe better is better. However, that hasn’t stopped a lot of consolidation in the market over the past year, and we expect to see this continue. Big companies will continue to scoop up the smaller ones as they chase market share, databases, and the best technology – without having to build them themselves. Ultimately, it’ll be the operators providing the very best customer experience that will win. Continual innovation will be vital to stay at the forefront, so that’s what we’re doing.

Paddy McDermott, performance director at SportCaller

Free-to-play will go in-play – The trend towards live betting is hardly a new phenomenon, with in-play now accounting for up to 70% of sportsbook in more mature European territories. However, to date, F2P games have not followed suit in any worthwhile or sophisticated way. That will change in 2020, particularly at SportCaller, as we corral the most accurate and lowest-latency data feeds to power our games and improve sports-fan engagement. This will play a vital role in helping to educate and stimulate new audiences, most notably the emerging one in the US, as to variables and possibilities of in-play betting. Embedding contextual stats, which intuitively speak to how the action is unfolding in real-time, will be a key factor in this development and we have some very exciting product launches planned.

US Election – The opportunity around the forthcoming US Election for sportsbooks is massive, opening up betting to previously detached audiences. F2P will play a huge part in putting this offering in front of untapped audiences, allowing us to offer a data-rich product, illuminated by some slick visualisations. Say what you will about Trump – and plenty do – but his endless list of scandals, not to mention the partisan polarization of the impeachment process, will engage many more people in politics than ever before. And I don’t just mean Russian social media warriors!

Cross-sell – This will be the year when the data definitively checks in on whether the DFS frontrunners in North America have been able to migrate their vast customer bases into the sportsbook proposition. In short, the sports betting cross-sell will be king – whether that’s from the DFS, casino or poker verticals. Naturally, this will drive innovation and creativity in the sector, as operators look to harness some of the most successful features from their original products by repackaging them to educate and engage across sports betting markets. Again, the 2020 presidential election rates a perfect testing ground for this process.