Microbetting, chat functionality, copying betting slips from friends, personalised viewing experiences, behind-the-scenes content… and so on. These are the latest products trending in modern sportsbooks, but don’t they feel familiar? They say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. If we look back at where these trends originate from – and why they dissipated – we might be able to predict where sportsbooks will go in the coming years.
The past…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a group of individuals in the audience of an event will find something to bet on. Whether it’s from the IFEMA Madrid VIP suites at the newest F1 circuit or the Colosseum in Ancient Rome, people have always found a way to wager. If you’ve ever watched something with your friend, you’ve no doubt said to them at some point: “There’s no way he makes that; if he does, the next drink is on me” – the purest form of microbetting...
If there are sports betting records as far back as the Ancient Greek Olympics, then is it fair to say this casual form of microbetting has existed since 776 BC? That’s purely speculative, of course, but the first written records we could find date back to 1813 when British aristocracy would bet on whose servants could complete certain chores the quickest – but with additional markets such as ‘Will he cut that corner to gain an advantage?’ or ‘He’s losing the race, I bet another shilling he’ll break into a run’. This quickly grew from wagering on whose servant would lift both their feet off the floor when delivering a letter first (which would disqualify them from the ‘race,’ by the way) to organised Pedestrianism races, at which point any further examples of microbetting are lost among records of ‘gambling’ in general.
While it is inconvenient that bookmakers from the Roman Colosseums never made written records on anyone betting whether Tigris Maximus would break a nail during the fight rather than just outright winning, if we trust in our own experiences of ‘microbetting’ between friends, we can assume it’s been around for as long as sports betting itself.
The present…
Somewhere down the line, things had to change. Once the Betting and Gaming Act legalised off-course betting in 1960, high-street betting shops exploded in popularity – and forever created a divide between live events and betting. This meant you could run down to the bookmakers on your lunch break on the Monday, place a bet on your favourite team, then watch the game several days later with your friends on the Saturday. Betting was transformed from being in the moment and at the event, to being something you did on your own ahead of time. Like separating eggyolk from the whites, betting was removed from the social aspect of watching sports with friends and set aside to be reintroduced at a later point in the process.
This mindset remained for many years. Even when online sportsbooks were becoming more mainstream, there was something very distant about them. Only recently has the idea of ‘social betting’ begun to reemerge, including features such as chatting with others, sharing betting strategies, watching streams of the game or copying someone’s betting slip. As Flutter puts it, social betting is, “at its simplest, sharing in the fun with fellow players,” but isn’t this blend of betting and socialising in real time what we were doing before the rise of high-street bookies? Is any of this really ‘new’, or are companies finally understanding what made sports betting fun in the first place? Are we inventing the wheel, or have we simply reinvented it into a Wheel of Fortune?
The future...
The act of reinventing something can be just as revolutionary as creating it the first time around. With every iteration comes the opportunity to improve a product or experience and, thanks to advancements in technology, each product launch is accompanied by more accessibility features than ever. Watching a game and betting in person is no longer restricted to your local friends, but you can now experience the beautiful game alongside international friends through in-app streaming and chat features. Rather than waiting out in the cold to catch a glimpse of the teams either arriving or leaving, you can access behind-the-scenes content at any time from the comfort of your home.
But what else is missing from the stands yet to be included in modern online sports betting spaces? We have our friends in the sportsbooks, but can you buy your friend a conciliatory drink when their acca fails right at the end? There are already some promotions serving as the foundation for this, such as Caesars offering Uber Eats gift cards, but could we see the day when this is integrated into the experience itself? The technology already exists; it’s just a case of ensuring it passes regulation and would be beneficial to everyone involved.
Speaking of accas, another thing sportsbooks are yet to capitalise on is the natural competitiveness between friends. If you’ve ever bet casually with friends, you’ve probably nudged your mate whose bet came in big and said “The first round’s on you!” If fantasy football has shown us anything, it’s that friends love to compete with one another over longer periods to ‘prove’ who is the best between them. With more peer-to-peer regulations passing each year, it’s more viable than ever to have a small side-pot in a closed tournament between friends, which could pay out for a full range of conditions. Sure, this can be found in a handful of dedicated apps such as Betmate, but we’re yet to see it properly integrated into some of the bigger operators.
If modern sportsbooks are looking to reinvent the magic of watching the beautiful game with friends and waving that paper slip in your hands as the final goal is scored, they’ve certainly got their work cut out for them. But, as each ‘new’ product is released and that magic is offered to more people than ever across the globe, perhaps the biggest advantage of social betting is never having to separate your friends, the sport or the betting from one another in the first place. The experience is once again defined by all three being in the moment, rather than having to leave each other behind.
