In May 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), a federal law that prohibited all kind of sports betting and gambling across the United States. The ruling also declared that every state now has the right to decide on its own whether to legalize sports betting within its borders.
Some states have already taken legislative actions based on this declaration. Seven of them have legalized betting after PASPA was overturned. On the flip side, so far, 24 states have not reacted to the ruling. Utah stands out as the only one that has expressly prohibited sports betting on its territory.
Beyond its legislative impact, the legality of sports betting is projected to cause improvements in the US economy and utilize tech trends, thereby creating a new billion dollar industry. Check out the infographic created by njgames.org for precise numbers and other relevant info.
Sports leagues, sports data companies, sports book operators, and gambling organizations should capitalize on this new industry by monetizing real-time sports data and related sports ‘merchandise’.
Professional associations such as the NFL, NBA, NHL and ITF, will obtain athletes’ biometric data via sensors and hand over the data rights to sports data companies. These companies will then likely sell the info to casinos and the likes for accurate betting odds.
Sportradar, a sports data company, has already paid to ITF $70 million for the data rights. The company aims at serving it to sports book operators and casinos. It also signed a $250 million exclusive data deals with NASCAR, NHL, and NBA.
Another data company, STATS, collects sports data through AI screen monitoring to sell it to sports media companies. To this end, it has entered into five deals worth $70 million with different media.
As for the tech trends, of particular note is the blockchain technology which is expected to influence sports betting by giving reliable insights on real-time sport betting lines. The technology will also allow secure and easy funding and payouts.
With all these, it is almost certain that sports betting will thrive as its fans are projected to bet around $23.5 billion on e-sports by 2020.
For more fascinating facts and predictions about sports betting, check out the infographic below:
