LIVE STREAMING: ENGAGING SPORTS BETTORS

Regular Gambling Insider contributor Alex Czajkowski discusses the increasing importance of live streaming on betting platforms – arguing that it will be as vital as in-play betting as time progresses

Remember in high school asking if the teacher would be grading “based on the curve?” That’s the “curve of normal distribution” and it applies when you’re interviewing for jobs (both ways!), dating and your playerbase. It looks like this our Graph X on page 41.

The centre line is the “norm,” the average and each segment is “one standard deviation” from the “norm.” That’s as technical as we’ll get here. When you have a lot of dates, or a lot of companies to choose from to work for, you can “grade” them on this curve. Those few are on the far left you should join or marry at all costs. The far right, avoid. Most, 68%, will fall somewhere in the middle.

Take any group of players that’s large enough and you’ll see the curve or "normal distribution” apply. Starting from the far left, the first two segments could be called “die-hards,” 16% of your player base, watching sports is their life. The next 34% are “super sports enthusiasts.”

The next 34% “sports fans.” And the last 16% are “sports followers”. You can create your own categorisation labels...

Now their value to you may change significantly in the curve, “diehards" may be killing you, or the “followers” may (you can also grade your players by lifetime value following the same methodology). But here, we’re looking to see how to best engage these segments.

“Die hards” will find the streams for the games they must watch. They’ll go to the end of the Earth to watch them live. At the opposite end of the curve, “followers” may just bet on teams that they have determined to be good bets based on the maths (“the maths work, considering the odds and teams’ performances I’m betting on X”), or emotions (“I always bet for or against my home team”). They may or may not care to see the match; they’ve made up their minds.

It’s that vast majority that are really of interest. How do you get the semi-engaged or less-engaged segments to bet on various sports?

By streaming it to them live.

The biggest firms in sports betting offer live streaming of games – usually only to players with a recent deposit or more strictly a bet on the game. It can be an expensive proposition, but companies like bet365 see a positive ROI for the investment: more time on site, more live betting, more reasons to explore their secondary or tertiary interests (i.e. ping pong, archery, volleyball and smaller football leagues).

Major players like Sportradar and Betgenius provide these feeds at a price that’s unaffordable to most sportsbook operators.

Now, firms like Sportstream.network are offering thousands of aggregated streams for smaller books, smaller markets, even grey or darker markets, which are delivered via a worldwide streaming CDN (content delivery network). “Literally every sport, imaginable” they claim; and looking at their demo, it appears true, from US NBA to Puducherry National Doctors League cricket, and from World Masters table tennis to Asian badminton.

Like the big boys, they advise to only allow “qualified” players to watch, not the general public. While the streams can be “integrated” into your sportsbook for ease of navigation, they are delivered on a server separate from your own servers; and of course the streaming section of the site can be branded to match your book.

But unlike the big guys paying $50,000 to $100,000 a month for the service, it’s offered at a fraction of that price ballpark of $5,000 per month for the first 100,000 views.

All streaming services have some degree of lag and varying availability and quality, from HD to, well, tolerable. So with a one to five-second delay on the action, you do have to watch for live betting opportunities that could be taken advantage of. Which team will get the next score or red card is largely safe, the next corner throw in could be trickier.

Even with these qualifications, livestreaming sports does appeal to the sports betting masses in most markets, especially with under-served leagues/sports or in smaller markets. Coincidentally (or is it math?) exactly 63.64% of sports bettors said “yes” when asked “would you like to be able to live stream games on your sports betting site?” The appetite for sport streaming is certainly there. Eventually it’ll be as de rigueur as live betting - no doubt.