Just about a year ago, sports fans heard the bell that would toll the end of their favorite pastime.
On March 8, the first U.S. tennis tournament of 2020 at Indian Wells, California was abruptly canceled due to a highly contagious viral strain called Covid-19. On March 11, the NBA suspended its 2020 season after two Utah Jazz players tested positive for the virus. On March 12, for the first time since 1938, the NCAA canceled March Madness.
It was the start of a long, slow, painful year for diehard sports enthusiasts. Thankfully, the games are back, albeit with restrictions. In many cases, fans are now allowed to attend. But the sports betting landscape isn’t quite the same. In one of the unexpected backhanded benefits of Covid-19, U.S. sports fans have gained a greater appreciation of international sports—like soccer and table tennis—and also found that they could enjoy more niche-y U.S. sports that came back early, like golf.
“For a few months, we only had table tennis and esports,” said Hans Neskvern, head of U.S. sports for Kambi, in the webinar “Festival of Sportsbook,” held in March. “Then we finally got some UFC, golf, NASCAR and European soccer leagues before major-league U.S. sports started to return in July.”
Despite time-zone differences and little prior knowledge about foreign sports and leagues, Americans found ways to bet on German, Belarusian and Nicaraguan soccer and Russian ping pong, and helped set records for viewership of those sports.
Since then, the interest in those sports hasn’t faded away, despite the return of the NBA, the NFL and now, Major League Baseball. According to Neskvern, sportsbooks in the U.S. today have to offer the whole package to bettors—blockbuster sports, niche sports, obscure sports, and lots more ways to bet on them—or fall short of their competitors in the space.
Here are five takeaways from the session “Sports Back in Full Swing,” about U.S. sports betting in the post-PASPA, post-Covid era:
- Given the exposure (and OK, a drought of their major-league favorites), U.S. fans will bet on a surprising variety of events. During the 2020 shutdown, among U.S. sportsbooks in the Kambi network, the three fastest-growing sports were table tennis, UFC and golf. Fans flocked to special events like the Match 2 in May, in which Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady faced off against Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning. And at the end of the year, during the first-ever November Masters, 10 percent of sportsbook users placed a bet on golf.
A year after the onset of Covid-19, as sports teams, players and fans get back to normal, the once-secondary sports that returned early last year are holding their own in terms of fan interest. “Other sports are returning, (but) it doesn’t mean interest in golf or UFC is dying,” said Neskvern. “It’s stayed at a fairly high level.”
- Player props are more important than ever. In the fourth quarter of 2018, NBA fans could bet on 18 player props per event, comprising 9.4 percent of total bets made. At the start of this year, fans could pick from 41 player props, and props made up 23.6 percent of total bets. While available props have more than doubled, the number of actual prop bets has almost tripled.
Instant offers have also been “growing steadily for the last three seasons,” said Neskvern. “If the game itself isn’t that exciting or interesting, well, you can also bet on what will be the next team to score, and if it will be a two-pointer or three-pointer.” These options are revenue-drivers that give players “something new and exciting and spicy” to make their experience even more engaging.
- Europeans just don’t get March Madness. “They don’t understand how big it is, when everybody thinks, talks and watches college basketball,” said Neskvern, who added that for sportsbooks in the Kambi network, the NCAA Tournament is “almost as big as World Cup.”
With 5,000 games in a regular season in a normal year, and games played seven days a week from November to April, the NCAA’s impact can’t be understated. In fact, college hoops could make up as much as 15 percent to 20 percent of Kambi revenue for February and March.
- It’s a truism that Major League Baseball is uniquely suited for in-play betting, as the action is slower-paced and bettors can really calculate a live wager—is a hit or a strikeout?—before placing it. America’s pastime is a Top 6 sport for Kambi. It draws dedicated baseball fans throughout the 162-game season, and pulls in everybody else in October.
With 80 to 100 bet offers per game, moneyline bets still rule, though player props are becoming more popular. Because baseball games are televised from midday until late evening, having instant offers is important to keep viewers interested. By one estimate, in-play wagering is expected to represent approximately 75 percent of all sports betting activity in the United States.
- Europeans are keener on player props than sports fans in the U.S., though this may be simply a matter of Americans getting acquainted with sports betting in general. “It’s pretty new for them,” observed Neskvern. “They start betting on main offers and then move on to the most spicy offers later on. That is what we see now. Player props are picking up across all sports, and it’s no surprise given Americans’ interest in stats, fantasy sports and individual players.”
Not only do sports fans want more sports on demand, they also want more ways to bet on them, with as much immediacy and spontaneity as the games unfolding before them on the field or court.
“We have more lines, more props, more futures and a higher number of live bets,” said Neskvern. “There should be something for everyone. … This creates a better experience for players and it is important for operators, as it balances out the risk. A lot of sports and a lot of events make us less dependent on one sport or league.”
In an NFL game, for instance, “If we lose on the point spread because the favorites are covering and we know that people back the favorite, we can win something back on the touchdown score markets or player prop markets or the total markets. These bets offers drive revenue and build some competitive advantage that should never be neglected.”
Or, as James Letchford, head of pre-sales solutions for Kambi said in another festival session, “What Makes a High-Performance Sportsbook?”: “This is a technological arms race, and (sportsbooks) have to be at the front. You have to be on the leading edge, No. 1 or No 2. You cannot be at back of the field.”
