Hello and thanks for reading (sorry, no video on this one).
Recently, the US Supreme Court struck down a previous federal law that prohibited sports gambling. In a landmark ruling, the court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act which barred state-authorized sports gambling in every other state besides Nevada.
What implications will this have on sports? A lot, I am sure, but I am only looking at one angle here. IoT was already starting to play a big role in sports anyways (we have covered this before on a few previous blog posts about how it was changing sports like Basketball, Golf and Tennis).
I am wondering if it will change things a bit more now……let me explain.
IoT is about information and more importantly, what you can do with that information to make educated decisions. Sports tends to produce a lot of data, ranging from simple math (like how many touchdowns a quarterback threw) to the more complex (some of the stats now are probably Ph.D level math). Smart gamblers use this data, in conjunction with their own experience, to formulate their bets.
One of the expected types of bets that is expected to become commonplace (especially among millennials) is the “in-game bet”. Now, most wagers are placed on something that has to do with the final score (whether it be the game winner or some variation on a team winning by a certain number of points). In-game wagering has more of a “right now” kind of feel….will a player make this shot, will a team score so many points in this half/quarter, things like that.
Gamblers may look for a new way to gain an edge, especially on in-game bets, and I think IoT can play a big role in this. Think about it….knowing that a baseball pitcher’s curveball is not moving as much as earlier in the game may be an indication that he is about to get hit hard and lose the game…..a quarterback’s spirals not spinning as tightly may indicate that their shoulder injury is worse than expected…..and, a change in temperature at a game may favour a team that plays more of its games in a cold environment as opposed to a team that plays in California.
I think you get the picture…will these pieces of information truly make someone a better gambler? I doubt it, but in the hands of some of the more expert ones, I think it will help. As part of making the game more attractive to viewers, I think we will see more IoT-based stats emerge.