SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Keith O’Loughlin, SVP of Sportsbook at SG Digital, has predicted a future for sports betting where a majority of bets placed will be created uniquely.
In an interview completed at the ICE exhibition, O’Loughlin tracked the evolution of sports betting, specifically in terms of events, markets and prices provided to the end customer.
He said this journey, which started with traders writing prices on the wall, then moved to the use of overall digital solutions but with “very manual” components, before arriving at today’s largely (fully in some cases) automated, algorithm-driven models.
O’Loughlin suggested that there has been a “180 degree change” for the sports betting operator and platform provider partnership, to a point where the focus must be on what the customer wants to bet on, rather than the markets that can be provided.
He thinks the unrestricted opportunity to ‘build a bet’, however varied this might be, is what the future betting experience looks like “both from an online app and retail perspective” – a future which will bring about a complete rethink around risk management.
O’Loughlin also touched on the “embryonic” nature of the US sports betting market which, once it has evolved, will likely be the benchmark for other jurisdictions in terms of how to combine traditional bet placement with the right entertainment experience.
SG Digital has already gone live with Managed Trading Services (MTS) for Caesars via Don Best Sports – the sports betting data provider it acquired in Q4 2018. The company is looking into how it can replicate this service, both across the US and for the rest of the world.
To see the full interview with Keith O’Loughlin, click here.
