Max Meltzer, Chief Commercial Officer at Kambi, led off the panel by presenting pertinent analysis relating to what sports bettors wager on and how they place their bets.
Kambi, which has online and retail presence in eight states and retail only in three others, saw that bettors flocked to table tennis during the coronavirus pandemic; the sport accounted for 39% of wagers of wagers from mid March to mid July, followed by soccer at 24% and UFC/MMA at 10%.
Post lockdown, however, basketball and baseball made about approximately half of all wagers, while football accounted for 19%. Lockdown led to a burst of in-game betting, which grew from 26% to 38% between mid-March through mid-July.
Though online sports betting has overtaken retail, bettors still prefer to place larger wagers on property. According to Kambi’s research, the average online stake size for 2020 is $31 while on-property it’s $66.
Next to present was Anna Sainsbury, Founder and Chairman of GeoComply/GeoGuard.
GeoComply tracks where bettors specifically wager within a state and found that 82% of New Jersey traffic is within 10 miles of the border, while 47% of Pennsylvania traffic is within 10 miles of its border.
New Yorkers accounted for $837m of New Jersey’s 2019 sports betting handle.
GeoComply also found that average monthly growth in the first four months post market launch strongly correlated with whether a state allows its customers to register and wager online.
Iowa, with retail registration and online wagering, saw a 65% increase, while Montana with its online registration and on-premise wagering mandate grew by 86%. New Jersey, which allows online registration and online wagering, increased by 104%.
Darren Bishop, Senior Solutions Consultant at Heart+Mind Strategies, concluded the panel with data showing that 74% of US bettors believe it is important to only wager using legal methods.
However, 52% of bettors are still participating in illegal markets though a majority of them believe they are betting legally.
Millennials are the most likely demographic to partake in illegal markets at 61%.
In states where sports betting is not yet legal, offshore online sportsbooks saw a 21% year-on-year increase but only a 3% growth in states where sports wagering is legal.
Overall, Heart+Mind Strategies found a 17% decrease in the year-on-year average amount wagered illegally.
