Casino City's iGaming Pocket Directory - 2013 Edition

86 Sponsored by Casino City’s iGaming Pocket Directory POKER S RTS BETTING winner of an individual point, the winner of the first point of the game, the game going to deuce, total games in the second set, total games in the match, etc. And this only scratches the surface of what punters can wager on in-play just for tennis. A whole new world was opened up to bettors. Anything that could be bet on while a game was in progress was available to punters. And as broadband penetration grew, and the number of people watching television – and sports – with a laptop in front of them grew, so did the online sports betting market. According to an H2 Gambling Capital Report from 2012, the market for sports betting (excluding the U.S.) stood at €9.6 billion. That’s almost twice the gross gaming revenue for online casinos (€5 billion) and more than three times as large as online poker (€3 billion). While in-play betting was certainly the prime driver for growth in sports betting, the growth in the live streaming of sports has played a role as well. Punters are more likely to bet on sports they can watch. And with the live streaming of sports, a wider and deeper pool of events is availabe to be seen. bet365, for example, streams more than 40,000 events. That’s 40,000 more opportunities for people to place wagers, either prior to the game or in-play. And as the watching of movies and TV shows on the Internet has grown – both in numbers and social acceptance – so has the watching of sports on the Internet. During the 2012 Olympics, fans routinely eschewed televised coverage to watch coverage of their favorite sports and team through Internet live streams. As watching live streaming of all forms of entertainment becomes the norm, so will watching live streams of sports and betting on them. SPORTS BETTING INDUSTRY OVERVIEW