SECAUCUS, N.J. – While each bettor or sportsbook operator is entitled to an opinion about what might happen in the next play or game, a key question is which set of facts it’s based on.
The answer could determine not only who gets paid but also whether fans can trust that the game is fair and even whether the athlete’s privacy rights are protected, according to panel discussion Wednesday at the Betting on Sports America conference at the Meadowlands Exposition Center.
“Integrity is a real concern, not just one trumped up by the leagues as some spurious justification to get more money,” said David Zeffman, head of gambling and sport for CMS, one of the world’s largest law firms
“To state the obvious, in sports, unlike casino gaming, the participants, have the ability to influence results. And this risk has been exacerbated, particularly in Europe, by the introduction of in-play betting.”
Kenny Gersh, Major League Baseball
Also on the panel were Kristy Gale, founder and CEO of Hypergolic, who focuses on sports technology law pioneer and protecting individuals’ biometric data; Jack Davison, chief commercial officer of Betgenius, which provides sports betting technology in regulated markets around the world; and Kenny Gersh, executive vice president of gaming and new business for Major League Baseball. Simon Burrell, chief operating officer of Bettor Football, moderated.
MLB gathers detailed data – such as pitch speed and type, how fast a ball leaves the bat, and how fast a fielder runs. Gersh said sportsbook operators can use that information to create the best experience for bettors.
Gale said bettors eventually will want to mine athletes’ biometric and tracking data. That includes not only speed or distance covered on a play, which others can see and measure, but also individual readings such as heart rate and calories burned. She said that raises issues of privacy and intellectual property that will lead to court cases.
Davison said people want to bet on what they can see – points scored, games won, rebounds snagged.
“We are champions of official data in our business,” he said. Operators want information that is fast, accurate, and trustworthy. “Ultimately, your customers want a product they can rely on.”
Gersh said MLB has invested heavily in its data-tracking, with an infrastructure and instant connections between each team and the league that provide information unavailable anywhere else.
Gale said professional leagues’ ability to provide that data will increase over time. Sports-betting millennials, who are accustomed to compiling mounds of information, will want as much data as they can find. She said some esports track players’ eye movements. Those movements can indicate decision-making speed, accuracy, and strategy in traditional sports as well, she said, and bettors will want access to that information.
Gersh said a league’s official data should be available at a reasonable cost. He said MLB bases its rates on the amount of handle per sports books; for example, one with a $500 million a year handle on baseball would pay more than one with a $10 million handle.
“We’re not looking to take a toll off the top,” he said. “I want to help these sports books grow the business,” he said. “I want to help move people from the offshore to the online market by giving them access to better data that the offshore market doesn’t have.”
Zeffman said the bottom line for athletes, leagues, sports books, and bettors is ensuring fair games.
“Coming out of all this is the Need for sports to have an increasingly sophisticated integrity operation and to educate players,” he said. “That costs money. Typically in Europe, the sport’s governing bodies have used their control of data as a way as a way of securing funding from bookmakers.”
