According to the analyses of think tanks, gambling companies today are using machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as working on the use of VR technologies and the ability to place stakes using voice.
Gambling has accompanied human civilization from the very beginning: the age of the first gaming artifacts exceeds tens of thousands of years, and in ancient Egypt, people were sure that gambling was invented by the god of wisdom and knowledge, Thoth. At the same time, stakes have also evolved. But if the ancient Romans made a bet exclusively with each other on which of the gladiators would leave the arena as the winner, today the gambling business is at the forefront of digital technology, using virtual reality and cryptocurrencies.
How did betting go innovative?
Digital technologies in the sports gambling business appeared in the mid-nineties, and to be specific, the key year was 1994 – the World Trade Organization allowed the island state of Antigua and Barbuda the right to issue licenses for accepting online stakes. Simon Noble, CEO of the Austrian gambling company InterTops, played a key role in this process. In the same 1994, he became the head of the division that worked on the online gambling direction, and it was his company that received the first license.
It took Noble’s team just over a year to launch online gambling processing. The date of January 17, 1996 is considered to be revolutionary, when the Finn Jukka Honkovaara made the first online stake in the history of mankind, playing on the result of the FA Cup match between Hereford and Tottenham.
What factors have become key in mobile betting?
This was only the first step on the path of massive change. In the year that Honkovaara made his historic sports bet, a second online bookmaker appeared – the American company Vip Sports. The next logical step was the creation of a separate mobile application for sports betting, and InterTops, already mentioned above, excelled here. Using WAP innovation technology (wireless data transfer protocol, as close as possible in architecture to the World Wide Web), the company became the world’s first bookmaker with a mobile gambling resource.
Over the next few years, every self-respecting gambling company launched a mobile version. By 2001, the online sports gambling market had reached $2 billion and had 8 million players, according to the think tanks’ statistics. In 2002 the opportunity to make live stakes appeared.
Further movement was a matter of time and the development of computer technology, thanks to which this type of entertainment has become a way of life for many players – there is no problem in sports betting on your favorite football team from the comfort of your home. By 2017, the total volume of online sports gambling hovered around $45-47 billion, and according to the think tank Zion Market Research, by 2024 it could exceed $150 billion.