History of Online Sports Betting Innovations

The online betting world has gone through a series of evolutions. What started out as a simple way to engage in betting on top sports has seen new features come to light over the years that in themselves have shaped the industry. These sites and the features they offer have grown and grown, giving bettors the chance to enhance their experience in new and innovative ways. When you compare an online bookmaker with a land-based one, the former has much more to offer.

Thirty years or so ago placing a bet on a live match or horse race would be seen as crazy.  Imagine asking the bookie behind the counter to cash out your bet early before a game or race had ended, they would think you had gone mad.  If you wanted to place a bet builder no one would know what you were talking about and if you wanted to live stream an event on the move you would probably need a portable TV and an aerial.

We want to take you on a bit of a journey through these years of new innovations looking at the history of online betting and how new features have changed the industry.  There is so much that has changed in a few short decades and today we take many betting features, products and markets for granted that were just not even heard of a generation ago.  Imagine what people will be betting on and how they will be doing it in years to come?

The First Online Sports Wagers

To understand the origins of online sports betting, we need to go back to 1996. It was in this year that Tottenham Hotspur and Hereford United had a replay match in the FA Cup. Spurs came out on top in that match with a 5-1 victory. That wasn’t particularly an unusual outcome and many people suspected it would be the case beforehand. So, why bring this football match in specific up?

Well, it was the very first sports event to have an online wager placed on it. This took place at the very first online sportsbook, too – Everygame. That site remains in operation today, and in its original form, it held a licence from Kahnawake. The ’96 football match noted saw a $50 sports wager come from a Finnish man at Everygame. From this humble sports bet, the online wagering scene was born and would continue to evolve.

Sports betting online became very popular in a very quick timeframe. In today’s world, millions of people make use of the internet for their betting activity. It brings in billions of pounds every single year from countries across the globe. At the same time, its popularity is unwavering. Yet many changes have taken place throughout the years. Advances technology and the creation of unique products have assisted with this.

Back in the early days, sports betting wasn’t so regulated. Yes, most online sites had at least one official gambling licence. This allowed them to offer their betting services via the internet. Yet the requirements of those licences were not as stringent as they are today. We’re not saying that the sportsbooks online in the ’90s were all scam sites. Indeed, there were some legitimate platforms to join. The idea behind those sites was to provide an excellent service to their players. On the other side of the scale were those scam sites, though. They wanted to rip punters off, making them lose money on purpose.

Because of this, it was necessary to introduce proper regulation. Different countries launched their own regulatory bodies at different times. In the United Kingdom, the online sports betting scene is a legal activity. This is all thanks to the introduction of the Gambling Act 2005. That act regulates all types of online gambling, from sports betting to casino gaming, and so on. It has since gone through modifications and adjustments to cater to other features. Sports betting online remains a legal activity through it, though. With the legal situation solved, people could wager on sports online in a proper way. This kick-started the creation and introduction of new features.

The Unique Online Betting Landscape

It may be the case that Everygame was the first online sportsbook, yet this didn’t remain a sole entity for very long. With the introduction of proper legislation and regulations, new sites opened their doors.

They came in small numbers in ’96, and then started building in velocity. More platforms became available in the following years and into the new millennium. The number of online sportsbooks grew into the hundreds and thousands. It is due to this that the betting industry is so competitive today. Many options exist for customers to select from and they can afford to be selective with them.

It is due to the competitive nature of the industry that several products arrived on the scene. The quality of online sportsbooks has improved with the introduction of each feature. That’s because they were all trying to outdo one another and gain the most customers. The variety of betting options has also improved for that self-same reason. If that competitive edge wasn’t there, punters likely wouldn’t have the odds they get today. Plus, the unique and original features may not have come to light, either.

The invention of bonuses and promotions for the online world is one of the first features to look at. You may have found one or two promotions in land-based betting shops, but the online world took it further. These companies knew that the best way to appeal to players was to give them something extra.

Bonuses provide extra promo money into bettors’ accounts. Free bets offer the chance to place wagers without risking your own funds. Cashback provides a rebate on your net losses for a certain period. Then there are promotions relating to specific sports and events. Frankly we wouldn’t join a site these days if it didn’t offer us something, which is very different to how it was before, where you would go to your local shop simply because it was local rather than because it gave you added incentives.

The user experience on the whole has changed over the years, too. The general basis behind a sportsbook is still the same, of course. You make a deposit, place a bet, and hope to receive a payout from the site when you’re successful. That’s always been the idea of online sports betting sites. Yet today’s sites are much more impressive and inviting than those from the early days. Earlier sites were very basic. Then again, they only provided for people to place bets, and that’s it. They didn’t have much visual appeal. They were sometimes slow and clunky. At times, it was even a little difficult to find what you wanted to wager on.

People were fine with this back then, though. Online betting was still a novel experience in its own right. People were happy with that, and that was enough. Yet as more sportsbooks opened online, the demand for quality increased.

The older platforms began updating their looks and user-friendliness. High-quality graphics and easier navigation became commonplace. Of course, not all sportsbooks have that mindset, so they remain a little outdated. Most have followed in line with the better-quality websites, though. Today, players get fast, responsive and well-designed sites.

It’s also prominent to note that sportsbooks began incorporating:

• More sports and events to bet on
• Multiple deposit and withdrawal methods
• Quicker transaction processes
• Higher quality of customer service
• Faster wager payouts
• Quicker responsive odds feeds

Exchange Betting Is Born

Before online betting people of course bet against each other, and still do today.  It wasn’t, however, possible to bet with a complete stranger on the other side of the country.  It was also not possible to always find someone to take the bet you wanted to place.  The only option for many was to go to a betting shop, where you simply had to accept the odds and terms they gave you.

With Betfair the exchange was born and this allowed people to offer offs to their peers (laying a bet) for other people to back.  People could decide how much they wanted to risk in a back or lay bet.  The beauty of it was there was no bookmaker in the middle taking a profit margin, instead the exchange just charges a small commission on winning bets.  This meant exchange odds were almost always better than the odds from bookmakers.

Traditional bookies feared Betfair in the early days and even tried to smear the product suggesting it increased match fixing.  Quickly, however, bookies began to realise the exchange could be a tool for them.  It allows them to see where public opinion is going, allows them to compare odds and even allows them to balance bookies if over exposed on a certain market by laying it on an exchange.

Exchange betting is still fairly niche and it is not for everyone but its invention had a huge influence in shaping the progression of online betting.  There are even people who call themselves ‘professionals’ who make money through exchanges by utilising odds changes, not very different to how people make money on financial markets.

Additional Features Arrive

It was in the late 90s that in-play betting launched. In its initial stages, this form of betting occurred over the phone. It saw bookmakers accept wagers while a game was taking place. Yet it didn’t take long for that to expand to the online world.

In fact, it was one of the first impressive and appealing features to arrive at sportsbooks. It has continued evolving in many ways over the years.  The UK Gambling Commission did a study in 2016, which found that around 25% of people had placed a live bet in the UK. It stands out even more when you consider how much live betting contributes to revenue. In 2015, Bet365 stated that 80% of its income comes from in-play betting activity.

It remains a popular option at sportsbooks today, too. Many players like the experience and speed of placing bets while a game is ongoing. The odds chop and change at a quicker pace than in pre-match betting.  It is still evolving too and today you can even bet in-play on most live horse races, which wasn’t possible until the technology caught up to allow odds to be accurately calculated in-play.  Live betting is also the form of wagering that gave birth to another innovation, cash out.

The cash out function came about shortly after the introduction of in-play betting. The pair go hand-in-hand, so that’s understandable. Bookmakers benefit much more from players being able to wager on a match taking place. After all, it increases the likelihood of them gaining more profit.

Live betting is much quicker, so punters can make rash decisions under pressure. Therefore, the natural follow-up to this scenario was to give bettors something back. This is when cash out was born. Cash out gives players the chance to complete a wager before a match ends. Through doing so, they can lock in a certain payout or minimise their losses.

Betfair is the brand to receive the credit for introducing the cash out function. It arrived via the Betfair exchange first, before spreading to the standard sportsbook. Then again, considering this is the first brand to have provided in-play betting, it’s understandable.

It didn’t take long for other betting brands to adopt the tool, including Bet365 and William Hill. From there, variations of the cash out function also arrived. They included partial cash out and auto cash out. The first allows for punters to remove some of the money from their wager early. The latter gives you the chance to set a limit where cash out will automatically occur.

Live streaming followed in line behind live betting and cash out tools. While this remains a possibility at some sportsbooks, it isn’t available at all sites. Its introduction allowed people to watch the sports they were betting on. Most of the time, a player needs to have a funded account or have placed a bet in the past 24 hours for this. High-definition streaming of the sporting events provides an extra perk for players.

Fast forward a few years and you’ve also got the introduction of the Bet Builder tool. It is the case that some players like to bet on more than one market of a specific event.

Let’s use the recent Qatar versus Ecuador World Cup 2022 game as an example. In this game, there were many markets available to bet on other than the winner of it. Punters were able to wager on both teams to score, corners given, correct score, over/under, and so on.

The likelihood is that many people did wager on several markets. Whether they used a bet builder function or not is unclear. Yet it would have made things much easier. Through it, you can place bets on several markets at once. This combines them into one wager.

It’s not just the features that have gotten better too.  People can now bet online using all sorts of payment methods like eWallets that didn’t exist in the past.  Customer service is now miles better too with multiple ways to contact a brand.  Punters can now even request specific bets from their bookie over social media.  Sites also now invest a lot in news coverage, stats and tips to help inform bettors and many even have free games people can play as a way to win prizes and increase engagement with the brands.

Modern-Day Launches Continue the Innovation

Innovations have continued to this very day, with recent launches making waves. Betting on daily fantasy sports is something that came about in the new millennium. While the general history of fantasy sports is traceable to many decades ago, online it is quite new.

Early examples of this activity came about in 1990 with the launch of two nationwide games. People played these via newspapers across the USA. Yet the online world didn’t experience such opportunities until 2007. Instant Fantasy Sports was the first to introduce it and this was later acquired by NBC Universal. Despite a rebrand to SnapDraft, it later closed down on a permanent basis.

It was in 2009 that a brand known as FanDuel came about. Launched by Edinburgh, Scotland-based Hubdub, this became a hit. It allowed people to sign up and create their own fantasy sports teams. They could select players from real-life teams and construct their own. Rewards would then come dependent upon how the players did in real-life games. Three years later, DraftKings opened its doors, based in Boston, Massachusetts. These two companies remain as the world’s largest daily fantasy sports platforms.

Sticking with the idea of sports and an internet setup, virtual sports launched in the 2010s. There have been arguments about which company was the first to introduce such. Many brands still don’t actually provide this service, either. Yet with top-quality computer technology and excellent interactivity, it exists.

Virtual sports betting offers players the opportunity to wager on computer-generated sports matches. It caters to the worlds of football, tennis, horse racing and more. Sports betting of this nature occurs in the same way as standard sports betting. The difference is that the events take place in the virtual world, rather than the real world.

It’s not only the United Kingdom and USA that virtual sports betting is popular, either. In fact, locations like Kenya and other African nations have huge markets for it. Bets can range from as little as 50 cents up to $1,000 per game!

The Future

What we do know so far is that the online betting industry is highly innovative and that is thanks in huge part to the fact it is so competitive.  Companies need to keep coming up with new ideas to engage and retain punters or they will simply fail.  In fact the failure rate of online gambling sites is very high, it is very much survival of the fittest.

If there is a new product that can be used for gambling companies will quickly find a way to utilise it.  The metaverse is already being looked at by several groups with the idea that you can play games in a virtual immersive casino or even go to a virtual betting shop and place bets and watch events.  This is highly likely to be part of the future.

There are even sports now that didn’t exist a decade or so ago, like eSports, which in some Asian countries is the most bet on sport.  People often talk about gambling going out of favour and all of its negative aspects but ultimately it is constantly evolving and finding new products and markets to engage people.

Whether we look 10, 100 or 1000 years into the future people will still bet and gamble, it is part of human nature, the only question is what will they be betting on and how?