How Mobile Apps Are Changing How We Bet on Sports

Mobile gambling is set to rise to 40% of total online gambling and increase to 50% by 2020. With a shift in users wanting convenience and ease when it comes to placing bets as well as the high street becoming of less important to businesses, more mobile apps for betting are popping up on the app store. A change in companies’ focus to online gambling has influenced how we now, as costumers, place bets on sports and how we utilise the benefits of mobile sports betting.

What is Mobile Sports Betting?

It is reported that 4.3% of iPhones owners have at least one sports betting app on their phone, with it being likely that if they have one, they have multiple. Bookmakers have recognised a shift in customers utilising their online websites to place bets rather than going into their local betting shop. Along with the death of the high street due to it being cheaper and easier to run and maintain online platforms, larger companies are now launching mobile apps to keep up with these consumer needs and changes within the market. Bookmaker shops are seen to be vulnerable to closure in the current climate (reference 1 and 2), however, betting companies are still thriving with the increase of mobile users.

Bookmakers such as Betway, Bet365 and 888sport are among a few of the betting companies that have created a streamlined version of their official website and turned it into a mobile app. This makes it even easier for bets to be placed on sporting events as well as being more accessible and convenient for users.

Changing Sports Betting Behaviour

With the shift in focus of these bookmakers, it has influenced a change in how us users utilise and benefit from their services. It allows us to bet on sports in a number of different ways that both profit ourselves along with the companies.

Increased Convenience

There is now no need to walk or travel to your local bookmakers to place a bet on a sporting team or a favourite horse. You now don’t even need to wait for your PC to boot up. These mobile betting apps make it as simple as can be to bet with everything you need at your convenience.

On the whole, the bookmaker apps are user-friendly, easy to work and simple to place a bet. Therefore, it makes it easy for you to bet on any sport you wish whenever you desire.

Remote Betting

Now, as long as you have your mobile phone, Wi-Fi or mobile data, you are able to bet wherever you are and whenever you want.

With the growth of Wi-Fi coverage in coffee shops, bars and even city-wide, it’s not difficult to find a spot that will allow you to log on and place a bet even if you don’t have any mobile data. You no longer need to be near a bookmaker or even at home to use your own Wi-Fi in order to place the bet you want.

Bet In-play

Bet in-play refers to bets being placed once a game or sporting event has begun. Whether it’s after kick-off, at half-time or even in the final minutes of a football match, these mobile apps have everything you need in order to allow a bet to be placed remotely. Even though horse racing is over before it’s even started, you can even place your bets once these races have begun and before they finish.

Bet in-play allows you to exploit the benefits of judging a team’s performance before committing to a bet. This has led to a decrease in the number of pregame bets bookmakers receive. While the odds may be higher if you place the bet before the game has started, bet in-play gives you a better chance of placing a winning bet as you have the opportunity to analyse the team’s performance and bet accordingly.

Out of Boredom

Whether it’s passing time waiting for a train or you’re just bored on your lunch break or at home, we tend to reach for our mobile phones for entertainment. You might have a quick game of solitaire, watch a YouTube video or scroll through social media. There is now the increasing possibility that you will use betting apps in a similar way.

With the apps loaded onto your phone and the increased convenience, there is growing ease and temptation to place a bet in an attempt to suppress your boredom for a short while. This is where users are wary of the changing behaviours of betting on sports. The easy accessibility of sports betting using a mobile app could lead to unhealthy betting behaviours. However, if used correctly and sensibly, mobile apps for sports betting have many benefits that you can utilise.

With the growing use of mobiles to do everyday tasks that we would usually head to the high street for, there has been an increase in placing bets on sporting events using mobile apps. More betting companies have created their own apps to allow ease of betting and include features that encourage bet in-play and remote betting. We are able to utilise these convenient services at the touch of a few buttons. It is increasingly evident that mobile apps for betting are on the rise and have the ability to change our gambling behaviours in terms of how we place a bet and when we do so.