Poll: How will the Olympic Games impact egaming?
Can operators expect an increase in volumes comparable to other sporting events?
With the Olympic Games less than one week away, the event has garnered substantially less publicity in egaming circles than Euro 2012, the summer’s other major sporting event.
While operators released a number of apps specifically tailored to the football showcase, the same has not been true of this summer’s Games in London with Olympic betting tabs featuring low down on most large operator’s sites including bet365, William Hill and Betfair.
To date, much of the interaction between online gambling operators and Olympic governing body the IOC has surrounded combating suspicious betting, with Betfair entering into a memorandum of understanding with the body in January.
More recently two industry regulators, France’s ARJEL and Malta’s LGA, signed their own agreements with a similar purpose in mind.
Previous Olympic Games may not have seen the spike in betting volumes traditionally associated with the FIFA World Cup or European Championships, but could the increased reach of mobile betting, among other developments over the last four years, see this change?
Another factor which might have a role to play is the location of the event, with existing UK regulations potentially proving more familiar and welcoming to many operators when compared with the situation in China, where the 2008 games were held.
In his opinion piece for eGaming Review last week, Mark Maydon of Sporting Index described London 2012 as “the first betting Olympics,” noting that “Britain is a nation of gamblers and is, by some distance, the most sophisticated sports betting market in the world.”
How big an impact do you expect the London 2012 Olympics to have on the egaming industry? Have your say by voting on the poll on the right-hand side of this page, or visiting the eGR LinkedIn Group.