US predictions for 2020 – including new industry talent and better payment providers

Seth Young, CPO at PointsBet US

Responsible Gaming: Technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence will lead to innovation in predictive analytics and predictive modeling around responsible gaming initiatives. Despite the fact that a nationwide study conducted a decade apart by the University of Buffalo found no significant increase in the rates of problem gambling in the USA even with a nationwide increase in gambling opportunities, operators may consider utilizing new, robust technologies and data sets to identify at-risk behavior early on, in interest of approaching it properly.

Processing transactions: Payment processors and major banks will continue to relax their restrictions on processing transactions for online gambling. Sports betting is a mainstream activity, and the entrance of major brands and blue-chip companies to the sector adds legitimacy and comfort to the evolution of this next generation of gaming in the United States. Consumers will have an easier time depositing and withdrawing funds from their gaming wallets, leading to overall growth of the market and a better overall customer experience.

Realizing opportunity: States without brick-and-mortar gambling infrastructure, or states with very limited gambling infrastructure, will begin to deeply consider the sports betting opportunity. States like Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, for example, may come out and surprise the market by initiating debate about how sports betting may exist within their jurisdictions. Sports betting is too mainstream an activity for states to leave it in a large, quantifiable black market, when there is clear consumer demand and taxes gleaned from the operators of sports betting can be used to fund public policy initiatives, rather than being funnelled offshore.

Keith McDonnell, CEO at KMiGaming

States to pivot to mobile betting: Mobile sports betting will be the main revenue driver for States moving towards legalization. States with retail sports betting only now are pushing hard for mobile legislation having seen its impact in New Jersey (80% of sports revenue).

With increasing uptake of mobile, in-play wagering will establish itself as consumers will expect newer, better, faster betting options, all supported by access to real time data. In established regions such as Europe, we see in-play wagering account for up to 80% of all sports betting. Whether the US gets to that ratio remains to be seen but we expect higher proportions of all sports betting to be in-play over the next two to three years. The stop-start nature of US sports lends itself perfectly to in-play wagering.

Continued M&A: In a region and market yet to establish itself we have already seen some major consolidation efforts and big tie-ups between large gambling operators and media giants. The Stars Group and Fox Sports, Flutter (Betfair, Paddy Power, FanDuel) and The Stars Group and Yahoo and MGM are just a selection of the notable activity so far.

We expect this to continue in 2020 as non-fantasy brands look for alternative ways to access huge customer numbers. Of course, the fantasy brands won’t be standing still, we can expect more major deals there.

Tribal groups across the nation will make serious moves next year, trying to monopolize sports betting in their states or prohibit it all together. These groups control casino gambling in many states and can slow down sports betting legalization. We’ve seen it already in states like California, Connecticut and Florida.

Need to for talent: Lastly, the rapidly growing market will drive an overwhelming demand for talented people. It’s estimated that that there will be between 125-150,000 new jobs just in the US sports betting market in the next 12-24 months. There will be an influx of individuals looking to break into the US sports betting and iGaming markets, from both within the US and from overseas. Senior level executive recruitment is something kmigaming.com will be spending more time on in 2020 through KMiSearch, the division set up to focus on senior executive placement and leveraging industry knowledge, operator experience and building an international network.