ment by moment . “ I bet the Cowboys to run on this play ’” is now a betting opportunity .
Simplebet provided in-game markets for over 6,000 games in 2022 across the NFL , NBA , MLB , and college football and basketball , according to its COO Mark Nerenberg . The possibilities for different user experiences , different strategies , different content are endless .
“ We see our micro markets accounting from 15 percent to 35 percent of in-play revenue depending on the sport ,” Nerenberg says . “ And across the five leagues we cover ( the five most popular to bet on in the U . S .— NFL , NBA , MLB , CFB , CBB ) live betting accounts for maybe 35 percent of revenue ( pre-match accounting for the other 65 percent ).
“ I think three years from now micro betting will account for over 50 percent of live-betting volume and revenue , and live betting will surpass pre-match as the predominant form of betting as well . Micro betting is really in its early stages right now .”
Simplebet officials knew that the concept of micro betting was not new when it launched . Tennis had already been long established .
Even betting on the result of certain drives in the NFL or at-bats in MLB were offered in the U . S . right away in 2018 when online sports betting became legal for the first time in New Jersey .
But the company believed there had not been enough industry traction due to a lack of coverage and “ availability .”
“ Four years ago , when we decided to go all in on micros , our hypothesis was that micro markets require a certain level of up-time (“ availability ”) to achieve significant user adoption and stickiness ,” Nerenberg asserts .
“ I ’ d say that by the end of 2021 micro betting had proven to be far more significant than the majority of industry insiders would have thought ,” he says . “ Drives and Plays accounted for 25 percent of live-betting volume on DraftKings for the Super Bowl and peak college bowl season . At that time , drive markets at other books were accounting for maybe 3 percent of livebetting volume . So after three years of building a fully automated micro market pricing engine we had finally proven our hypothesis .”
And so came the march forward . The company steadily enhanced its footprint , matching the public appetite for the game within the game . The emergence of technology to meet that demand could not be more timely .
“ Over the past year we have seen a great increase in demand in the market for micro betting from operators ,” Nerenberrg asserts . “ In September we went live with Bet365 , which was incredibly validating , as they are the global leader in live betting . We also added Caesars sportsbook as a partner , going live in their app this past December .”
In 2022 , Simplebet partnered with Betr , a startup co-founded by Joey Levy and Jake Paul , to launch a sportsbook entirely centered around the micro-betting experience .
“ When it comes to demand from users and sports fans , we have a long way to go ,” Nerenberg says . “ Micro betting has proven to be engaging and sticky among users that find these markets within the app , but the biggest gap right now is awareness and education for consumers .”
Both casual players and big gamblers try wagering into a sweet spot . Micro betting also fits the reduced attention span of the instant-gratification age . Some gamblers don ’ t want one result in a two-hour period . They want 20 .
Nerenberg contends there has been very little marketing behind micro betting . Most sports fans don ’ t even know it exists . Additionally , there is significant room for improvement with the user experience .
With micro markets , users do not have enough time to scroll through long lists of markets to find bets . Operators have work to do when it comes to providing relevant information in real time and presenting users with the right bet at the right time to create a more frictionless experience , he adds .
From the technological perspective , success methods vary . “ Our approach is definitely different from what exists in the market currently , which we believe is necessary for the type of scale and availability we provide to achieve these unprecedented levels of user adoption and control of hold ,” he says .
“ Creating and repricing dozens of markets on every play in a football game and every pitch of a baseball game requires a level of automation where probabilities of every outcome from every market we create and reprice are powered entirely by machine learning models . These models leverage historical data as well as live data to make predictions on what will happen given the exact situation in the game .”
Nerenberg says that with machine-learning engineering that enables these models to run in subseconds , infrastructure to constantly optimize and retrain models and automation for tracking the exact state of the game in real time , Simplebet has a winning formula .
“ Our level of automation is probably not as necessary for other types of in-play markets ,” he says , “ but we believe our approach does present opportunities to provide superior offerings across all of in-play at scale and we will be expanding beyond micro markets to prove this out in 2023 .”
The next major market feat could become FOMO , the fear of missing out . Users who discover that micro markets are highly engaged and micro betting is driving significant engagement and incremental GGR for operators may feel compelled to join the party .
“ I think once you have more content providers and broadcasters authentically including micro predictions into their content it will become a real problem for operators that do not have a quality offering ,” he says .
“ I remember watching a game where Troy Aikman predicted an Amari Cooper touchdown for the upcoming play , and sure enough that is exactly what happened . Unfortunately , neither Troy nor the majority of viewers knew that you can actually make that exact bet in real time .
“ I am sure Troy had some interesting logic for how he arrived at that prediction . Once micro betting starts getting real exposure on platforms where fans are already consuming live sports … that ’ s when micro betting starts to really impact market share for even the largest operators .” And that time is coming . Operators , sportsbooks and state governments love the nuance springing from this market niche . Crunching the numbers , right down to the odds of the next play , has never been so meaningful .
42 Global Gaming Business APRIL 2023