Over three billion people, nearly half the world’s population, enjoy watching football. This number is difficult to comprehend, but it guarantees that there are tens of millions of people out there who enjoy gambling on the sport, in whatever form that may present itself. Online sportsbooks are now the number one avenue for football gamblers to place their wagers, and you can now find many football-related markets. You can gamble on in-play markets, outright markets, or even associated markets such as football professional video games, such as FIFA. Professional video games are known as eSports and quickly become one of the most significant new gambling markets.
The Popularity of eSports
The current football gambling market has come a long way in the last thirty years. If you gamble online, you only need to look at some available sportsbooks to see how broad the market is. With hundreds of football games you can bet on globally, right across the world, it is an actual 24/7 marketplace in the truest sense of the word. Due to this immense growth and the outrageous amounts of profit that the sector has posted over the last decade, there is an insatiable desire to find new markets that underwrite emerging, popular competitive tournaments, and that is where eSports enters the picture.
Professional video gaming has existed in its modern console form for around two decades. Still, it was only really during the 2010s that this sector started to expand into international markets with phenomenal success. Alongside football games like FIFA, there are also American Football games, like NFL Madden, which have deep and talented teams of pro eSports players looking to win some of the colossal prize money on offer.
The gambling markets underpinning these multi-million dollar tournaments continue to grow year after year, with some innovators allowing you to use different payment methods, such as Thunderpick eSports where you can bet using Bitcoin. However, it’s not just eSports you can bet on; there’s an extensive range of football betting markets at Thunderpick too. With such a vast scope to choose from and a market that continues to swell, the most reputable and innovative casinos are stealing a march on their competition.
How Online Sportsbooks Created A Blueprint
The online gambling industry has utilized greater technological advances in society and implemented them into its highly successful business model. On a base level, online sportsbooks were able to generate more significant profits for many critical reasons. Compared to their land-based competition, they didn’t have to pay for the same overheads, such as rent and electrical bills.
In addition, online sportsbooks could attract millions of customers to their website, so while land-based sportsbook operations in the United Kingdom might have had a few hundred physical locations scattered up and down the country, online sportsbooks were able to look further afield.
The rise of the internet, smartphones, and widespread usage also meant that more people were moving from physical sportsbook shops to the more convenient, time-saving, and cost-effective method of placing their football bets online. Before smartphones became such a massive success in the late 2000s and early 2010s, online gambling was still making significant inroads into the industry, and many people would use their PC or laptop to place a bet.
How Football Betting Companies Evolved
Many physical sports betting shops in the UK have stayed afloat because they switched many of their operations to online gambling instead. Companies specializing in sports and football betting also moved into the casino sector, providing a one-stop shop for gamblers looking to place football bets and play a casino game, helping them develop an even more considerable profit.
If you bet in a physical shop, there’d often be a range of outright markets, such as who would win the league, FA Cup, or who would win the Golden Boot. However, the emergence of online gambling and how technology accelerated meant that football betting companies could begin offering in-play markets, accelerating and fuelling spectacular growth within the industry.
Figures show that over 4.5 billion people will have smartphones by the end of this decade. As this number continues to grow and more people have access to gambling markets, the companies that provide these services will continue to make ample profits.
Final Thoughts
The football betting market is a fascinating conversation topic because it continues to grow at lightning speed because of the unwavering, ubiquitous support for the teams within the Premier League. Irrespective of the fact that sports have deviated so far from traditional, working-class roots to become a global enterprise, mainly consisting of which billionaire has the most money to spend, this hasn’t dented the popularity of the sport domestically at all, and it’s heightened the popularity of it internationally immeasurably.
Expect to see football betting companies continue to develop new and exciting ways to obtain more customers and keep them on board.