{"id":4830,"date":"2022-02-17T12:21:29","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T20:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/?p=4830"},"modified":"2022-02-17T12:21:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T20:21:59","slug":"expect-more-zero-suspension-betting-next-nfl-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/news\/expect-more-zero-suspension-betting-next-nfl-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Expect more zero suspension-betting next NFL season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NFL Wildcard Playoff game between the Las Vegas Raiders and Cincinnati Bengals held a special significance for the betting audience if they had but known about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the game chosen by PointsBet to try zero suspensions on NFL betting on key markets including the moneyline and the spread. It was, the company said in a press release issued in the days after the game, a first for betting on the NFL.<\/span><\/p>\n

It certainly won\u2019t be the last.<\/span><\/p>\n

A proud boast<\/b><\/h2>\n

On PointsBet\u2019s second-quarter earnings call, CEO Sam Swanell pointed out that \u201cmost people would be unaware that the majority of operators are operating at just 70% of uptime,\u201d meaning that there would be a 30% bet failure rate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not hard to see the difference in player experience between the two outcomes and thus the positive sentiment and ultimately ongoing patronage that will be earned by the superior product experience,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

PointsBet went on to suggest this breakthrough was down to the expertise it was able to deploy via its acquisition in April 2021 of Banach Technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

The marketing of zero suspensions<\/b><\/h2>\n

Donal Barron, previously with Banach and now an industry consultant, says PointsBet has made a decision relatively recently to try and move the conversation around player acquisition in the U.S away from market and on to product.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey have decided not to compete on marketing but to have the best product and one component is the maximum uptime on in-play,\u201d Barron said.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, notably, that experiment was only on one Championship Play-Off game and wasn\u2019t continued with what was left of the season.<\/span><\/p>\n

He adds, moreover, that with the experimental zero suspension game, it would have been as much of a manual test as it was a tech experiment. \u201cThe trader would need to be really good,\u201d Barron said. \u201cThat will be a combination of Banach and PointsBet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

How much of a tech experiment was it?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Jeevan Jeyaratnam, COO at Abelson Odds, makes the point, no pun intended, that \u201canyone can leave a market up\u201d and the reason why people don\u2019t is that a book can be found out quite quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCan you get picked off? Yes,\u201d he said. \u201cBy keeping it up, they were open to scalping. So maybe they didn\u2019t advertise it to avoid that. If no one knew about it, then they wouldn\u2019t have been looking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

By both Jeyaratnam and Barron\u2019s reckoning, this was, then, a technical test to see how the technology worked in practice – but without the added stress of potentially being picked off by sharps alerted to the fact that PointsBet\u2019s prices might be wrong at crucial points in the game.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a trial to see whether the tech worked,\u201d says Jeyaratnam while Barron adds that he doesn\u2019t think the tech was \u201cadvanced enough.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a timing issue,\u201d he says. \u201cThey want to test it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Will the rest of the market follow the leader?<\/b><\/h2>\n

The problem for PointsBet with this experiment is that they have effectively given everyone six months’ notice of what their intentions are for the next NFL season.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou would think that the others will go for this,\u201d says Jeyaratnam. \u201cThis isn\u2019t really a tech challenge. It\u2019s about having a trader ready to keep the markets open.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem, he says, comes down to latency. \u201cIn the U.S., you are handicapped by the feeds,\u201d Jeyaratnam said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you discuss anything without discussing the latency issue? It\u2019s critical,\u201d Jeyaratnam said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way the books manage these things is they extend the bet-delay window for those who they think to have a faster feed or with an edge while keeping it open for the recreational bettors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the key – the match-up of data to the client. It\u2019s managing that where the tech comes in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The marriage of tech and trading team<\/b><\/h2>\n

Barron agrees. \u201cYou can keep relatively low limits,\u201d he says. \u201cThat can be tricky. Then it is about marking up your smart customers; having the data processes for that. This will be wholly automated processes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The last conundrum is that although it will be the sharper end of the market that might look to pick operators off that are wrongly priced at key times during a game, it is the mass market that will be enticed by not having in-play bets rejected.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Barron says, \u201cwhat is becoming apparent is that the likes of Caesars, FanDuel and DraftKings are building such huge mass recreational businesses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

They will be wanting to do what they can by the next NFL season to keep these customers satisfied rather than have to go to the huge expense of recruiting more customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the words of one industry insider, they almost have nothing to lose.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be amazed if others didn\u2019t follow the same path,\u201d the insider suggested. \u201cIf this drops your margin by 1% but you counter that with lower CPAs, lower churn, less bonusing costs. Well, the case is made.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NFL Wildcard Playoff game between the Las Vegas Raiders and Cincinnati Bengals held a special significance for the betting audience if they had but known about it. It was the game chosen by PointsBet to try zero suspensions on NFL betting on key markets including the moneyline and the spread. It was, the company […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4830"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4838,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions\/4838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}