Microgaming was the first online gambling website, launched in 1994. Since its introduction, the gambling industry has come a long way towards full digitalization. Today, when online gambling has become insanely popular, casinos need to acquire advanced big data tools in order to accurately determine the odds and personalize their games for different types of players. Most industry leaders have already hired teams of big data engineers and technicians. In this article we will try to determine how big data influences the gambling industry.
It helps bookmakers establish more realistic odds
Bookmakers were the first gambling professionals who implemented big data analysis in their work processes. Big data helps them analyze previous games, determine winning and point scoring patterns and establish more realistic odds. A survey conducted by Talented has determined that more than 72% of UK bookmaking customers believe that their bookmaker doesnt offer them a personalized service.
Also, 67% of gamblers will be loyal to the brand that offers a more customized service. Personalization of the bookmaking process can be done by introducing tailored odds and offers, exclusive offers in real time and targeted push notifications.
It helps poker players in developing their game strategies
In recent years, poker has become much more than a simple card game. Big poker tournaments are often broadcast on popular cable channels, while successful poker players have attained celebrity status. Online poker has become a favorite past time for many players and competition in this niche is growing at a very fast pace.
The best way to attract more gamblers to a website is to place the odds more in their favor. This can be done by empowering players with more information that will help them to build an effective strategy. SharkScope is one of the first websites to realize the benefits of big data analysis. They track all major poker tournaments in the world, and enable users to track players statistics and use them in their own games.
It helps players predict outcomes
Bookmakers are not the only people in sports betting who exploit the benefits of big data. Players have also realized that big data can help them predict outcomes and win more money. In the same way as sports organizations use big data to analyze the players and tactics of the opposing team, betters are comparing two team data sets and trying to determine the games outcome and win more money. Since in most team games there are favorites and underdogs, advanced big data analysis is able to predict the winner in more than 90% of cases.
This was proved by Google big data engineers. They used Google Cloud DataFlow to import data and Google BigQuery to analyze it. With the use of these tools they were able to predict the outcome of 14 out of 16 matches of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Microsoft was even more successful, theyve managed to predict the outcome of 15 out of 16 games.
It improves casino marketing
Since the earliest history of the American gambling industry, the most important gambling innovations were used to customize casino offers and make these establishments more attractive to the average player. Both online and location based casinos use big data in order to improve their marketing campaigns results. Online gambling enables companies to receive a huge amount of customer data.
With the advanced use of cookies, online casinos are able to find out what food their players like, which games they prefer and what types of patterns they use in their games. All this information can be used for creating personalized marketing campaigns. Caesars Entertainment uses big data for cultivating customer loyalty. They are running a program called Total Rewards, which analyzes every step of their hotel and casino customers and rewards them with free gifts, after a bad day at the casino.
It helps fantasy sports companies run their operations
Although fantasy sports are not considered gambling, theres no doubt that these games are based on similar principles as regular online betting. If you think about it, online betting can also be classified as a game of skill. The whole fantasy sports niche is being powered by big data.
The performance of each fantasy team depends on their players real life statistics. In order to determine fantasy sports results, advanced algorithms need to analyze tons of real life sports information, in order to find out which combination of players proved better in real life competition.
Today, Las Vegas, A.C. and areas with Native American tribal sovereignty are not the only places where we can try our luck. We can do it from our homes, on hundreds of offshore-based gambling websites. The introduction of online gambling has made this industry much more competitive. Online casinos were also the foot in the door for big data to enter the global gambling industry. Since gambling is nothing more than a simple numbers game, big data makes it more effective and enjoyable for both the players and the house.
