Player performance betting? We're already there
Sporting Index commercial director Mark Maydon argues that despite claims to the contrary, sports player-performance betting is already live and with us...
I READ DAVE McDowell from FSB Technology’s recent EGR blog post with interest.
In his discussion of the number of betting opportunities available, Dave makes the point that bookmakers don’t appear to be keeping up with the technological advancements that have been offered to them – in particular, the comparative lack of betting opportunities on the performance of individual players during a football match rather than just the team that they represent.
Sporting Index have offered a player performance market for over a decade which allows spread bettors to back a player to play well or badly.
The market in question is currently independently adjudicated by sports data provider Opta, and consists of components ranging from completed passes in the opposition half through to a player scoring a goal or being yellow-carded. An individual product user can have a terrific game even if his team loses, and these player-performance bets have been, and continue to be, amongst the most popular bets we offer.
Nor are we alone in the market place when it comes to offering more player-based bets. The majority of sportsbooks offer next goal scorer markets rather than the traditional first goal scorer, whilst others have tried to replicate our performance-based bets.
Mr McDowell refers to the potential of a ‘game changing interface’ that will allow operators to payout on events more frequently than three times per game “ but sports spread betting already allows its clients to dive in and out of bets, taking profits or cutting losses, as many times in the game as they choose.
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