For many – but not all – players, sports betting is different from other games of chance in the sense that players usually watch sports in the first place and are only involved in gambling as a side activity. This means that the provider does not have to provide entertainment directly. Strategic alliances are being entered into with broadcasters of sports events to increase the enthusiasm for sports betting. As relatively little data traffic is required for sports betting, this form of gambling lends itself well to the limited capacity of 3G mobile telephone networks.
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Another way to persuade players is to provide a lot of information: statistics, blogs, chat rooms and forums. This gives the impression to the player that strategic insight and agility play a role. This encourages betting since the player thinks that by using his knowledge he can achieve game profit with sports betting.
There is a great diversity in the format in which sports betting is offered. Below we describe the most common shapes and the game dimensions where they differ from each other.
The price schedule of a sports bet is fixed at the time of closing for so-called fixed odds bets. This means that the consumer knows what he gets paid depending on the game result. This is one of the most popular forms of sports betting. With fixed odds sports bets, the provider runs a risk himself. This allows the provider to adjust his prize schedule for large interim bets for consumers who want to bet at a later time. The prize schemes for bets that have already been closed, however, remain unchanged.
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With so-called betting exchanges and betting pools (totalisators), providers do not run any risk because participants only play against each other, for example in pairs (betting exchanges) or in groups (totalisators). The profit of one participant is the loss of the other (s). The provider makes a profit through a (with competition often small) percentage deduction – the so-called rake – on all bets. These forms of sports betting are therefore very similar to, for example, poker. With betting exchanges, the price schedule (as with fixed odds) is fixed at the time of closing. In the case of totalisators, on the other hand, the prize schedule only becomes final when no new bets are allowed (often until the start of the sports match).
A betting exchange must ensure that there are enough players to continuously match supply and demand. The largest provider of a betting exchange is Betfair, with 5 million transactions per day, accounting for 90% of the betting exchange market. Betfair receives 5% in rake of the amount won, but gives a discount for frequent players.
Traditionally, sports bets were often closed before the competition in question began. The betting during the course of the match – the so-called live betting – is booming in the international markets. Another internationally known phenomenon is so-called spread betting. With this type of sports betting, the prize schedule is very sensitive to extreme results, and therefore represents a major risk for inexperienced participants. Spread betting is excluded because of these risks in the Bill on Remote Gambling.
With online sports betting, the payout percentages are relatively high, this is also the case with casinowinner betting. The Danish Gaming Authority mentions an average payout percentage of 90% for the first quarter of 2015.8 This is comparable to the estimate of H2. H2 mentions a payout percentage of 88% for online sports betting in Denmark for 2014. This is higher than the payout percentage of Danish national sports betting (83%).
Skins are considerably less common for sports betting than for poker, casino games and bingo. A number of large providers are active on the market such as William Hill, Paddy Power, Betfair, Betsson with Casinowinner and Unibet.
Casinowinner betting is actually a kind of skin from Triobet