New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge in the eighth round against Boston Red … [+] Sox at Fenway Park.
Boston Red Sox batter Bobby Dalbec stood in the stands with loaded bases and empty cars in the sixth round at Fenway Park as his club drew 6-6 with scorned Yankees rival and Cuban Aroldis Chapman on the mound.
The left-handed Chapman – who routinely throws in the three-digit range – only needed five throws to beat Dalbec, and the Sox midfielder made the last two offers, 99mph of fast balls, before returning to boxing.
Lots of sizzle during this attack on the 37,291 present, but now a wider legion of die-hard and even casual baseball fans has a way of creating another layer of real-time drama as you play. Chris Bevilacqua, co-founder and CEO of Simplebet, says his company’s technology opens new, innovative doors to how fans engage and bet on sports events.
“You can watch a Yankee game and bet on everyone (moment). Will Gerrit Cole’s next jump be 94 mph or more? What will Aaron Judge do during this attack? Did you hit single, home run or strike? ” “Simplebet allows you to bet interactively in these micro-timeframes.”
Two decades ago, 59-year-old Bevilacqua was one of the pioneering faces behind the 24-hour cycle of college sports news when he helped found College Sports Television (CSTV), an open-access venue for NCAA sports fans. The groundbreaking network was finally acquired by CBS in 2006 for $ 325 million, and CSTV helped launch other fax machines such as Fox College Sports and ESPNU.
“We had a development service that we sold to distributors who then made it available to users,” says Bevilacqua. “At the end of the day, there were a lot of cable TV providers, but only five mattered. The five that mattered accounted for 80% of the market. “
Bevilacqua says that, in a way, this business model has come full circle with respect to his latest venture: there are half a dozen bookmakers who dominate the market, including FanDuel and DraftKings. Simplebet, thanks to its technology, offers users real-time sports betting on what Bevilacqua calls “micro-markets”.
“You choose to play a two- or three-hour baseball game and (Simplebet technology) turn it into mini-games, like a slot machine,” says Bevilacqua. “For someone who watches a few rounds, this technology can increase fan engagement.”
Simplebet just finalized its deal with YES (Yankees Entertainment and Sports) in May, a business partnership that Bevilacqua calls “first of its kind”.
“Our technology is integrated with the pick-and-play system,” he says. “‘What will happen in the next attack?’ That’s when you place your bets. You don’t have to wait until the end of the game.
There seems to be no indication that the sports betting business is slowing down, four years since a landmark Supreme Court decision lifted a federal ban on legal sports betting in the states. The state earned $ 607.2 million in sports betting revenue in the first six months of this year, according to PlayNY, a company that tracks the online gaming industry in New York. According to the website, New York State bettors wagered $ 8.5 billion over the same period.
PlayNYSix months later, how can NY Online sports betting improve?
With options like Simplebet these numbers will only keep growing.
“I still think this is the top of the first round,” says Bevilacqua. “It has only been four years since PASPA (the Act on the Protection of Professional and Amateur Sports) was repealed. Every time there is a new state (to run online sports betting), everyone has to reallocate engineering resources, create a product roadmap to go live. It’s not like one size fits all. On the other hand, what drives the industry is product innovation. We believe Simplebet technology drives micro-markets. We think that’s where the industry is headed. “
