Online sportsbooks have to set odds while remaining competitive. This can be particularly hard when it comes to live or in-play betting. Essentially, sports betting data has to be supplied from somewhere. But where does it come from and should there be any concerns?
Data supply chain for live bets
One of the more popular betting options in recent years is live or in-play betting. These types of bets allow players to place, modify and cash out on games or events that are already underway. However, odds are often much lower than traditional pre-game bets. Additionally, the odds on these bets are also constantly changing as the game or event unfolds.
Because of this, data on the game must come from something. There needs to be a wealth of online real-time data in place. Many sites have continuous updates and this all comes from a small group of sports data providers.
However, these providers are incredibly competitive between one another and all they’re really interested in is providing more options to encourage betting.
Data on lower league games
Unfortunately, in many instances, the data collected and distributed comes from lower-league games and events. There are a lot of issues surrounding this at the moment as there is not much integrity provided in some of the areas. As a lot of data is for lower-level games, this allows the arrival of fixers to come in and influence game outcomes.
Many of the games available online for betting have been fixed. With more than half of all live or in-play betting options set on semi-professional, amateur or even regional leagues, there are a lot of problems for both bettors and sportsbooks offering odds on these games.
How is live data collected?
No matter what game or event it is, many of these real-time data provider services have someone on the ground. Many have data scouts with earpieces transmitting the data in real-time and providing updates on what is happening in the game as they watch it.
The companies also have apps for these types of data points allowing their data scouts the ability to type in goals, movements, subs, and other significant events.
As you can imagine, it is not an exact science. A lot of the data provided is very much open to interpretation. This does mean that there are data fingerprints in place depending on who, or which company has created it. It’s possible to follow this fingerprint up the data supply chain.
Conflicts of interest abound
So, with all this data available, where does it actually end up? For the most part, betting data companies are not very open about sharing their client lists. However, it’s important to know this as a lot of these companies double up as integrity services to sports companies as well.
By looking at suspicious activities such as unusual or large odds changes, these companies can pick up on game fixing or manipulation. As such, they hold promises to protect games from match-fixing. Once they have raised a red flag, the company providing this information has an advantage.
At this point, there can be a potential conflict of interest. This is because the same company can be the one providing the in-play betting data that impacts the odds.
Resultantly, this can make match-fixing alerts somewhat limited in their efficacy.
Many sportsbooks under scrutiny
A further problem is that several unscrupulous betting websites already use data from some of these providers. This means that the data along the supply chain is being sold or provided to sites known to flaunt responsible gambling protocols.
As such, players are subjected to poor odds and are potentially exposed to a wealth of games that have been fixed. Players are going onto these sites already on the losing end, no matter whether they take on bonus offers or promotions.
For all of these reasons, plus more, it’s really hard to trust data providers when it comes to offering integrity services. Ideally, these data providers should be completely separate from any integrity monitoring whatsoever.
Canada’s Ontario region has already made the move to ban sports data providers that give integrity services as well. It would be a good idea for other countries, states and provinces to consider following suit, especially if we want to promote safe and fair gambling.
Article and permission to publish here provided by Andrej Fedek. Originally written for Supply Chain Game Changer and published on February 14, 2024.
Cover photo by Amit Lahav on Unsplash.