Regulated sports betting has been a huge hit with US players and, as the market matures, operators are seeing new verticals gain popularity in recently opened markets. This week, Simplebet CEO Chris Bevilacqua spoke to the media about the growing appetite for micro-betting, and how that’s impacted his business.
Micro-betting, sometimes called live betting, allows players to wager on the outcome of the next play in the game. In US football, wagers range from will team A score on this play? to will the next play be a run or a pass? and a huge range of other options.
Simplebet offers nine options for every play, including no outcome, and Americans have been embracing them in a big way. According to Bevilaqua, his company had a $1.5 million handle across the NFL playoffs on the proposition, which team will score on this drive?. The proposition will the next play result in a first down or not? generated a $1.3 million handle during that same run.
“The NFL Playoffs got off to a bang with Super Wildcard Weekend and the momentum really carried through the following two rounds. The Chiefs-Bengals AFC Championship game saw Super Bowl-esque numbers.
“We saw an incredible amount of action on our highly detailed markets, and with points being scored seemingly every drive, more and more bettors wanted a piece of the action, and our markets proved to have the most uptime for the ordinary bettor who is looking for instant gratification,” Bevilaqua said in statements quoted by SBC Americas.
Bevilaqua said that micro-betting’s popularity is based simply on the desire for instant gratification, and that he “can’t wait to see what the Super Bowl has in store for us.”