The conclusive games of the opening week of the 2023 NFL season have revealed promising technological advancements for Caesars Entertainment. The company is showing signs of forging a technological lead over its competition by reducing latency, a crucial aspect in the world of online sports wagering.
This week, Caesars Sportsbook staged a significant reduction in latency during a live stream of Sunday Night Football via its sports wagering app. What makes latency such a pivotal factor is its crucial role in enabling gamblers to make live in-game bets. Defined as the delay in relaying video imagery from camera to screen, lower latency opens the way for more in-game betting due to its capability to provide real-time action.
In this context, Caesars Sportsbook delivered an encouraging display in its first week of the NFL season, demonstrating latency that surpassed even live TV by 20-30 seconds. This promising development in the online sports betting ecosystem might have the potential to significantly multiply in-game wagering.
In the cutthroat world of sportsbook operations, low latency is a powerful tool that can give an edge to operators intending to capitalize on live gaming. This cutting-edge technology surpasses the pace of traditional broadcasting, providing gaming companies the ability to accurately value live bets.
Speed remains of the essence as the world of sports wagering continually embraces advancing technology. Being able to offer a wider range of live bets depends primarily on the speed a sportsbook operator can provide to its users. Major sports see constant shifts in in-game odds on a play-to-play basis, thus a lag in technology can restrict operators to refresh odds only during pauses, potentially compromising the chances of gamblers landing the most favorable odds and leading to lesser live bets being placed.
Caesars has potential to emerge triumphant in this arena, a windfall that might also extend to Genius Sports, Caesars’ partner for providing low latency digital NFL feeds. However, rivals like FanDuel, DraftKings, and Bet365 may remain strong competition, considering they were rated as top mobile wagering apps for in-game betting in a recent poll by Eilers & Krejcik Gaming (EKG).
The increasing preference for the convenience of large television screens for watching football might not be slated to change anytime soon, but the value-added advantage of improved latency should not be overlooked for its potential long-term impact. An amalgamation of live NFL games and wagering on a single interface without any perceivable latency hiccups is indeed a remarkable progression in the sports betting/media arena. It is an aspect that could feasibly have a bearing on negotiations concerning sports media rights in due course.
As in-game betting is increasingly seen as the catalyst for future growth within the sports betting industry, more operators are likely to invest in related technological advancements. Caesars’ success in lowering latency could very well be a prologue to the technological evolution set to engulf the sports wagering landscape in the coming years.
