Creating more immersive experiences is key to running a successful operation for many sportsbooks and sports streaming companies. Getting the viewers engaged is a crucial element for building a loyal audience who sees your platform as the go-to for sports streaming and betting.
With a loyal viewership, these businesses can unlock significant growth in their operations and earnings potential.
In this guide, we will discuss what “watch and bet” is and how it’s changing sports betting. We’ll discuss how it works and some challenges sports betting companies face in bringing this setup to life. To wrap things up, we will talk about what could lie in the future of watch and bet streaming.
What is watch and bet?
Watch and bet is an immersive betting setup that can be incorporated into sports streaming and betting experiences. It enables users to place in-game bets without leaving the stream.
Since the entire experience lives within the same window, users don’t need to switch sites or apps to place bets while they watch a sporting event. The consolidated user interface creates a more engaging experience since there’s no interruption to the stream.
With so much innovation in sports betting and the streaming industry as a whole moving toward more interactive content, watch and bet is a natural next step for the industry.
“Watch and bet” vs. “bet and watch”
Although “watch and bet” and “bet and watch” sound similar, there is a bit of nuance that differentiates the two terms. Understanding the difference between the two concepts is essential as you determine what kind of live sports betting experience you want to create.
As we’ve discussed, watch and bet involves in-game betting. However, bet and watch is a different betting style where bettors place their bets before the sporting event starts, so they are simply watching for the results of the bets they’ve already made.
Watch and bet is a more active experience, whereas bet and watch is a more passive experience. Since watch and bet creates a more active user experience, it also makes sports streams more engaging. However, offering a watch and bet experience is more technically complex since it requires an in-stream betting setup.
Benefits of watch and bet for sports betting
The most significant benefit of implementing a watch and bet option in your sports streaming experience is the potential to boost engagement and revenue.
Since watch and bet creates an active viewing experience, it helps to keep participants in the stream longer. Longer watch times lead to improved revenue since they create more opportunities for bidders to make bets. Plus, it also opens doors for increased product sales within the stream, higher impressions on ads, and significant viewership and retention stats to appeal to sponsors.
This engagement can also lead to recurring viewership, which creates even more expansion for the opportunities mentioned.
Plus, incorporating such innovative technology into your sports betting and streaming experiences reflects very well on your brand. It shows that you’re serious about catering to your audience and prioritizing the user experience.
How does watch and bet work?
Incorporating watch and bet into your sports streaming and betting experiences requires a tech stack that includes a real-time streaming solution that integrates seamlessly with in-game betting technology.
Real-time streaming is absolutely crucial because it is what makes in-game betting possible. By keeping the latency imperceptible, sportsbooks can extend the betting time within their stream, creating more opportunities for users to place bets.
You’ll also need to ensure that your chosen solution supports streaming at scale. You should be able to provide the same high-quality, real-time content to as many sports fans that make their way to your stream, no matter where they are located. This requires the support of a robust content delivery network (CDN) that is capable of global scalability.
Creating a cross-platform experience is also essential for creating a more accessible user experience. With greater device and browser compatibility, your stream is accessible to more potential viewers. Plus, even though watch and bet only requires one device per user, a viewing experience that can easily be picked up on another device is very convenient for users.
In the spirit of creating your audience’s go-to sports betting platform, you can make the experience even more immersive with multiview watch options. With multiview, viewers can watch multiple games at once, creating more in-game betting opportunities.
Common challenges of watch and bet sports betting
One of the most common challenges of watch and bet sports streaming is achieving a real-time stream that syncs the video and data latency. This requires a tech stack that supports ultra-low latency streaming. Fortunately, this is achievable with the support of a robust solution, such as Dolby OptiView.
Another challenge to consider with watch and bet sports betting is local gambling legislation and broadcast blackout policies. Accommodating both can place limitations on where you can stream and who can wager bets. However, with a bit of creativity and game planning, finding an addressable market should be no issue at all.
Use cases for watch and bet in sports streaming
Watch and bet is used for gambling on many traditional sporting events, including football, baseball, and basketball games. It can also be applicable in horse racing and other microbetting use cases.
In addition to live sports betting, watch and bet can also be used in eSports streaming. In-game eSports betting works just like traditional sports betting.
The future of watch and bet for sportsbooks
We are still on the cutting edge of watch and bet sports betting experiences, so the opportunities of the future are endless. This technology is still developing, making it hard to see a concrete future.
However, suppose we base our predictions on other trends in the sports media industry. In that case, it’s safe to say that the experiences will continue to grow more immersive and lifelike as supporting technology becomes more innovative.
As sports media giants begin to adopt this technology, it is reasonable to expect watch and bet to become a standard element of sports betting experiences eventually.
Final thoughts
Incorporating watch and bet experiences in your sports betting platform is an excellent way to engage your audience, extend watch times, and generate more revenue per active user. Creating seamless viewer experiences will improve the quality of your platform as a whole, elevating your brand and pushing your business toward success.
Looking to host more immersive sports betting streams to engage your audience and boost your revenue? Dolby OptiView is the solution for you. Our end-to-end streaming solution offers everything you need to bring successful in-game betting experiences to life.
Contact us today to learn how Dolby OptiView can help you create more engaging sports betting and streaming experiences for your fans.
