LSports chief product and technology officer Daniel Netzer believes artificial intelligence is vital to sports betting and operators that don’t adapt will be left adrift.
If you compare AI growth to other industries, gambling has been one of the slowest. Studies show only a small percentage of AI projects generate substantial returns but the global market is forecast to rise from 189 billion dollars in 2023 to 4.8 trillion dollars by 2033. As well as operators, bettors are also looking at AI to help them decide bets, research suggests over 40% of 18-34 year olds use it to guide them before placing bets within the next year.
The data compiled by LSports shows global data consumption grew by 19% year on year which shows increasing demand. Netzer debates that old fashion manual systems can’t cope with modern day betting with the large number of events and a lot in play requiring real time odds, fraud alert and customer insights. AI enables this to run productively while human experts continue to be vital for risk management, customer trust and compliance.
He sees humans can focus on VIP support and resolving disputes while AI can handle the heavy data tasks. For sportsbooks, preparing now means building flexibility and embracing open systems that allow AI to integrate.
Looking further into the future Netzer sees that AI will be involved at every level within the next five years with automated trading, responsible gambling to personalised customer experiences. He expects AI to make fan engagement more improved and also make the sportsbook run more smoothly while still remaining invisible to the user.