The crossover effect: How football betting platforms attract new casino players

FT Desk

• 11 Jul 2023 12:00 BST
• 4 min read

As the colossal industries of football and casino gambling intersect even more, gambling operators are brainstorming to find new ways to attract football betting enthusiasts who might also be partial to a casino game. Although traditionally, Las Vegas has always had sportsbooks.

Both industries were two separate entities for a long time. In the United Kingdom, before the internet transformed both industries, sportsbooks, and casinos did not have any sort of crossover. Sportsbook operators provided markets primarily for horse racing, football, and casinos were their own enterprises.

The Crossover Appeal Of Casino & Football Betting

Gambling on football is the most popular market in the United Kingdom by quite some distance. Football betting companies have permeated so many different layers within the professional game that it's impossible not to watch a Premier League game without seeing a shirt sponsor of a gambling company or a league that illuminates the services of a football betting or casino company. It is the amalgamation of these two sectors that has resulted in accelerating levels of profits for the casino and sports betting industries.

The allure of casino and football betting stems from the accessibility of smartphones. Not only have they managed to bridge a gap between bettors and the respective markets on a global scale, but they have streamlined the whole experience to make it phenomenally more convenient. Online casinos are now the premium method to gamble for millions of people who want to play blackjack, roulette, or poker. As you can see, with brands like Ignition Casino, digital providers are more than equipped to provide the same services as land-based casino operators.

Yet, they also offer a variety of other ways to gamble. Be it via alternative payment methods, such as cryptocurrency, or a considerable selection of welcome bonuses you can't take advantage of at a regular casino.

Techniques Used By Both Industries

That's not to say there isn't a crossover with the way both casinos will try to get you through the door. One of the best ways to advertise your service is to give something to customers for free. For instance, casinos sometimes offer free chips, drinks, or food to players playing big hands. While they're not the same as welcome bonuses you can get online, online bonuses have the advantage of a welcome bonus, whereas, in a land-based casino, you will often have to place wagers before you can take advantage of any specific offers.

The Inner Workings Of Football Betting

Although casino betting focuses on specific games like poker, roulette, blackjack, and slot machines, and football betting focuses on a professional sports market, there are a lot of different methods people try to implement to give themselves an advantage. Some people believe that studying statistics regarding specific football teams, players, forms, and injuries can try to give them an advantage when placing a bet. However, as Leicester City proved in 2016, you can do all the research in the world, and sometimes it doesn't matter.

While this isn't a bad idea, there are a lot of other variables to weigh up, and even if you think a bet looks good on paper, there is often a lot that the market gets wrong or not how it may initially seem. For example, Manchester City is now considered the best team in Europe, which analysts almost unanimously agree on, and the UEFA team rankings also corroborate this fact.

However, although they were expected to steamroll Inter Milan on their way to their first-ever Champions League triumph, it was a much closer game than people predicted, despite City having a much better squad on paper. They haven't spent hundreds of millions more on their starting eleven, yet only scraped past Inter 1-0 after a few close shaves.

Conclusion

Games within the casino industry focus on mathematical probability, and although they are games of luck, they also have a fixed set of odds. For example, the chances of a house win in blackjack and a specific number winning in roulette will always remain the same, regardless of how much money is staked in that round. However, in football betting, a variety of other components can fluctuate the price of a market.

Therefore, how football bettors crossover to casino gaming primarily stem from the welcome offers and bonus codes that entice new gamers. Casinos offer such a broad range of bonuses, from welcome bonuses to specific deposit method bonuses, that the idea of casino gaming will likely grasp the attention of anybody who is partial to a football bet.

Once the intrigue is there and the seed is planted, it is these welcome bonuses and promotions that can drive home the idea of casino gaming, and this is the most significant driving factor in the enormous numbers of gamblers, especially in the United Kingdom, who are switching from football betting and checking out what casino games have to offer.