by Carl Bunton 5 years ago 
The sports betting industry has progressed so much since the introduction of the internet. Plenty of online bookmakers were launched in the mid-1990s. The start was slow, but the progress is insane 25 years later.
If you take a quick look at the top sports betting sites according to GamblingSites.com, you will see smooth mobile versions, live streams, live betting, and so many awesome new features that have changed this segment of online sports betting for good.
However, this is only the beginning. The next wave of game-changing technologies is almost here with Machine Learning (ML) and Virtual Reality (VR) just entering our world.
This post will try to examine how each of them might change the sports gambling
industry in the near future.
How Machine Learning Will Change Sports Betting
Let’s begin with Machine Learning and all the opportunities it brings. For a start, the bookmakers most likely will implement more and more ML models to their odds calculation process. They use large amounts of data either way, so they will now simply find a more precise approach to analyze it.
However, ML should provide the players with more potential tools to improve too. There are plenty of different models out there and many of the ML platforms are relatively user-friendly.
The bettors that are willing to learn and develop their understanding of the process can invest time to learn how to work with them. Once they are done, they can create countless custom models that can be applied to sports betting.
You would be able to build your own method to find value in gambling or simply combine the model with other subjective factors like injuries and suspensions, weather predictions, momentum, and so on.
The good news is that there are is so much information available nowadays for all the popular sports and leagues. Each player should comfortably find a large-enough sample size of data. That’s important because the bigger it is, the more precise ML becomes.
Simply put, both the online betting sites and their clients will receive new weapons in the never-ending war for advantage. The bookmakers will likely make the most of it, but the smart bettors should be able to utilize ML as well.
The technology should also have another positive impact on the industry. We already see smart chatbots introduced and they could improve the customer support service of the best bookmakers out there.
It’s a cheap and effective way to find an answer to the players’ needs. It should save money for the business and time for the customers.
How Virtual Reality Will Change Sports Betting?
Next in line is Virtual Reality. This technology will have a larger impact on other areas of online gambling like casinos and poker, but it could affect sports betting too.
There are several different aspects that could benefit like live betting, for example. The bookmakers on the web are always trying to improve their services in this regard. One of the ways that could happen would be to create a live streaming experience with VR.
It would feel like the users are at the stadium, arena or wherever the sporting event is taking place. The atmosphere could be recreated thanks to VR cameras and it’s bound to happen in the near future.
The other aspect that should improve thanks to the technology are virtual sports. We see plenty of simulations nowadays, but their quality will be completely different once VR becomes mainstream.
Conclusion
It’s still early days but both ML and VR have given us a taste of what to expect in the near future.
Both technologies will change the world we live in and the online sports betting industry will certainly benefit greatly from both of them.