In June of this year Betr, the sports gambling and media company founded by Jake Paul and Joey Levy, announced a strategic partnership with Betting Ladies, a sports gambling site founded by Val Martinez.
Betr will create content specifically for the Betting Ladies. It’s a gambit that should find favor with the 12% of women, according to Cronkite News, who bet on sports in this country.
But during the Global Gaming Expo education session “From Sports Betting to iGaming: The Path Forward for Women Bettors,” it’s apparent that women who bet aren’t receiving the same attention as their male counterparts.
According to Fanatics Senior Director–Compliance Lauren Lemmer the company indicates it has anywhere from a 70/30 ratio of men to women, to 99/1 at some sites.
“I think the opportunity is there,” Lemmer said when asked about reaching more women. “I don’t think we’ve surfaced it properly. We don’t understand the data. We don’t understand how to advertise. It’s just a hidden piece that we’re not committed to.”
“As an industry, we’re so young,” said Martinez, who served as the session’s moderator. “We’re still learning things about general user behavior, what works, what doesn’t work.”
One issue that may inhibit women from betting on sports is the very nature of the apps. As in many apps, it is presumed that a user is familiar with the terms described.
“It’s intimidating,” said FairPlay Sports Media Chief Product Officer Kelly Brooks. “There’s a lot of numbers, and I think that the way that the UIs (user interfaces) have been designed on these apps, it’s predicated on the fact that you understand that, which makes, again, sense. If you’re going to download an investing app, there’s an assumption, you know what an annuity is, all of those things.”
Martinez said it was fine for people who know the terminology and lingo associated with sports betting to engage in the activity. But for those who don’t, how does the sports betting industry reach them?
Brooks says it’s a tricky question, one that she does not have an answer for. But the data that is generated by female sports bettor and igaming users may reveal information that leads to increased use.
“I think a lot of the data is underutilized in a lot of our organizations,” Brooks said. “I talk about data, quantitative and qualitative data, so tracking user behavior, what really resonates with them, and then, obviously doing qualitative surveys and different things for those specific audiences. Because even qualitative capture data in the betting realm and the casino realm tends to be quite biased. It’s not taking into account those new opportunity users.”
Martinez said that is notably difficult to get women who are slot players to wager on sports. The immediate gratification that comes from a slot machine is not like the patience required by wagering on the outcome of a contest.
“The casino player will translate better into micro betting,” Martinez said. “It’s immediate. I think the transition will be easier.
“And when you come to sports vectors stats say, for example, 20 percent of women are frequent purchasers of data analytics compared to 15 percent of men. You have more rational betting among women, that factors into blackjack and poker, which are more number driven.”
