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Gambling kingpin to debut online sports betting technology

September 29, 2011 by
IGT Logo

IGT technology enables reliable sports wagering on mobile devices

In a blockbuster announcement,  International Game Technology said Thursday Sept. 29 that it will debut online and mobile gaming offerings next week, including a sports betting platform.

The announcement is another step toward legal sports betting on mobile devices in the United States, and IGT’s announcement is a promising sign that legal sports betting can play a major part in U.S. economic recovery and domestic dot.com innovation.

Headquarted in San Francisco, IGT is a leader in the manufacturer and marketing of slot machines and other electronic gaming equipment. IGT is also a major employer in Reno, Nev. and Las Vegas – two cities hardest hit by the 2008 economic meltdown.

In May, IGT made a $115 million deal to purchase Entraction Holding, developer of the content management, payment and fraud protection services necessary to provide a reliable platform for wagering using smartphones and iPhones.  Initially, IGT is expected to test the waters with multi-player poker networks based on the Entraction platform, but today’s announcement signals that it is ready to provide sports book operators with the information technology infrastructure necessary to provide proposition sports betting via mobile devices.

In 2010, the legal sports handle in the United States through Nevada casinos was $2.7 billion. An estimated $98 billion annually in illegal sports betting is conducted in the United States annually, according to American Wagering Inc. senior vice president of business development and public affairs John English. Offshore casinos are widely known to provide poor customer service and slow payouts.

As the Nevada economy and the United States economy have floundered, proponents of legal sports betting using mobile devices have argued that federal law hamstrings domestic competition and channels gambler dollars’ offshore. The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, passed by Congress in 1992, and the Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act, passed by Congress in 2006, are currently among the impediments to legal sports gaming on mobile devices and iPads throughout the United States.

Research firm Gartner Group estimated that global mobile gaming revenues would reach $5.6 billion in 2010, and $11.4 billion dollars by 2014.

IGT will demonstrate its mobile sports betting platform at the Global Gaming Expo on Oct. 4-6 in Las Vegas.

Filed Under: iPad, Uncategorized Tagged With:

Thursday Humor: Don’t Use Your Laptop in a Horse Trough

September 29, 2011 by

Screen shot of ESPNWatch TV ad with the cowboy in the horse trough -- note the disclaimer text.

Just some Thursday fun: While we’ve all seen the ESPNWatch TV ad multiple times now (the one with the cowboy watching a laptop in the horse trough) you have to look quickly to catch the witty disclaimer that runs across the bottom of the screen: “Do not attempt while bathing in horse trough.”

You might also add, good luck finding a cell tower out in the pasture. Or remember, you need to have an existing contract with Verizon, TimeWarner Cable or Bright House to actually use this cool app. But never mind all that. Today we just laugh.

Filed Under: ESPN, Live sports via mobile, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: ,

Social media blunder costs Tennessee high school football team three wins

September 28, 2011 by
Facebook Logo

MobileSportsReport.com identifies first sports social media blunder to costs a team victories

The Nashville Tennessean reported Wednesday that Perry County High has been forced to vacate three wins because of a parent’s Facebook blunder.

Although the incident does not involve a professional sports franchise or major college athletic program, it is significant. MobileSportsReport.com identifies this as the first known incident that information posted on a social media service cost a team victories. It underscores the increased scrutiny families of athletes are under, and how shared sports information is becoming an actionable part of the sports experience.

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) ruled that the Perry County High football team violated rules that call for the family of players to reside in the county where they attend school and play. Offensive linemen Rodney and Ryan Belasic transferred to Perry County High before the 2011 season, but their mother’s Facebook posts revealed that they are not full-time residents.

The mother wrote: ”How can two boys mess up their room as badly as they do when they’re only here on Saturday and Sunday?” That was enough to prove that rules were being broken in order to allow the two boys to play for a more competitive football program.

According to TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress, the Belasics’ mother provided enough information to prove that they were not in compliance with league rules, according to a Yahoo.com report. The Perry County High football team was 5-0 and on its way to a top seed in Tennessee’s smallest division, Class 1A, before the decision to take down the three victories was handed down.

 

 

Filed Under: Facebook, High School Football, Sports Social Media, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

The Ongoing Search: What’s the Best Mobile Play-by-Play Service for Football?

September 27, 2011 by

NFL 2011 mobile app, showing play by play. Good clear screen, detailed info.


There’s a whole lot of folks telling you that you can keep up on football games by using your mobile phone — but how well do the services actually work? In an ongoing search that will probably last all season long, your MSR crew (meaning me) will perform random acts of mobility, following NFL and college games via mobile to see if these services deliver, or if they fall incomplete.

Monday night my dinner-making grill-master duties coincided with the Monday night tilt between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, giving me a perfect chance to test out some of the mobile play-by-play services, like ESPN’s Gamecast, the NFL.com NFL 2011 app, and Sprint (my cell phone provider’s) Sprint Football app. The early verdict says: go with NFL 2011 as your starter, ESPN as your backup, and leave Sprint Football on the bench.

Though the NFL 2011 app has a little annoying banner ad at the bottom of the screen (the ESPN and Sprint services also have banner ads), its play-by-play updates are generally more informative than ESPN’s, giving it the edge in a basically even competition. Both services suffered from an annoying lag time between play posts — which, if your screen is set to go dark to save power like mine is, means you may occasionally have to hard refresh the device to keep the app alive. I’d buy a beer for the first service to add a simple “status” banner that could tell you something like “play under review” or “game in TV timeout” so that you aren’t stupidly staring at the screen waiting for an update.

The Sprint Football app. Basically unreadable, so bench this one in favor of other services.

I ruled out the Sprint app after less than a minute — though it might be informative it suffers from a too-cute design that uses a screen shot of a football field as a backdrop, making its white type illegible when you are looking at a post that blurs into the lines of the field on the drawing. Seriously, Sprint folks — does anyone there look at these things? You can’t read it. Change it, please.

Both the ESPN and the NFL app, which have sensible, clear backgrounds, both suffered mightily to keep up with a fast, complex play — like the interception thrown by Dallas QB Tony Romo in the first quarter that ended with a fumble out-of-bounds call that needed replay review. The play by play apps were no help, basically stalling and never getting around to explaining what happened — they just both picked up with Washington running plays in Dallas territory.

ESPN's Gamecast app, not live but even this wrapup shows the clear black-on-white format that works well.

Having access to a TV set just a few steps away from the barbecue gave me the ability to see how well the online apps were keeping up — and the answer was, not well at all. Both the ESPN and the NFL apps were at least three plays behind the live action; if you watch the Internet version of Gamecast on your PC you can even see that the Twitter stream embedded in the app usually has info that is ahead of the Gamecast info. If I ran either one of these operations I would strip them back down to make sure that the play by play is as close to live as possible. Remember, fans may be using this service as a replacement for the TV announcers who annoy us all. So you’ve got to be faster than they are now.

The bottom line — neither of the top two services is satisfying if you are doing nothing but concentrating on the screen, since they don’t stay “live” enough to hold your attention or keep your phone’s screen lit. I will keep looking to see if there are other services that concentrate solely on play by play, as well as trying to cobble together a Twitter stream to approximate play by play because Twitter is fast. We should have a Verizon phone in hand soon to test out the NFL Mobile app, and we have also heard that Yahoo has a pretty good service so we will look for that as well.

Anyone else out there figure this out? Chime in below in the comments.

(all photos credit: MSR.)

Filed Under: Android, Apps, ESPN, Live sports via mobile, Monday Night Football, NFL, Sprint Tagged With: , , , , ,

Sun Devils implement Fanatic Fans application at USC victory

September 26, 2011 by

Arizona State University (ASU) started promoting the use of smart phones for sports social media engagement at its 44-23 victory over USC on Saturday, and plans to continue the program at Oregon, Colorado and California home games.

Among other tactics aimed at driving smart phone use, ASU is running contests on its video boards during timeouts that allow attendees to participate in contests. The application involved is called Fanatic Fans, and it uses a check-in function similar to Foursquare. Once fans have checked in, their location is tracked and they are given the opportunity to interact with other fans at the game, or receive promotional offers based on stadium location.  

The ASU launch marks one of the most aggressive moves to date by a major college athletic program to mirror sports social media innovations occurring in the NFL, particularly at Miami Dolphins home games.

To make its smartphone strategy a reality, the Sun Devils partnered with location-based application developer Calibrus. This is another step toward widespread adoption of these types of applications at sporting events, which Mobile Sports Report expects the practice to be widespread by the end of 2013.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

MSR blows “Moneyball” prediction, but big hit still in offing

September 26, 2011 by

On Friday, Mobile Sports Report predicted “Moneyball” would surpass box-office predictions. We thought that Hollywood experts underestimated the power of the sports social media community, and figured that a box-office debut North of $23 million was in the offing. We were wrong.

“Moneyball” came in second to “The Lion King” in weekend box office, grossing $20.6 million over the weekend. According to the Wall Street Journal, 64% of the audience was over the age of 35 and almost evenly split by gender, with females making up the 49% of the audience.

But what’s $2.4 million among friends, anyway?

The opening was considered solid, and social media played a big part in the positive vibe the picture enjoys in its first full week of release. With the World Series coming up, and plenty of positive buzz surrounding the picture, Fox News is speculating that “Moneyball” could be the most successful baseball movie of all time.

And there was plenty of social media buzz around the picture, including this Tweet from “The Office” star Rainn Wilson:

“I call my left one ‘Moneyball’ ”

(Of course, Mobile Sports Report and its followers know enough not to take sports social media too seriously, even if we made it perfectly clear for the world to see on Friday that our box-office prediction skills leave something to be desired, so we tweeted @rainnwilson today: “I call my left one Rainn Wilson.” More on “Moneyball” as this story continues to develop.

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized
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