It used to be that, for the most part, online sports betting and online casino gaming were two completely different activities to be enjoyed on different websites. Then, a couple of online sportsbooks started to offer a few video casino games like roulette and blackjack as well as instant win games like scratch cards. In recent years, the biggest online casinos have decided to enhance their offerings by including a sportsbook.
The move to create a sports-betting platform at online casinos has partially gone unnoticed by sports bettors who didn’t formerly have accounts with the websites. However, coming into the game later than the established online sports betting websites has given the online casinos an edge, allowing them to roll out state-of-the-art betting pages with a huge range of markets and very competitive odds.
Now, the online casinos that have integrated top-class sportsbooks are seeing an uptick in their player bases, with online bettors seemingly preferring sites that offer a wider selection instead of just one form of gambling, as well as benefiting from the many perks that come with betting on a new platform.
Moving to sports betting at the opportune time
Source: Leicester City, via Twitter
By 2016, the internet had become a fully integrated part of nearly everyone’s life, with the vast majority of websites having adapted to cater to mobile users via sites and mobile apps. At this time, the online betting scene looked to have reached a peak, offering a wide range of markets, often on user-friendly, cross-platform websites. The year also saw Leicester City surge to the top of the Premier League, eventually winning the competition to deliver record payouts for punters. So, it wasn’t difficult for online casinos to develop their own sportsbooks.
In 2016, the online casino Mr Green opted to launch its sportsbook to become a complete gambling provider and chose to go into a partnership with Kambi to offer a personalised sports betting experience. With a wide range of markets to compete with and even exceed some of the biggest names in sports betting, 2016 was the year that Mr Green muscled onto the scene.
Kambi managed to provide a state-of-the-art betting platform, which is still used to this day, which delivered a very user-friendly interface with all of the markets that players could want. This helped to expand Mr Green’s player base from its casino regulars to many other bettors from around the internet. Kambi went on to win the prestigious Sports Betting Supplier award at the EGR B2B Awards in 2017, breaking the seven-year win-streak of OpenBet in the category.
In 2017, Mr Green decided to enhance their online sports betting offering further by partnering with BettorLogic on the Kambi platform to offer unique in-play betting options to further establish itself as an innovative betting website – not just a casino with a betting section. Mr Green has also made the most of successful strategies used elsewhere, such as welcome offers, but went further with promotions such as Best Odds Guaranteed on big events, Mr Green Boosts, and Enhanced Accas.
Websites like Mr Green have evolved beyond merely offering a sportsbook to being able to compete sportsbook-to-sportsbook with established names. Having come onto the scene relatively late and wanting to be competitive, they’ve delivered an innovative platform that is filled with everything that online sports bettors could possibly need.