One of the big egaming predictions for 2018 revolves around the football World Cup happening during the summer in Russia. The World Cup is always a massive spectacle and hugely popular with the billions of fans the game has across the globe. With the best players and teams on show and the sheer excitement involved, it is sure to have a knock-on effect on both the sport’s betting sector and egaming too.
As you would expect for such a global event, internet traffic always shows a big spike when the competition is running. This is mainly down to people checking out the latest news, watching the games themselves and finding out the most recent results.
To give concrete examples, the last World Cup in Brazil was expected to generate around 4.3 exabytes of internet traffic, which is the same amount that the entire country of Brazil usually generates in 3 months. In addition, Cisco reported that mobile traffic in stadiums during a game in the same World Cup was higher than the busy-hour traffic of the 94 million smartphone users in Brazil.
Of course, people placing bets also makes up a large part of this increase in internet traffic. With a global audience of 3.2 billion for the last World Cup, sports betting firms see a big rise in their revenue from some of these same fans having a flutter on their country to win.
It’s not just the World Cup that will impact eGaming in 2018 though. Other areas are predicted to have a big impact on the gambling industry, one of which are the arrival of recent new brands on the sportsbook market. New blood coming into the eGaming sector is expected to lead to even greater choice and value for the public, and in the case of local license territories, additional tax income for local governments.
It is also thought that 2018 could be the year that artificial intelligence is used more by sports betting companies. This kind of technology could see them use currently held data to personalise and mould the betting experience for each individual. An interesting side to this field is the use of voice technology to place bets, which many feel could come into place soon.
The final prediction for eGaming this coming year is that horse racing will make something of a comeback. In recent years, other sports such as football have eaten into its market share but 2018 could be the year it races back. Innovations such as a new UK Tote service and more international races being offered by bookmakers could lead to some interesting growth.
Whatever happens, 2018 is going to be quite an interesting year for eGaming!
