DraftKings has launched a new live-wagering tool, Flash Bet, to facilitate in-play wagering at Wimbledon. The new feature is exclusive to tennis for now.
Flash Bet replicates a ball’s movement back and forth across a court, adding details about each point. Each wager can be tracked within the app, and payouts are promised within seconds.
“Live wagering is already widely popular today, but also represents a crucial part of the customer experience and engagement tomorrow,” said Jordan Mendell, DraftKings SVP of product research and development, in a statement. “Short of playing on the court themselves, we are wholly invested in bringing our customers as close as possible to Wimbledon this year, while also giving them a taste of the lightning-quick innovations to come.”
SportTechie Takeaway
This is a key step toward replicating the European betting market in the U.S. Overseas, in-play wagering is estimated to account for 70-to-80 percent of all bets, and tennis has become an especially popular sport for that type of action. The multitude of discrete points, with sufficient time intervals in between, enable fans to bet on every event. The large inventory of matches at each tournament—not to mention the numerous men’s and women’s tournaments throughout most of the calendar year—provide ample fodder for bettors.
Ever since the Supreme Court overturned PASPA, sports betting insiders have predicted that the U.S. market will mirror the existing high volume of in-play wagering in Europe. DraftKings’ head of sportsbook digital, Jamie Shea, said in April that in-play wagering is currently around 40 percent of total handle in the U.S., with the expectation that figure will double within five years. Tools such as Flash Bet that make in-play bets more accessible to a U.S. consumer still learning about live wagering is a key step toward that benchmark.