How Will Smart Stadiums Affect Live Sports Betting

We like to talk about how online gambling is continuously evolving on GOSUBETTING and how the sports betting sphere is changing, adding new features and wagering possibilities year after year at internet sportsbooks. However, the sports realm is also morphing. It is not only the rules and competition formats that are transforming but also where contests take place.

Enter smart stadiums. What are smart stadiums? They are modern sports venues that use technology to enhance sports, the experience people can get when watching athletic contests. They do this by incorporating things like 5G connectivity, the Internet of Things, novel ticketing practices, AR tech, and more. Today, top NFL and European football arenas are not only places where athletic competitions happen; they are entertainment hubs that can change and have various ways to collect customer data that operators can use to make things more engaging for visitors.

Smart stadiums are equipped with high-tech sensors that analyze player performances and churn out advanced statistics. They can give this data to fans via in-venue screens, apps, or AR devices. This creates a super-informative viewing experience, and visitors have top analytics at their fingertips, understanding precisely what is happening on the field, who is dominating, and why. Through AR headsets, holographic replays are assumed to be next on deck, and we think that some venues have dabbled in giving fans the ability to interact with virtual mascots. Personalized content, such as customized insights, should also be on the table, which leads to tailored betting suggestions. Because of this and these stadiums’ terrific connectivity infrastructure, thanks to 5G and Wi-Fi 6 networks, this opens the topic of how such arenas will and are affecting live betting for those in them during games. That is what we are exploring here.

What Are Some Smart Stadiums?

Before we get to opening the promised can of worms, let us tell you about some famed stadiums that have earned the label – smart.

We kick off with the home of the San Francisco 49ers, Levi’s Stadium. Found in Santa Clara, California, this venue opened its doors in July 2014, and construction on it began two years prior, which cost $1.67 billion in today’s money. It has over 1,700 high-tech Bluetooth beacons and 1,200 Wi-Fi access points, offering 40 GB per second of bandwidth. For 49ers games, fans of this team can use a dedicated app that offers things like venue navigation, in-seat delivery, live streaming, and so much more. For example, if you are at Levi’s Stadium and need to go to the bathroom, this piece of mobile software will tell you the shortest route to the bathroom with the shortest line closest to you. It will tell you about good parking spots, and Levi’s has the latest cameras placed throughout that capture game data, broadcasting it to the stadium’s over 2,000 screens or to various apps.

Believe us, we can talk a lot more about Levi’s Stadium, but we do not want to waste too much article space, so we will move on to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the home of the EPL club of the same name, which moved here in 2019 from their previous legendary home, White Hart Lane. This £1 billion complex that seats over 62,000 people has a retractable football pitch that gets replaced with a synthetic NFL turf. It, too, has the expected 5G and vast Wi-Fi capabilities, featuring one of Europe’s most massive HD screens. According to Tottenham Hotspur’s management, this venue has more data sources than any other on the planet. It has the same app options as Levi’s Stadium and loads of modern tech. It boasts HPE Data Center Facilities, storage solutions like HPE Apollo and 3PAR systems, intelligent management software like Aruba AirWave, and is an overall technological powerhouse in the sports landscape like no other.

Well, maybe Qatar’s Education City Stadium, built for the 2022 World Cup, will give it a run for its money and probably surpass it in many areas, as it has cutting-edge solar cooling systems and various data capture tech.

How Smart Stadiums Can Enhance Live Betting

They offer unprecedented interactivity and immersion. Their analytics systems can study various game nuances, processing these and delivering them to fans, who can use them to make educated decisions on how they should wager on upcoming plays. This can help significantly in micro-betting, which we discussed in a previous guide. The real-time data stadiums can supply much-needed info for granular wagering markets. These are gambles on specific moments, like an upcoming penalty kick.

Moreover, the boosted Wi-Fi connectivity that smart stadiums have helps with some of the challenges people have in getting a mobile signal and internet access at a crowded +60,000 stadium. That occurs because thousands of devices in a nearby area overload the nearest cell tower, creating congestion and leading to lowered connectivity. A high density of devices also creates radio frequency interference. Naturally, you do not want to gamble at your favorite online sportsbook using public Wi-Fi, but you can do so safely with a decent VPN service. Modern stadiums also have distributed antenna systems that spread the signal load, which evenly distributes cell traffic for better connectivity. Therefore, fans at such a venue can gamble with no problems on their phones in in-play markets.

When you are at a stadium, you also do not have to worry about sportsbook misinformation, which can sometimes happen, as no one is perfect, and sports data providers can make mistakes, which can lead to void wagers. Since you are right there as the action unfolds, you know exactly what is occurring as it is happening before your eyes.

In the future, AR will probably sizably modify the betting experience, and you will be able to watch in-person contests with live betting odds and key stats popping up in view on your AR glasses. We assume that things like player fatigue levels will be a thing soon, which will give you a good idea of how the flow of a game may develop.

Challenges & the Future of Stadium Betting

Data security is the number one concern, as many people gambling over Wi-Fi from the same spot will attract hackers who will aim to steal financial data. So, these venues and gambling operators must educate bettors on best security practices, and smart stadiums must ensure they maintain a reliable connectivity infrastructure, which may not be so easy when serving thousands upon thousands of people.

We are sure that many will fear that the level of immersion smart stadiums, and even regular stadium betting, can provide will generate higher instances of compulsive gambling for those who engage in it.

We also have no doubt that machine learning algorithms will create personalized, predictive models for tailored betting advice and that things like community betting pools, interactive fan challenges, and the gamification of live betting will take center stage at smart stadiums. Crypto gambling may also rise, as blockchain appeals to tech-savvy individuals who are also likely to get wowed by smart stadium technology. So, look for a convergence of AI, blockchain, and fan-focused innovations concerning how smart stadium betting will get shaped going forward.  

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