The Rowan Center for Responsible Leadership held a lecture last Monday on Online Sports Betting: Challenges and Opportunities Facing A ‘New’ Industry. The lecture included the history and future of the sports betting industry, featuring some of the top professionals on the scene.

Among these guests were Ed Andrewes, the CEO of Resorts Digital Gaming, Wayne Kimmel, who serves as a managing partner for SeventySix Capital, and Emma Richardson, counsel of White Hat Gaming.

Collectively, they thoroughly explained the industry’s humble origins and how it grew into the juggernaut of today. At the same time, they were quick to recognize the challenges posed by this innovative venture and demonstrated how these challenges are being met by various enterprises.

Andrewes traced the history of online gambling back to the early 1990s within the small island nation of Antigua and Barbuda. Naturally, they featured traditional casino games like Black Jack and Texas Hold ‘Em, allowing the first sites to become instant hits.

From there, success skyrocketed, and the popularity of using the Internet for gambling took the European and American landscapes by storm. Legislation was soon to follow, and more and more regions adopted the practice into law. 

The panel explained how eventually, the sports world became implicated in the movement, fully cementing the online gambling industry into mainstream acclaim.

For decades, Vegas had set the lines for events and made immense profit off of game results. But as Kimmel explained, those profits have become available to a wider variety of bettors thanks to the aforementioned ratification of legislation and regulations.

As a result of this trend, interest in sports has reached a historic high. With every play and moment impacting a bettor’s odds of winning, viewership has been gradually increasing across the world’s major sports, creating a mutually beneficial relationship between leagues and gambling enterprises. 

While this mutually beneficial relationship yields immense profit, protecting bettors is a top priority among online sportsbooks.

As Richardson described, a multitude of security measures have been put in place to safeguard the private information of sports bettors across the globe. Unlike traditional gambling, the nature of online sports betting requires sensitive information to reside on the Internet, which can be vulnerable to attacks at times. Having this data compromised is not an option, and online sportsbooks conduct daily investments with the intention of improving cyber security at every opportunity. 

As a whole, the lecture proved to be a thrilling success and provided essential insight into the innovations and developments within the online sports gambling industry. Through every historical milestone and obstacle along the way, the movement has consistently trended upwards and there is no end in sight. As it stands, it would be unwise to bet against online sports gambling.

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