Sportsbooks and sports leagues are forming new partnerships to enhance oddsmaking and live betting. These arrangements typically include licensed use of official data and league logos/branding in sportsbook advertising. These partnerships benefit both parties. Sportsbooks receive name-brand recognition and additional data to support their prop betting offerings while the leagues collect revenue from license fees from operators for the data.
The NFL has taken a different approach to protecting its integrity, increasing in-house technology, dedicating security staff and partnering with sportsbooks and integrity firms to monitor betting markets and identify improper bets. The result is a system that monitors every bet on its events and identifies the location, type and amounts of wagers on them. This system gives the league visibility of where and when bets are placed on its games, providing the best chance to catch offenders.
In other states, the leagues are seeking to control a bigger slice of the sports betting pie. They want a role as primary stakeholders in US sports betting, and they’re also seeking to profit from it, ideally through a direct share of the total amount wagered. If that’s not possible, they support a mechanism allowing them to monetize their data, and that quest has led to the proliferation of official data mandates in state laws.
The NHL has taken a similar approach, but its rules are more specific. The league’s collective bargaining agreement bars players and those working for the team or league from gambling on any NHL game. The only exception is when sports betting is legal where the player is located. The NHL has also penalized players and team officials who have gambled while at a team or league facility, with some receiving one-year suspensions.