The NBA is making it easier for bettors to find live betting opportunities right within the NBA League Pass app.
With the legalization and expansion of sports betting, emerging trends in streaming content integration, and professional leagues embracing sportsbooks as partners, it was only a matter of time before we began to see products that allow users to watch and bet on a game simultaneously.
On Tuesday, the NBA and Sportradar announced a first-of-its-kind endeavor, bringing the integration of betting elements to the NBA League Pass app to provide bettors an opportunity to see live odds alongside streams of the game and make it easier to place live wagers. The initiative makes use of Sportradar's EmBet platform.
In the app, fans can watch NBA streams of League Pass games with live odds provided by DraftKings and FanDuel. While fans can't bet within the app itself (yet), it provides links to specific bets relevant to the game during the stream: spread, totals, and props.
From the league's official release:
“emBET is an exciting innovation for NBA fans, making in-play betting more engaging and immersive,” said Patrick Mostboeck, Sportradar Senior Vice President of Audiovisual. “Through our exclusive partnership with the NBA, we’re committed to develop next-generation, value-
added products and services, like emBET, to drive fan and bettor engagement.”“Integrating emBET is consistent with the NBA’s vision to create hyper-personalized and customized viewing experiences within NBA games,” said Scott Kaufman-Ross, NBA Executive Vice President of Media and Gaming. “For NBA fans who want to wager on our games during live action, they can now elect to receive contextualized betting information directly on NBA League Pass.”
The app will also feature trivia and stats provided by Sportsradar. In the initial offering, "lightning bets" regarding next scorer or next field goal attempt for a player won't be available, but with DraftKings an active live-prop partner, you can count on offerings on live props as players go off for big games.
The new app will be available on an opt-in basis so not every fan will be sorting through spreads and totals.
The biggest questions of course are about how smooth the integration process with DraftKings and FanDuel will be, and of course the dreaded latency issue that affects most of streaming, where the stream is often a minute or more behind the game itself in real time.
But this opens the door in time to allow for bettors to bet right alongside the stream on their TV or mobile device, reducing the time in-between deciding to bet and getting the betting slip purchased. It will also be interesting to see those opportunities evolve alongside the NBA's BetStream which is a betting-centric stream of the game with commentary focused on in-game and futures betting.
The NBA remains forward thinking when it comes to giving bettors opportunities and the new emBet feature represents a big step forward in making better streaming products for bettors.
