Live Betting On Raikkonen Might Cause World To End

Live betting has become ubiquitous on sports gambling sites and whilst the provides previously unthinkable levels of participation for the punters at home the legal demands it places on sites trying to stream that coverage is being approached in the only way big business knows how, and that might well spell doom for the rest of us in a dark, grim future of fewer choices.

The internet has radically changed the entire process of gambling. The advent of megasites like Bet365 and regional players like ComeOn! have meant that where once there was a schlep to the local betting shop, there is now but a few mouse clicks between you and wagering opportunities unheard of just a couple of decades ago. The simplicity, security and service suddenly all improved vastly and the results are still unfolding with the introduction of live betting.

Live Betting Revolution

• Demand for more coverage
• Consolidation of ownership
• Dystopia future possible

Live betting has become a bit of a buzzword as more and more sites offer the opportunity to place bets not just prior to events, but during them as well. This has been made all the more interesting by not being limited to merely those sports held dear by your local country and culture, but extending to sports you’ve never heard of in places you couldn’t spot on an unmarked map. It’s a wonder of modern technology that those who like to bet on sports in Finland can bet on South African cricket matches.

However whilst the world of the information superhighway has revolutionized betting opportunities for the punters it has meant that there is ever more pressure on sports to provide a spectacle worth watching as the audience becomes truly international. Live betting presents a massive demand on sports coverage services to extend their current footprints across borders so people can watch the games and events they’ve bet upon on the gambling site of their choice.

Site’s Live Betting Pushes Technology Envelope

Sites streaming coverage of events to provide their live betting punters with up-to-the-second information is a glorious mixture of technology and desire, however this is still limited by the now anachronistic framework of legalese that divides the world by “television rights” and “contracted broadcasters” which are seemingly even less flexible than actual national boundaries are. Certainly individuals can work around these limitations, but sites can’t.

Live betting is not just breaking the boundaries of the old gambling world by showing how much better it can be done, but it is now putting an onus on the need for a more global attitude to sports coverage from the nationally based broadcasters. Unfortunately this expectation is being met by international capitalism with the sort of consolidation of ownership that will one day lead to our planet being run by a single corporation that hates us.

The big international pay-per-view broadcasters who are slowly gobbling up the rights to sports events years in advance have their own gambling websites, of course, and regardless of Finnish gambling laws if you want to watch certain sports as you participate in live betting on them it’ll be their sites you’ll have to use. This centralization is a slow process, there are some nations (the US) still not allowing online gambling remember, but it seems inexorable and just where does it all end?

Will Live Betting Break The Internet?

There is a danger of a dystopian future in which there is only one internet site, a massive sprawling conglomerate of information, social media and entertainment that rules our every click, owned by the sort of faceless 0.1% rich people that ought to be beheaded and have all their money given to refugees. It might sound like science fiction but just look how far we’ve come in just twenty years. Of course that won’t stop people gambling, but could you trust the only odds in town?

For myself I may have joined the 21st century by eschewing my local bookmakers for the internet to make betting on Formula One races and reading the gambling news easier for myself, but such a highly regulated option-devoid future doesn’t fill me with glee. Competition is important, and allowing live betting’s need for live coverage to scupper that via the back door is something we should all keep an eye on, which, frankly, might be more interesting than watching Formula One these days.

The Italian Grand Prix at Monza was another dull parade disguised as a race with the only real point of interest being the unluckiest man in the world, Kimi Raikkonen sitting on the grid as the lights went out and not moving an inch as if the Finnish police had immobilized his car. Qualify second, start the first lap dead last…..and then still come fifth anyway. Now doesn’t that just say everything about how much the cars not the drivers are important in F1, eh? Makes it a nerd-gambler’s delight in a bleak future.