Is betting social?

I was asked my opinion about an article written recently by Ruud Verdellen (an old Betfair collegue) for E Gaming Review. I thought the topic was interesting so I decided to post my response here:


"I think there is both social and non-social forms of betting and that the same customers can engage in both. I think sharing betting data is actually a different issue only loosely related to social betting, e.g. people might want to share betting data because they run a tipster service. For me social betting is entering into a bet which involves your friends.

The key is to build product to be social from the ground up, not build a betting product and tack on social at the end. Building a social experience and tacking betting on the end might work but I don’t think anybody has tried it.

The other issue is making money from social betting. For me social sports betting is based around major events and leads to small infrequent bets. Also, if you build your ‘game’ around the Premiership season ,e.g. lastfan.com what happens to your P+L during the 4 month summer break.

On the issue of sharing betting data. I would happily share data if either I did it in retrospect, e.g. I have had a good run and I want to brag. Or, I knowingly enter a bet which is public, e.g. I enter a fixed duration betting tournament with a leaderboard."

When I think about this question I remember days at the track with gangs of friends, evenings at the dogs with colleagues or nights in the casino with friends. Of course betting can be social! However, you go into these scenarios expecting it to be social and actually being social is the primary reason for taking part in the first place. Betting just adds spice to the mix.