GeoComply Report: Betting While At NFL Games Soaring So Far This Season
According to the geolocation company, some 13.5% of fans at Soldier Field have opened up their sportsbook apps while at the game
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Fans of “da Bears” are known to be rabid in their support for the Chicago football team and, as it turns out, da Bears fans are using da sportsbook apps at pretty remarkable rates while enjoying games at Soldier Field this season.
According to a GeoComply report, more than one in eight Soldier Field game day attendees — 13.5% to be exact — are using sportsbook apps while at the game.
Meanwhile, the stadium faithful who have seen the biggest percentage increase in sportsbook use while at the game are fans at MetLife Stadium, the New Jersey home of the New York Giants and New York Jets. Use there has spiked to over 9,500 people, on average, engaging with a sportsbook app while at the game, up from around 6,700 people during last season’s games.
GeoComply, which is the geolocation supplier for many of America’s legalized online sportsbooks, bases these — and other numbers — on “aggregated geolocation transactions and other aggregated data from a sample of its online sportsbook customers in regulated US states,” per a press release.
Some other findings from the first month of the NFL season, courtesy of GeoComply, include:
Carolina boost: Thanks in part to North Carolina experiencing its first season of legalized NFL betting, active accounts across America have grown by 23% compared to the first four weeks of last season, and there have been 2.6 million new accounts registered over the last four weeks.
Friday night lights: Thanks in almost all part to the NFL having a Friday night game in Brazil between the Eagles and Packers in Week 1, geolocation checks spiked some 60% on that Friday compared to the Friday a year previous.
Retention, hut: Some 64% of users who were active during Super Bowl LVIII were active at some point during the first month of the NFL season.
Pats on the back
But GeoComply does a bit more than just give us interesting betting stats; it also serves as an industry watchdog of sorts (if even too overzealous in that at times). For instance:
Bonus abuse: In the first month of the season, GeoComply alerted sportsbooks to “thousands” of instances where devices were being used to multi-account, often to exploit sign-up bonuses. GeoComply estimates they have saved sportsbooks “millions of dollars in potential bonus abuse.”
Chargeback watch: Chargeback abuse — where a player would attempt to get his legitimate losses back through their bank, though it’s also common in other industries — is also an issue in the sports betting space. Customers of GeoComply can help combat it using the precise geolocation data. GeoComply says their customers can use the “Chargeback Integrator to effectively challenge fraudulent chargeback claims. They can expect to achieve win rates of up to 76-90%, well above the market average.”
Speed demon: Lastly, GeoComply claims their geolocation checks take 700 milliseconds, claiming their competitors can take up to “several seconds.” Speed counts, especially for live betting. Just ask da Bears fans.
