In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Becky Liggero, Werner Becher of Interwetten shares his thoughts about the future and the future of sports gambling.
Successful businessmen always wonder what lies ahead of them. They try to predict what will be the latest trends in sports, fashion, and even gaming.
Having foresight enables these businessmen to either make the necessary adjustments to take the risk in front of them or take a back seat and wait for the right opportunity.
In ten years, Werner Becher of Interwetten is already preparing for a world without smartphones and tablets. He predicts that only wearables will be the sole connection of humans to the internet.
Becher also is bracing for rising license costs for sports rights in the coming years, which he said will greatly affect the operation of sports betting operators worldwide.
Data protection and privacy, according to Becher, will no longer be an issue ten years from now since everyone will freely publish all information.
“No one will use the smartphone or tablet anymore. So the displace of the user interfaces will get smaller and smaller. In 10 years, only wearables will be the connection to the internet. I think that will be the big thing in the next years, how to change the usability for these very small devices,” Becher told CalvinAyre.com. “I think the license costs for sports rights will increase dramatically. Not only ATP Tennis, but also every single football league, every kind of sports will require to pay a lot of money to them from our side.”
The future may sound a bit exciting but Becher warned that most sports betting companies will be caught off guard by these changes due to the lack of their desire to innovate.
He lamented that many operators rely on outsourced products instead of coming up with their own technologies. Worse, Becher sees no real innovation in the industry at present.
“So the industry are discussing the lack of innovation. For most companies, it is even not possible to be innovative as they’ve already outsourced everything,” Becher said. “If you are not the owner of your own technology, if you don’t have the chance to develop your own technology, how are you going to be innovative? So, for me, it is very important to have my own sportsbook, to have prototypes, to develop all my innovation in-house.”
