The events of sports would seem to be immutable: a goal was scored, an ace was served, a shot was taken, a tackle was made. Who records that result into a data point, and how they do it, however, is a contentious issue now percolating through the burgeoning U.S. betting landscape.
Whether bookmakers and betting operators are required to rely on official data sources is a question whose ramifications may run into billions of dollars as in-play betting in the U.S. grows.
“We have to ensure that the data that gets produced is accurate and becomes effectively fact,” said Adrian Ford, Football DataCo’s general manager. “I think this is a key issue here about official data—it is the facts.”
Ford was one of several speakers to discuss the topic among the panels at the Hashtag Sports conference in New York City earlier this week. His company is both wholly owned by and the official data provider for the English Premier League, the Football League (which governs England’s second, third, and fourth tiers), and the Scottish Premier League. He and others are advocating that official data be used to minimize the risk of betting manipulation. For the leagues and partners, official data may also become a revenue stream.
Football DataCo won a landmark case in 2013 when the English Court of Appeal affirmed protections for this data stream. The ruling deemed the company’s Football Live product, which compiles and disseminates live stats, to be protected as a sui generis (unique) database as established by a 1996 European Parliament directive. The considerable expense involved “clearly justifies” the protection, wrote Sir Robin Jacob, the lord justice who authored that opinion.
Legal precedent suggests there’s a continental divide between Europe and North America. A prior 2007 Eighth Circuit decision in the U.S. ruled the other way, granting fantasy baseball company CBC the right to use the names of stats of MLB players without a license: “The information used in CBC’s fantasy baseball games is all readily available in the public domain, and it would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone.”
But not all data—and not all facts—are equal. Nevada’s casinos have been operating without official data, but some estimate that only two percent of all its sports wagers are in-play. William Hill’s U.S. sports book is a leader in the space, with in-play accounting for 22 percent of its handle in 2017, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Still, that’s a far cry from the 70 percent in-play figure in Europe. Those are bets on smaller portions of the game, such as who will score the next goal, or on revised odds for the final outcome based on how the match started.
A recent report from independent research firm GamblingCompliance noted that legal precedent does not consider sports statistics to be copyrighted or owned by the leagues, “but sports leagues may argue that different circumstances apply in the case of real-time data feeds for in-play wagering, in part to ensure that consumers cannot bet on plays that have already occurred. Betting operators, for their part, have argued they are willing to pay for official data under the right circumstances, but that such agreements should be negotiated privately rather than enforced by legal mandate.”
“The speed and the accuracy of the data underpins the market itself and protects the integrity of the sporting competitions,” said Genius Sports’ chief communications officer, Christopher Dougan. “Right now, there is a battle—a data war going on out there in the U.S. across the states—between those that believe that data should be protected and it should be mandated by the sports that they deliver this official data, this fuel that runs the engine of sports betting. And those out there that believe it’s everybody’s property and anyone can get in and capture data at a sporting event.”
The operation of a live-betting schema requires fast, reliable collection of data. Sports leagues and official data partners are advocating for legal protections—at least in part to ensure receiving some sort of royalty or cut of the betting pool. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred recently said bookmakers are “free-riding” on the sports, arguing that its gameplay is “our intellectual property.”
New York and Missouri are states that have discussed requiring the use of official data, although neither has passed legislation yet. The American Gaming Association wrote to Congress saying data contracts should be between sporting bodies and gaming companies; the AGA said “the gaming industry will vigorously oppose efforts to use federal or state legislation to set basic business terms.”
Kenny Gersh, MLB EVP of advanced media business, said that the league already has all the cameras, radars, and personnel to track everything happening on the field. Baseball, he said, could be “perfect” for sports betting because of its series of independent events. Each pitch, at bat, inning, etc., can be isolated and potentially wagered upon.
“Why we think using the official data is so important is that, while you’re betting within those discrete events, we think it’s fairly indisputable that we’re in the best position to collect that data and deliver it,” Gersh said, adding that companies would be free to innovate on that foundation.
At the time of the Football DataCo case, the process for tabulating statistics was that a football analyst (FBA) would report an event to the sports information processor (SIP), who then inputted the statistic into the database. As Jacob wrote, “Only a metaphysicist would say a goal is not scored until the FBA tells the SIP that it has been scored.”
Indeed, some argue the provenance of the data is important. The head of Perform Group’s integrity services, Jake Marsh, emphasized security of the whole data chain—both the people and the technology involved.
“Where and how the data is captured and distributed matters,” Dougan said. “Who owns that capture system and how it travels to the market matters.”
Some data is now natively digital—gleaned from the radars, optical tracking cameras, and RFID chips. What those devices produce could be wagered upon or at least could inform oddsmakers. That alleviates some possible interference and creates a proprietary data set with a new frontier of information.
“What we see that really makes a difference is what we call tracking data,” said Sportradar U.S. deputy president Laila Mintas, giving the NFL’s Zebra tracking data as an example. “We have the x, y, and z coordinates of the game in real time. This is data we can play around with, and nobody else has.”
PGA Tour assistant general counsel David Miller, who oversees the association’s gaming policy, gave another example. The Tour collects 22 data points for every golf shot, some of which originates from the use of a rangefinder laser. Miller said there is an opportunity for shot-by-shot betting, potentially drawing on the laser coordinates for such live bets as “on which quadrant of the green will a player’s chip shot land.” The PGA has joined MLB and the NBA in seeking the requirement that betting markets use official data.
More bookmakers are integrating advanced analytics into their offerings. Perform Group offers two soccer data sets: RunningBall, fast delivery of basic data, and also Opta, richer tracking data.
“Traditionally, they’ve been divided into betting and media—Opta for media, RunningBall for betting,” said Perform Group’s EVP of business development, Matt Drew. “Increasingly, those lines are blurring. They’re coming together. Betting operators want deeper data.”
DraftKings is a daily fantasy sports operator that has partnered with Resorts Atlantic City to offer sports betting in New Jersey. The company produces its games through official data partners such as Opta and STATS LLC.
“We like being partners with people who have the official data that’s coming out of the league systems because it’s faster and it’s cleaner,” said DraftKings’ chief business officer, Ezra Kucharz.
Not only has the U.S. judicial system thus far protected sports statistics as existing in the public domain, but also other considerations must be vetted. Mandating the use of official data gives the leagues extraordinary power to limit what data is shared and thus what bets are permitted. The NCAA, in theory, might be able to close the market on college sports. If leagues insist on too high of a data rights fee, the bookmakers likely will recoup that cost by taking a larger cut of bets. That, in turn, could make the already massive illegal betting market a more appealing option. Many bookmakers currently rely on data scouts inputting event data while watching games, often from third-party services.
“Unofficial data, when it’s gathered, may be the same facts, but it may not,” Ford said. “The reality is, when you start talking about sports betting, customer protection, and accuracy, having one source that is the facts is tremendously important.”