How Smartphones are Transforming Sports Betting

By Hank Blaine • August 31, 2023

In the past decade, mobile betting has gone from something some of us do to close to one hundred percent adoption. Although mobile betting doesn’t happen for every sport bet, it’s getting to the point where the one-hundred percent mark is in our sights. Almost every sports handicapper bets via their smartphones. Check out why this is true and why we will never return to the days of desktop gambling.

Why Making Sports Bets Via Our Mobile Phones is the Standard

Smartphone technology allows for a better mobile betting experience

When Steve Jobs and Apple came out with the first iPhone, many had reservations. Some wondered how a phone without a keyboard, RIM’s Blackberry was the smartphone of choice, could survive.

But the iPhone changed the world. It did so because it was more advanced in terms of graphics and user experience than the Blackberry.

If we trace the numbers of sports bettors to adopt mobile betting, we can pretty much draw the same line as the number of people on the planet who adopted the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy series of smartphones.

So the more advanced smartphones became, the more sports bettors started making bets on their mobile phones.

Mobile betting means we can place wagers anywhere and at any time

One of the greatest smartphone advantages is how convenient it is. We can communicate, check our stock portfolios, pay bills, and do everything required in life, well, almost everything, via our smartphones.

Convenience when it comes to sports betting is extremely important. Many of us no longer have desktops. Also, we don’t spend time at home. We did during the pandemic, but nowadays, we prefer to watch games with friends.

Mobile betting allows us to make wagers while we’re out and about. We aren’t beholden to location or even time of day. We can wager when we want, no matter where we are.

Fast Internet connectivity allows sports bettors to never miss a bet

Internet connectivity speeds are much better now than when Apple came out with the first iPhone. Connectivity speeds, and Wi-Fi access in most places, means that as a sports bettor, we will never miss a wager.

Wi-Fi access is important enough to spend some time discussing. Most establishments offer free Wi-Fi. Because sports betting has become more mainstream, most establishments no longer dissuade us from making sports wagers via our mobile phones.

This wasn’t true a decade ago. If you tried to use your phone to bet at the racetrack, as an example, someone would say phone betting was off limits. But that’s not the case in 2023.

Since we access news and odds via our phones, we save handicapping time

Mobile betting doesn’t just mean betting. It also means handicapping games and doing all the workaround handicapping games like checking injury reports, creating personal lines, studying offenses and defenses, and considering whether the team you wish to bet on offers overlay or underlay odds.

We complete all the tasks surrounding mobile betting, the handicapping aspects of sports betting, via our mobile phones. This saves us handicapping time, which means we can search for and discover more overlay bets.

The beauty of mobile betting is that the handicapping aspects, the search for overlays, remains the goal when we bet on sports. The goal remains the same, but our smartphones enable us to reach the goal more efficiently and effectively.

Our mobile phones have become an extension of us

This may be the most relevant reason mobile betting has become the standard. Smartphones have become a commodity. Actually, smartphones have become more than a commodity.

Our mobile phones are an extension of us. They are a limb, a part of our brains that we attach to the end of one of our hands. We detach when we don’t require it, but then we reattach when we do.

If you don’t believe the statement, think about how often your smartphone is in your hand. Because our mobile phones have become an extension of us, it’s natural that we would bet on sports via our phones, the same way we send emails, check out the latest news, communicate with friends, or post to X and Instagram.