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Credit: NHL
The NHL on Monday announced it has entered into its first sports-betting partnership, inking a multiyear agreement to provide MGM Resorts International with proprietary data for use in wagering on hockey games.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and MGM Resorts Chairman and CEO James Murren made the announcement today at a press event in Manhattan. "This strategic alliance will enable MGM to have access to advanced game data, which is being developed as we speak," Bettman said.
The NHL's development of real-time game has been accelerated by a new system designed to track the positioning of the players and the movements of the puck on the ice. Integrating the puck-produced data with a live-streaming platform will facilitate the development of in-game advertising.
While the embedded puck-in-play technology is not entirely operational-the NHL hopes to have the tracking system up and running the 2019-20 season-is expected to furnish the real-time data that MGM would use to generate odds and probabilities on the fly.
That the NHL is getting into bed with a sports-betting operation is a departure for Bettman, who has been outspoken in his opposition to gambling. In a 2012 New Jersey sports-gambling case that is more likely to be the basis for the Supreme Court's decision than allowed to go ahead to legalize gambling, Bettman said that the NHL was "concerned with how to gamble …" the perception of and challenges the integrity of the game. " He went on to say that "the atmosphere we want people to feel part of [at NHL games] is inconsistent with sports betting. "
But the Supreme Court's ruling does not prevent any anti-gambling stance to a non-starter, but it would not be enough to leave the door behind the table. Like it or not, the legalization of the United States of America, and any league that tries to ignore the cultural shift is not so at its own peril.
Of course, Bettman's anti-wagering stance may have become a part of the NHL's newfound association with the city of Las Vegas. Last season, the Golden Knights Vegas became the first major franchise in Sin City; So successful was the team's inaugural year on the Strip that made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final.
As it happens, MGM Resorts is the co-owner of T-Mobile Arena, the Golden Knights' home venue. But as Bettman noted this afternoon, MGM was "in many ways already part of the NHL family" before the gambling partnership was secured.
For more information on the subject, visit the website: http://www.wikipedia.org Bettman himself has wondered aloud about that. Speaking at a summit of pro sports league commisioners back in July 2017, the NHL boss said that hockey is "a small part of the betting that goes on … Football, basketball, both at the pro and college levels, is where, I don 't know, 98 percent of the betting goes on. "
Even the most degenerate gamblers will tell you that it's a last resort, something that action junkies lean on when there's nothing else to wager on. (Case in point: In its monthly recitals, the Nevada Gaming Control Board and its other single silos.) But data-enabled in -game bets could change all that. According to a Nielsen study commissioned by the American Gaming Association, legal sports wagering may generate as much as $ 216 million in annual revenue for the NHL.
The deal marks MGM's second alliance with a major U.S. sports league. On July 31, the heels of the Supreme Court ruling, the NBA became the first league to name MGM Resorts and its official betting partner. As is the case with the NBA, the NHL's deal with MGM Resorts is not exclusive, which means that rival gaming operations may look to work out similar arrangements with the league should they so desire.
Along with the above mentioned in-game data, the NHL-MGM deal also allows the gambling colossus to leverage the NHL's intellectual property, including the league and 31 team logos, for use in marketing and promotions.
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