Betting on Sports has been around as long as the sports themselves. The industry has changed drastically and we talk to one of the industries leading figures on what the future may hold.
In the offshore sports betting industry, Mickey Richardson has seen it all. Mickey currently runs BookMaker, one of a handful of industry-leading professional online sportsbooks around, and he's been party to the development and evolution of offshore sports betting from the pre-internet late 80s on through the 90s and the 2000s, as the industry became increasingly computerized and the market increasingly global.
He has seen the gambling industry expand and contract over the years in response to global economic swings, as well as to changes in US law and enforcement efforts.
In Part 1 of his interview with SBR.tv's Peter Loshak, Mickey weighs in with some recollections of the history of the industry, what changes he's seen over the years, and what the future may hold.
The future of the legal environment for sports betting in the US is a bit uncertain at the moment. The UIGEA rule implementation went into effect in June of 2010, but at the same time, there are various efforts from individual states as well as the House Financial Services Committee pushing the other way.
In the midst of that push and pull, the global sports betting industry is now seeing advances and innovation in many new areas including live in-game wagering and mobile applications, to name just two.
It's a complex mix of technology, globalization, and legal pressures. Some aspects of the sports betting industry change rapidly, others never change, and few people have had a better vantage point to view it all than Mickey from Bookmaker.
Keep an eye out for Part 2, where Mickey gives a glimpse behind the scenes of the day-to-day operations at BookMaker, and then Part 3, where Mickey candidly addresses some pointed questions posed by posters from SBRForum.com. The Forum is for sports bettors and is full of conversations and useful information on internet gambling, take a look at the hot topics on the Sportsbooks industry.