📖 The Betting Bar (Idea #2)

⚾The Elevator Pitch

A TV add-on (either physical device or frame-altering software) that edits the frame of the TV you are watching to show live betting odds on the bottom/side of the screen.

🤝Introduction

For better or worse, online sports betting has expanded into 25+ states across America since the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the federal ban on such activities. Since then, individual states have slowly but surely brought sports betting back into the mainstream by allowing sportsbooks such as Fanduel and Draftkings to operate within their boundaries.

We are not here to debate the pros and cons of the sports gambling industry. Instead, we will view the sports betting industry as a burgeoning space where plenty of opportunity exists for the entrepreneur. The below idea encapsulates such an opportunity.

 💡The Idea

The typical viewing experience of live sports is as such:

Our idea is to provide either a physical attachment or software that changes the viewing experience for a sports gambler watching games on TV.

As a software, upon installation onto their smart TV, the software would shrink the normal viewing frame and allow for two bars to be added around the screen to show live sporting event odds and scores. A rough sketch can be seen below:

If the idea were made into a physical product, it could be attached on the bottom, side, or multiple sides of an existing TV, and it function the same way. Of course, one benefit of the physical version is that the TV frame size would not change.

👷The Work

Note, we will breakdown the product in two separate ways: as a hardware/physical device, as well as software/or as a TV application.

Hardware/Physical Version

While the software version of this idea would probably be more preferred, a physical version of the device would be easier to prototype. To start, you could leverage a Raspberry Pi and web scraping technology. Simply write a web-scraping script to retrieve live sports scores/odds, connect it to the raspberry pi, and connect the Raspberry Pi to a miniature screen via its board. Adjust the script to ensure that the data that is web-scraped is updated on a cadence (maybe every 30 seconds – 1 minute.)

Development of the hardware beyond this point would be an intense effort. A few things to keep in mind:

• TV sizes are different for everyone. Should you stick with a “one size fits all” approach or offer different size attachments?

• How would such a product “snap” or be fitted onto the TV? A simple version of this is using a clamp-like device, but there are definitely better options out there.

• How would the device receive live sports data? Each piece of hardware would require internet connectivity capabilities.

Software Version

As for the software version of this idea, it ultimately should be able to be installed on smart TVs via the TV’s app store (think about installing Netflix, etc.).

For prototyping the software version, we recommend first creating a Chrome Extension that pulls in live scores and odds data and can be pinned on your computer screen. This will validate your ability to pull live sports and odds data on a frequent basis.

To expand to a TV app, there is plenty of development guides for building such applications. The issue however, is that we are not trying to necessarily build a new app, but rather, something more like an add-on to the TV screen that changes the viewing experience.

I was able to find a cool technology that could mimic what we would like our software to do. It appears that this company works directly with broadcasting teams and their technology. But how could our software edit the viewing screen without that same direct access? Is it even possible? We discuss this more in the “Risks” section.

💸The Finances

Clearly this idea, either the software or hardware version, is not a simple “side-hustle” type of idea. This would take significant investment and manpower to create. In our opinion, such an idea would be best pursued with an outside investment in the $100k - $1 million range to get started, and it would make sense to raise more money as needed for development and eventual deployment.

While expenses are difficult to predict without better insight into the development process of this idea, we can look at the overall sports betting market to get an idea of how big this idea could be as a business:

• Market Size – Per Grand View Research, the US Sports Betting Market was estimated to be $13.76 billion in 2023, and is expected to compound annually at a 10.5% rate until 2030.

• While exact user numbers are not out, DraftKings had 1.9 million users in 2022 and has roughly a 30% market share.

  • From this, we can assume ~5 million sports gamblers that would be a part of our target audience, along with the roughly 1 million restaurants and bars that could implement this idea onto their TVs.

• Revenue Models:

  • Software Version – We’d recommend targeting a recurring monthly subscription model at a median price of $10-$15/month.

    • Grabbing 100,000 customers could get you to $18 million ARR.

    • You could also expand the offering and provide different pricing to businesses that may be using the software across multiple TVs.

  • Hardware Version – Target an initial purchase of the device (~$100 per TV) and then a small monthly ($5) or yearly ($60) charge to provide the continuous live information.

    • This model allows for larger revenue numbers but obviously comes with many more expenses (i.e. the cost to build each device and shipping).

Additional Ideas:

• For initial customer acquisition, the product could be showcased in places such as sports bars or places where games are heavily watched.

• Partner with Sports gambling companies such as FanDuel and DraftKings for promotions, or work with one of those companies to have their odds be the sole odds shown on the software/hardware screens.

👍The Good Stuff

• Emerging Market

• Sports Gambling without the Gambling - It would allow you to enter the sports betting industry without being focused on the outcome of wagers/picks.

• Unexplored Technology & Potential Expansion – Think of the applications of this technology beyond sports gambling (i.e. show stock prices or the news on every channel you watch)

• Robust offering – Few features are required for The Betting Bar to be successful (i.e. think ESPN’s “Bottom Line” and how simple it is)

👎The Risks

• The Technology – How will this be developed? The technology needs to be simple and accurate (you do not want to be providing inaccurate information to people)

• Integration Across all Platforms – Sports are watched on streaming services along with Cable TV. How can this be integrated on all platforms if it is the software version?

• High Development Costs

• Product Market Fit - Live odds and scores are easily found on Smartphones. Would an individual/business pay for this service given how accessible that data is?

📚For the Road

• How AI is changing the world of sports gambling

• 3 new sports gambling startups that are worth watching

• 20 cool android TV apps