Historically, gaming and gambling have been considered very different activities. Gambling was largely a skill-based, free activity, while gambling was a casual activity in which the player had to invest money to win money.

But according to research by scientists Dr Daniel L King and Dr Philippa Calado, these differences have diminished over the past decade. Social networks offer social games that are traditionally gambling, such as slot machines, poker and roulette. While these games can be played for free, they encourage players to make in-game purchases for money in order to increase the performance of the game.

The change that tore a hole in the wall between iGaming (online gaming) and gambling was the Supreme Court's 2018 decision to repeal the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, a 1992 law that banned most state-authorised sports betting outside of Nevada. .

Of course, technological advances have also had an impact on narrowing the gap between iGaming and gambling. When the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was passed by both houses of Congress and went into effect in 1992, pundits and geeks used the Internet to communicate. Tim Berners-Lee didn't invent Word Wide Web until 1989 and wrote the first web browser in 1990 for desktop computers. Technologically, that was many years ago compared to today, when more than 80% of sports betting revenue in the US comes from mobile devices.
In the three years since the Supreme Court opened up sports betting in the US, 26 states have legalised sports betting and five more are expected to do so by early 2022.

One of the reasons the legalisation of sports betting has marked the line between iGaming and gambling is that Americans now bet on games they grew up playing, such as football, baseball and basketball, rather than games played in casinos, such as Frank und Fred Casino. According to the American Gaming Association, 45 million Americans plan to bet on the National Football League (NFL) this season, a 36% increase on last year. In addition, leading sports brands such as ESPN are considering licensing their brand to betting companies.Another reason is the growth of cybersports, which has been driven by the explosion in streaming through platforms such as Twitch as well as YouTube, Facebook Gaming, Caffeine, Owncast, Mobcrush and Steam TV. Cybersport attracts a younger audience, who look forward to digital natives like themselves, who are not top athletes, playing online. And even older people are excited about the gaming dynamics of live cybersport, making it one of the fastest-growing segments in both iGaming and gambling today.

Another reason has to do with the device. While historically (until the 1990s) gambling took place in a casino or physical place designed for gambling, today both iGaming and gambling predominantly take place on our mobile devices or PCs.

With the availability of sports betting in cybersports, these classic computer games blur the line between iGaming and gambling, allowing people to gamble. A teenager who grows up playing Fortnite is more likely to start betting on Fortnite than other sports because she understands the dynamics of the game and is interested in Fortnite. This trend has helped make Twitch, which specializes in streaming live video games, the hub of betting on Twitch.

With many users playing games with their friends, another sports betting data point has to do with the intersection between iGaming and gambling. According to the American Gaming Association, the most popular form of sports betting for Americans remains doing it casually with friends, with 21.7 million people expected to do so this year, an increase of 31%.

Thanks to the growth of sports betting and the fact that many people in their twenties and thirties who grew up with iGaming can now legally bet on sports, I expect that this demographic, who now have disposable income to bet, will seek more cross-pollination. between iGaming and gambling.

Omri is director of marketing at Zoomd, a website search engine for publishers and a mobile app user engagement platform integrated with most global digital media, for advertisers. Prior to Zoomd, Omri was co-founder and vice president of business development at mobile marketing provider Moblin before the release of the iPhone. Omri began his career in sales, marketing and business development at Microsoft.