Several mobile sports betting operators have notably emphasized product enhancements in recent months.
Barstool Sportsbook, which will be rebranded to ESPN BET later this fall, shifted its tech stack from Kambi to an in-house proprietary platform. Fanatics Sportsbook recently launched its fully operational sportsbook in multiple states after months of beta testing to develop what it believes is a competitive national product.
Add BetMGM to the list of operators leaning into improved product offerings, as the operator shared an enhanced mobile sports betting app ahead of Week 1 of the football season.
“We developed our state-of-the-art sports betting platform to feature a variety of ways sports fans can engage,” BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt said in a press release. “The next generation of the BetMGM app is a giant step forward in the sports betting experience, increasing the level of entertainment before, during and after games.”
Streamlined experience
BetMGM achieves the goal of streamlining a customer’s experience in a few ways, including the simple creation of a “Same-Game Parlay+” in a user’s bet slip.
Customers can create a same-game parlay, jump into another betting market, add wagers, and go to their bet slip to place the “Same-Game Parlay+.” The ease of parlay creation makes sense from BetMGM’s perspective, as many national operators have promoted parlay betting opportunities to increase their hold.
Additionally, BetMGM added intuitive drop-down menus throughout the app that streamline the user experience. For example, if a customer wants to place a wager on NFL player props, they can click into one of that week’s games. From there, a screen shows drop-down menus for passing props, receiving props, and rushing props. If a customer clicks on receiving props, then the various player props for receptions, receiving touchdowns, and receiving yards are shown.
The drop-down menus allow customers to reach what they want to see more quickly than previous iterations of the app.
“Our product is not where we want it to be,” MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle said in August, before the official unveiling of the new app. “I think the moves that we’re now making with Entain, [and] the moves we’re gonna make with Angstrom as an onboarded partner for BetMGM, will get us to a place where we’ll be back in that game in a meaningful way. And ultimately begin to gain some [market] share back.”
App offers more details
The app also offers a few more pieces of noteworthy information that bettors can use when wagering.
NFL games listed in the app now include each team’s record. The same is true for college football games, although that aspect of the app might need some light tweaking.
A quick look Monday morning showed that some of the coming week’s featured college games did not list complete and accurate records. Florida State’s record was listed at 1-0 for its upcoming game against Clemson. The 1-0 record would be accurate if the purpose was only to list Florida State’s conference record, but Clemson is 0-1 in ACC games and shouldn’t be listed as 0-0 if that were the case.
While other games included accurate overall records for teams, Florida State-Clemson, Michigan-Rutgers, and Oklahoma-Cincinnati lacked the correct information.
The app does include each team’s AP Top 25 ranking, if they’re ranked. That’s a nice touch, especially if a bettor is hoping to wager on the biggest college games each Saturday.
While much of the information provided isn’t groundbreaking, including basic information on teams or individual matches aids a bettor when making a decision.
Overall, BetMGM’s new app provides customers with a more streamlined and focused betting experience that should better position the operator to compete with its peers.
