Even if sports betting isn’t what we imagined it would be this year, the competitive U.S. market continues to grow. Vic Salerno, President of US Bookmaking, has a lot of experience with what works and what doesn’t, and he was the perfect person to speak to about how to gain an edge. He joined our Becky Liggero Fontana for the latest episode of The Long Con.

Although sports without crowds isn’t necessarily the same, the enthusiasm to bet on the action is still there, and Salerno notes the pandemic has made everyone anxious to get back to betting. “I think they are all pent up, and you’ve probably seen it with the EPL (English Premier League), we’re even seeing an increase here in the EPL. People really want to get back in the action, have something to do. They can’t just watch reruns of old games.

Since the U.S. market opened up to wider sports betting action, the competition to win over players has been fierce. Overseas talent have brought in a talent skill set that Americans haven’t needed before. “They’re more in customer acquisition than we are,” Salerno said of the British and European bookkeepers. “It’s a new world for us over here, we never we never had to pay for customers, customers would just come to us. So I think the way you can differentiate yourself is, you have to have a large menu of course, and then you have to have more favorable odds.”

Many of those foreign offerings are just far ahead of what Americans are used to. “I think the biggest thing with the European platforms is they are way ahead of the American platforms,” Salerno said. “They’re light years ahead of where we were. The tracking is unbelievable. But we came from a market where we really had a monopoly here in Nevada, we didn’t have the competition.”