In 1992, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was signed into law. This made any bookie business illegal and restricted similar gambling to Nevada and reservations.
Several years later, in 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the PASPA, paving the way for individual states to legalize sports betting as they wished. Fast forward to now, the sports betting industry in the USA is booming.
It is spreading in popularity like wildfire. Some experts have predicted that the sports betting industry could be worth $8 billion by 2025.
Steps to start a bookie business
With legal betting, more and more people are jumping into the action to get a share of the money circulating in the industry. Moreover, over 24 states have legalized sports betting to tap the revenue that offshore bookies are getting.
With these legalizations, some wonder whether it will affect pay per head (PPH) bookies. The answer is no. Having bookies and state-licensed sportsbooks creates competition, pushing each operator to offer better products to avoid losing clients.
That means you will always have a ready market, especially in states where sports betting is legalized. Read on to learn five tips you can use to start and run a bookie successfully.
1. Find The Legality Of Offering Sports Betting
While more states are allowing legal betting, others are yet to. Starting a bookie business in such a state could land you in trouble. So, before you launch your bookie or research about, find funding or anything, look at the legality of sports betting.
You can hire an attorney to look into the matter and give you feedback. An attorney will look at all repercussions that might follow in case you decide to start a bookmaking business in any state, whether with legalized betting or not.
Starting with this step will save you the time of starting a business only to shut it down following legal issues quickly. Once you know where a state stands on bookies offering sports betting software, you can acquire the right permits if you have to and meet other legal requirements like any other business that should pay taxes.
2. Finding Sports Betting Software Provider
Unless you want to go through all the hassle of building a sportsbook, meeting legal requirements, and gaining licensing from regulators such as Malta Gaming Authority, United Kingdom Gambling Commission, Curacao, Gibraltar, and others, you need a pay per head bookie software.
If you were to review each of the sites that offer this service, you would not finish because there are a hundred of these. Yet, this is not a reason to stick with a site offering substandard or outdated sports betting software. Some of the things you should look for when choosing a PPH software provider are:
- A company with over a decade in the industry earning it vast experience and time to improve their product
- A site offers 24/7 customer support
- A site whose software is compatible with all internet devices
- Software with numerous payment methods, including FIAT and cryptocurrency
- A user-friendly software
- Ideal/affordable pay per head price
- Software with a racebook and live casino for when you want to offer more than sports betting
If the site’s software features all the above features, you can consider subscribing to it. Remember to ask for a trial period or free video training to familiarize yourself with the software.
3. Building an Online Presence
Online gambling is becoming more popular than betting in retail shops. Moreover, most of the people you would want to be your clients spend more time on their phones than anywhere else. Thus, the best way to reach such a market is to have an online presence.
There are several ways of building an online presence. Some of these involve creating a website, optimizing it for SEO, sharing it with friends, and having an ambassadorial team to reach a wider population.
The more visible you are, the better our chances of attracting new clients. Moreover, having an online presence gives you a gate to look at what your prospective clients need. You can use these to show them that you are exactly what they are looking for.
4. Research About Payment Methods PPH Software Supports
While sports betting is legal in the country, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA), a few months ago, we would have included the Wire Act as one of the things that would hinder you from running a bookie.
UIGEA restricts American businesses or banks from processing illegal gambling money. If your bookie is hosted offshore or in a state with no legal betting, UIGEA will target you. Unless the software has a geo-restriction feature closing out people outside states without legal betting, you cannot avoid these players.
Yet, this law applied to bookies and not players themselves. Thus, you need to confirm the payment methods supported by the software that allows bettors to fund their accounts and withdraw their winnings without a problem. Otherwise, you will lose players that would have loved to play on your platform.
5. Offer Something That Would Encourage Players To Stick
If you are offering sports betting services in a legalized state, you already know other bookies and world-known sportsbooks endorsed by the state’s gambling regulator. So, to start a bookie and make profits from it, you need to have a way of retaining the players that come to your platform.
Remember, top sportsbooks are attracting new players with bonuses, ACCA boosts, and other offers to make them stay. To attract and retain your bettors, you can apply some of these methods or offer better betting lines than other bookies.
Start A Bookie Business
The legalization of sports betting has encouraged more players to start betting. Thus, more than enough players in the industry could choose to bet with your bookie if you are offering them what they need.
At Power Pay Per Head, we offer PPH sports betting software. We have over 15 years in the industry, making us one of the best software providers you can find there. Moreover, our software has been voted as best in 2020 and 2021 thanks to its comprehensive features and ability to grow your bookie business.
