Betfair embraces Google Glass for sports betting odds
Betfair is proving itself something of an early tech adopter with the revelation that it has incorporated the Google Glass headset into its betting spots on UK television. What’s more, the online betting exchange announced recently that the move is part of a wider strategic business plan to use the new technology to “improve customers’ betting experience.”
Google Glass headsets have only been available in the UK for a few weeks, so Betfair’s readiness to embrace the futuristic devices is an industry first. The glasses are still in beta-testing phase, in fact – so it’s early days – but Google believes that, in the not-too-distant future, spectacle manufacturers will be incorporating its software and third-party apps into their glasses on an industrial scale.
In the meantime presenters on Betfair betting spots on the British horseracing channel At The Races have started sporting the dystopian specs. Betfair presenter Barry Orr was the first on-screen guinea pig, with the glasses providing him with a real-time betting feed display “directly to his eyes,” as Betfair succinctly put it, enhancing his analysis with total, up-to-the minute information.
In a press release, Betfair’s Director of Product Innovation Alex Deacon expressed his excitement: “We are hugely proud to be the first betting company to embrace Google Glass, an innovation that is a natural fit with our heritage in technology,” he said, alluding to the fact that Betfair was itself a technological innovator as the first ever P2P betting exchange. “TV viewers will now know that when they are listening to Betfair’s Barry Orr, they are listening to the most up to date odds and betting information available,” he added.
