It’s been a little over a month since the Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on sports betting, clearing the way for any state to offer legal sports betting if they want it. Delaware and New Jersey were quick to open up the market, followed by lawmakers passing legislation in Pennsylvania, Mississippi and West Virginia. More than a dozen other states currently have pending legislation in the works.
As this industry scales up to the tens of billions of dollars the America Gaming Association predicts, gambling companies will have to implement technology to process payments, prevent fraud or underage gambling, and to prevent interstate betting.
It’s likely that much of this money will run through Atlanta’s Transaction Alley, where 70 percent of credit, debit and pre-paid payments are processed by six of the ten largest payments companies.
Global payments processor Worldpay, which has its U.S. headquarters in Atlanta, has a suite of solutions and team dedicated to gambling. They serve state lotteries, casinos, fantasy sports companies and more.
First Data, another Atlanta-headquartered firm, also has a gambling solution — dubbed PayLucky, the technology allows online gamers to pay with pre-paid cards, mobile wallets, checks and more.
Companies seeking to profit from sports betting will also need to ensure that they’re only allowing those qualified to gamble to use their platforms; i.e. adults. That’s where an identity verification company, like Atlanta’s IDology, comes in.
IDology provides a SaaS cloud-based tool that verifies age and identity to prevent fraud. They work across a range of industries including financial services, healthcare, insurance and retail — and online gaming, gambling and lotteries.
“We’ve had these types of products in the market for going on 14 years now,” says
Christina Luttrell, IDology’s Senior Vice President of Operations. “We’ve been working with companies who do things like online gaming for age verification since I started here, which was over 10 years ago now.”
Luttrell says that, as the market and company has matured, IDology’s solutions have become much more than age verification. The tool can help companies gain insight into their customer’s identities, helping prevent fraud.
She says they already have customers in fantasy football and other fantasy sports, horse racing, as well as gaming. And, though with a broader market opportunity comes potential for competition, Luttrell is confident that IDology’s proven solution and market leadership will help them expand their position in the industry.
“Any time there’s a rule like this that opens things up, I think you’ll see an explosion of new clients, new tools that come out on the market, new websites that launch.”
