Read Wild Bill's latest column, called "Keep it simple," by going to the RX home page at www.theprescription.com
KEEP IT SIMPLE 12/9/03 - Wild Bill
I use a T-Mobile Sidekick, one of the greatest toys I have purchased in recent months. The internet connection speed away from the computer is decent and it has easy-to-use E-mail. Imagine all this for the low price of $30 per month.
It doesn’t have the best cell phone, but I didn’t buy it to make a lot of calls. However, the most maddening thing about it is that I have only been able to place a bet with Pinnacle, WSEX, and Millenium.
Most other sports books don’t even come close to offering something that I can use. How hard can it be to create a no Java, nothing complicated Web site for the simple task of placing bets?
While I do think many Web sites are getting easier to navigate when time is precious, more could be done. I think sites should work towards either a main betting page or an alternate betting page that would allow PDAs -and the few phones that can get full net access - to place bets using about the simplest Web site one can imagine.
No color, no Java, minimal buttons, and small font. Let me open the page on my computer at home and see at least 10 games on one page. Is that too much to ask? I don’t want to scroll five times and I don’t want to jump around. I just want to find my bet and be able to punch in an amount next to it.
After one more click, take me to a confirmation screen where I can use a four-digit pin instead of my long user name. I can then be done in half the time. That would be especially useful at ‘crunch time.’
The sports books are inevitably losing out on last minute action due to time constraints. Many bettors either don’t quite make it in before kickoff or simply don’t think they have enough time to quickly peruse the board one last time.
Take the Pinnacle bet page, which is about as good as it gets in my estimation, as an example. You can bet multiple games at once, you get to put in the bet amount and hit “return” or click on the “continue” button and you go to final confirmation. If they made it a four-digit PIN it couldn’t get much better, especially since it works with my phone. I would guess it also works on most PDAs as well.
Olympic is pretty good once you find the bet you want to make. However, the company really needs to cut down on the number of options you get when you click on a sport. If I click football, why put in every future option as well as a ton of props? Sometimes I can’t tell if I have a full-game bet or a halftime wager. So cleaning that up would be awfully nice.
WSEX is a nice simple site, as a bet can be made by simply clicking the link. But why do they insist on having a drop-down menu for a bet amount? It’s almost like they do it on purpose to get you to bet more than you want. Is that really good customer service?
If you want to bet a non-standard amount, say $270, it becomes a chore. You have to go through the motions twice to make the bet, $200 once and then $70. What a waste of time.
In short, I would suggest making everything as simple as possible. Sports books might be surprised at the extra action they pick up, especially as people start using PDAs and cell phones for the internet.
Bettors who use these devices might be small in number today, but the less-prepared sports books might miss out on this trend if they don’t get to work on it now.
I use a T-Mobile Sidekick, one of the greatest toys I have purchased in recent months. The internet connection speed away from the computer is decent and it has easy-to-use E-mail. Imagine all this for the low price of $30 per month.
It doesn’t have the best cell phone, but I didn’t buy it to make a lot of calls. However, the most maddening thing about it is that I have only been able to place a bet with Pinnacle, WSEX, and Millenium.
Most other sports books don’t even come close to offering something that I can use. How hard can it be to create a no Java, nothing complicated Web site for the simple task of placing bets?
While I do think many Web sites are getting easier to navigate when time is precious, more could be done. I think sites should work towards either a main betting page or an alternate betting page that would allow PDAs -and the few phones that can get full net access - to place bets using about the simplest Web site one can imagine.
No color, no Java, minimal buttons, and small font. Let me open the page on my computer at home and see at least 10 games on one page. Is that too much to ask? I don’t want to scroll five times and I don’t want to jump around. I just want to find my bet and be able to punch in an amount next to it.
After one more click, take me to a confirmation screen where I can use a four-digit pin instead of my long user name. I can then be done in half the time. That would be especially useful at ‘crunch time.’
The sports books are inevitably losing out on last minute action due to time constraints. Many bettors either don’t quite make it in before kickoff or simply don’t think they have enough time to quickly peruse the board one last time.
Take the Pinnacle bet page, which is about as good as it gets in my estimation, as an example. You can bet multiple games at once, you get to put in the bet amount and hit “return” or click on the “continue” button and you go to final confirmation. If they made it a four-digit PIN it couldn’t get much better, especially since it works with my phone. I would guess it also works on most PDAs as well.
Olympic is pretty good once you find the bet you want to make. However, the company really needs to cut down on the number of options you get when you click on a sport. If I click football, why put in every future option as well as a ton of props? Sometimes I can’t tell if I have a full-game bet or a halftime wager. So cleaning that up would be awfully nice.
WSEX is a nice simple site, as a bet can be made by simply clicking the link. But why do they insist on having a drop-down menu for a bet amount? It’s almost like they do it on purpose to get you to bet more than you want. Is that really good customer service?
If you want to bet a non-standard amount, say $270, it becomes a chore. You have to go through the motions twice to make the bet, $200 once and then $70. What a waste of time.
In short, I would suggest making everything as simple as possible. Sports books might be surprised at the extra action they pick up, especially as people start using PDAs and cell phones for the internet.
Bettors who use these devices might be small in number today, but the less-prepared sports books might miss out on this trend if they don’t get to work on it now.
Bryan,
Download speed is tricky with the Sidekick and I would guess with other phones as well. The Sidekick downloads data at over 100k, but when you are looking at webpages what happens is that the Sidekick servers first have to receive the page and then format it before sending it to you. This makes the process a bit slower, but I would say it is quicker in general than a dial-up connection. The biggest negative for the Sidekick is that it doesn't work with Java aps, but that also means that pages won't be slow to load either. There is also the option of telling it not to load pictures and in those cases pages come up very fast.
Download speed is tricky with the Sidekick and I would guess with other phones as well. The Sidekick downloads data at over 100k, but when you are looking at webpages what happens is that the Sidekick servers first have to receive the page and then format it before sending it to you. This makes the process a bit slower, but I would say it is quicker in general than a dial-up connection. The biggest negative for the Sidekick is that it doesn't work with Java aps, but that also means that pages won't be slow to load either. There is also the option of telling it not to load pictures and in those cases pages come up very fast.
love this keep it simple post, what sites are good for horse racing, only one i usa and found is wsex on my pocket pc pda. pinnacle & carib have to open another screen to confirm. wish these sites would would work on a pocket pc friendly setup. anybody know of other sportsbook with horses that work on pocket pc?
