Jeff Ma says the American sports data business is behind the rest of the world, and it will not catch up until sports gambling is fully legalized in the U.S. Ma, part of the card-counting MIT blackjack team in the '90s and now Twitter Senior Dir of Analytics, said he is consistently let down by real-time data providers in the U.S., but he has heard European sports fans can rely on real-time feeds. “Because sports gambling is not legal here, the scrutiny to have high-quality play-by-play feeds is not there like it is in other countries,” Ma said Tuesday at the ’17 NeuLion Sports Media & Technology conference. "I know it all the time, because I watch a lot of games on the phone. I don’t mean video, I mean updating play by play.” His knowledge of European data is second-hand -- he does not watch soccer, because, he said, “I’m an American.” Sensing some skepticism in the audience, Ma said, "I get it. It’s hard. I’m not saying I have the solution. But I do know that if sports gambling becomes legal in the U.S., the scrutiny to have highly accurate data feeds is going to become much higher, and the amount of money people are willing to spend on that type of thing is going to go up.” Ma is in favor of legalized sports betting in the U.S., but he did spend a few minutes cautioning that it should be thoughtfully done to maximize the incentives to participate in the newly created legal betting system rather than continuing to keep it in the black market.
