Toggling through a demo of the latest version of a streaming product that allows bettors to watch NFL games on their sportsbook apps, Glen Herold, Genius Sports vice president of product, pulled up video from last year’s NFC championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions.

On a mobile screen turned to landscape mode, a data overlay appeared down the right and across the bottom. The right side showed a menu of odds and lines offered by the sportsbook, including the standard “six pack” — points spread, odds-to-win and over/under for each team — as well as select player and game props, allowing users to scroll through a full menu of bets.

Herold clicked on Detroit’s Amon-Ra St. Brown to record more than 83.5 receiving yards. A bet slip popped up, allowing him to select an amount to bet and confirm the wager. Once the wager was placed, a St. Brown tile joined others at the bottom of the screen, tracking his progress toward eclipsing that figure.

As a game progresses, the bar at the bottom tracks that and other bets the user has placed, showing the most relevant. St. Brown’s progress surfaces each time he makes a catch. Down the right side, odds on the full menu of bets update continuously. At a change in possession, a notification will appear, offering odds on whether the next drive will end in a touchdown, field goal or punt.

There’s even a twist on the Genius-powered player tracking system that Prime Video showcases during its Thursday night games. When Herold enables augmentation during a 49ers possession, the three players most likely to get their hands on the ball — running back Christian McCaffery and wide receivers Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk — are highlighted. Tapping on any of them brings up a menu of prop odds on that player.

The third iteration of the product Genius markets as “BetVision” makes a giant leap toward the “watch-and-bet” experience that the NFL and other sports leagues foresee as a way to get viewers back to watching more of each game.

Earlier versions were long on the “watch” part, delivering a stream that put viewers well ahead of the delayed feeds of the broadcasts available on their TVs, cutting latency to four to six seconds, while cable and satellite could lag by 30 or 40. But, beyond that, they offered little that was likely to increase betting.

“As we think about the product and how we iterate it — we have to prove we can drive in-game betting,” said Herold, who joined Genius in May 2022 after five years in the NFL’s media division. “This is not to us, or the NFL, just a streaming product. This is a betting product. So we have to have a UX [user experience] that promotes in-game betting, and we have to have data that shows we can drive that.”

Promising as the product may be, it has not been enough to spur what sources say have become contentious renewal negotiations between Genius and the three largest U.S. sportsbooks: FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM. As of last Thursday, with the season opener a week away, only Caesars and BetRivers had finalized deals, though talks continued.

Caesars, which was the first to renew and had exclusive rights to introduce BetVision in its first year, declined a request to discuss the product’s evolution, as did FanDuel and Fanatics, the other two sportsbooks that offered it last year. Genius declined comment on renewal negotiations.

From all indications, the sticking point for the larger books has been the price of the overall data package, not the utility of the updated watch-and-bet product.

“What they’ve built is impressive,” said Amie Biros, who joined BetRivers sportsbook owner Rush Street Interactive as vice president of strategic initiatives a year ago, after stints at ESPN and the NFL. “I really think they’re making the right steps for this product to be the future, figuring out what watch-and-bet looks like.

“It’s step by step. We’re in the middle of the evolution here. That’s not a knock on Genius or any operators. You’re just seeing it unfold in real time. What the technology is capable of, with the low latency, and then what is actually a good [user] experience — we’re going to find that out.”

Those who aren’t fully on board question whether most fans will choose the smaller mobile screen over their 65-inch TV, or bet on a second screen that is a play or two ahead of it. But Genius points to what it says are promising early numbers.

Even without interactive betting, BetVision demonstrated that sportsbook users have an appetite for a faster stream and will place more in-game bets when they can watch a game in near-real time.

BetVision delivered a combined 19 million streams of NFL games during the season on the four apps, Herold said. And that was with market leader FanDuel not coming on until 10 weeks into the season. About half the money wagered was on in-game bets, which they placed at nearly twice the rate of the typical American bettor.

Each of the new features was designed to accelerate that start.

FanDuel, which is leading the way through the first six months of online sports betting in 2024, offered Genius Sports’ BetVision last season but had not renewed a week before this year’s first games.getty images

A control switch that allowed viewers to pull up odds and stats has been replaced by an always-present section of the screen that keeps odds in view throughout the game, a response to sportsbook concerns that out of sight might lead to out of mind.

The notifications that remind users of odds on a touchdown, field goal or punt at the start of each drive and the augmented highlighting that allows users to touch a player to see prop odds are meant to attract them to wagers that typically are more profitable for operators.

“These are some of the key changes we’re making to drive handle,” Herold said. “Resizing the video. Showing markets at all times. Expanding the number of markets we offer to really cater toward those in-game markets. Leaning into the concept of these contextual recommendations to create awareness among users of what’s available. And then allowing you to track and sweat out your bets. With those things, we’re really hoping that will drive engagement, but also the amount of bets people are making in-game.”

It is likely that sportsbooks that sign on in time for the season will start with the version that was available last season, and then work to integrate the new features.

Ingesting each sportsbook’s bet types and live odds will be first on the list, with other features added as they’re completed, Herold said. The most complicated of the builds — a bet slip that allows users to wager without leaving the screen — will come last.

Caesars could have a head start, since it displayed its updated odds in the app last season and offered the augmented stream for the Super Bowl — though neither of those features were interactive.

“It is resource-heavy on both sides — both for the operator and Genius,” Biros said. “But what they’re building is the future.”