In the last few years, online betting has increased in popularity and now is a billion-dollar industry. But what is making these websites so popular? Is it all about the possibility of placing bets from the comforts of your home, or is it due to the convenience of using a mobile phone to access the sportsbook?
To find the answer, we examined the most popular and successful online sportsbooks to see what language they use and whether it was developed specifically for online use.
The Most Popular Programming Languages
To start our analysis, we examined the most popular programming languages used by the top 25 online sportsbooks in March 2018. Since March is a new month, we also looked at the top 25 online sportsbooks a year ago to compare changes in language usage.
Our findings are summarized in the following table:
- JavaScript is the most popular programming language used by online sportsbooks, followed by Python.
- JavaScript has also risen as the most popular language among online sportsbooks in the last year, up from tenth place in 2017 to third place in 2018.
- BASIC has seen a small decrease in popularity, down from second to third place, while VB.NET has also seen a decrease, down from third place to fifth place.
- PHP is another popular language among online sportsbooks, used in conjunction with a content management system (CMS) called WordPress.
- Many of the top online sportsbooks use a combination of these languages, with JavaScript handling the front-end functionality and Python handling the back-end computations.
- At the other end of the scale, COBOL is still one of the most popular languages among software developers (30th place), but it has seen a major decrease in popularity as the decades pass by with no apparent improvement in functionality. The good news is that languages such as Java and C# have risen in popularity, while JavaScript has risen sharply as well.
These results make sense, as JavaScript is a very popular language among developers, enabling them to build websites, web applications, and mobile apps with relative ease. It also enables them to build robust back-ends for online betting websites, as many of the top online sportsbooks use JavaScript heavily.
In light of these findings, it’s not a huge surprise that JavaScript is the most popular programming language among online betting websites. But what is surprising is the fact that Python is used by four out of the top 25 online sportsbooks. This indicates that Python is not only a popular choice among developers, but it is an efficient choice as well.
It should also be no surprise that PHP is a popular choice among online sportsbooks, as PHP is an easy language to learn and implement, enabling anyone with a basic knowledge of HTML to build a functional sportsbook. What is more, the combination of these two languages, if done right, can produce relatively sophisticated and functional websites and web applications.
What Is WordPress?
WordPress is an open-source website building system that can be used to build any kind of website or blog. The flexibility of the platform allows for complete customization, and it is this feature that makes WordPress so attractive to developers and online sportsbooks alike.
One of the best things about WordPress is its active, vibrant community of developers, designers, and bloggers who are constantly engaged in improving the platform and providing new templates and premium plugins (additional software tools) for the benefit of users.
WordPress has gained popularity because it is easy to use and very reliable. This makes it suitable for use by beginners as well as experienced online users who just want to build a simple website.
The ease of use of WordPress combined with its popularity among beginners make it a great choice for people who are just getting started in online betting or haven’t developed much expertise in code programming. While it is possible to customize WordPress to do almost anything, this typically requires some expertise in code and a lot of time.
Does Java Have A Seperate Purpose In An Online Betting Platform?
Since its introduction in the early 1990s, Java has risen as the dominant language among online betting websites, used primarily for building the front-end (user-interface) portion of the site. As web browsers, tablets, and smartphones have improved in functionality and speed, Java has become more suitable for use as a programming language for backend services.
Java is a versatile language, enabling developers to write programs that can be executed on any computer, server, or device with an Intel processor and an internet connection. This makes it ideal for use among online sportsbooks that need to provide a cross-platform experience for users.
It should come as no surprise that the Java virtual machine (JVM) is open-source and freely available to download and use. This means that anyone, not just companies, can develop and distribute applications for the platform. It also enables developers to easily collaborate, as the software is free and open-source.
This versatility and collaboration, along with the robustness of the Java platform, make it one of the most popular languages among software developers.
Can A Content Management System (CMS) Help With The Functionality Of An Online Betting Platform?
A content management system (CMS) is an online tool that enables website and blog owners to easily publish content to their site and manage the structure of the site through the use of theme templates and plugins (additional software tools).
CMSs are very popular among designers and bloggers who need a way to quickly publish content to a site and don’t want to program the functionality themselves. This makes them suitable for use among beginners who are just getting started in web design or internet marketing and need a simple way to publish content to their site. Since all they need to do is click a button to publish a post, the CMS allows for easy content management and does not require much expertise to use effectively.
The CMS enables content to be easily curated and organized into topics or categories, with each topic or category having a header, background, and icon associated with it. Typically, content is organized into these categories and forums on an as-needed basis and can be easily modified through the use of drag-and-drop interface elements or existing content.
One of the best things about a CMS is the ability to quickly publish a topic or article to a site. This makes it easy to experiment with different content and see how it performs before making a decision about the future of the site. Since all content is easily published through the use of a CMS, this content is also easily searchable and discoverable. This helps with SEO (search engine optimization), enabling websites and blogs to better utilize search engines like Google to attain higher search engine rankings.
Does SQL Serve As A Popular Database Language For Online Betting?
The second column in the table above lists the database language used by each of the top 25 online sportsbooks. Since databases are the core of any successful online sportsbook, one would assume that the database language would be a popular choice among these websites. But this is not the case. In fact, in the last year, SQL has seen a major decrease in popularity among the top 25 online sportsbooks, dropping from second to eighth place, while the usage of MySQL has increased from twelfth place to fourteenth.
The reason behind this is that many organizations, including Netflix, Google, and Paypal, have made it easy to set up a database on their servers, which is free of charge. This has enabled anyone, not just large organizations, to have a reliable database to store and retrieve information, making it less necessary for developers to write their own database scripts (procedures and queries).
Why Is COBOL Still Popular Among Software Developers?
In the decades since it was developed, COBOL, the original business-oriented programming language, has seen a huge surge in popularity among software developers, remaining one of the most popular languages despite the many improvements and alternative programming languages created since its inception.
Businesses worldwide use COBOL to store, analyze, and transact data, making it essential for any business to have at least one software developer who is proficient in this language. Not only is it easy to learn, but it is also very reliable and has been proven successful in production use.