SportsHandle and friends deliver another round-up of the week’s big developments in US sports betting.
Caesars Sportsbook Ready To Curtail Ad Spending Despite Hot Start In New York
New York customers have been inundated with sports betting commercials from Caesars Sportsbook over the last six weeks featuring cameos from the likes of the Manning brothers, Halle Berry, and Curb Your Enthusiasm actor JB Smoove as the eponymous Roman dictator.
Concerned, however, that spending on sports betting advertising is about to spiral out of control, Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg is ready to pivot to a new strategy for promoting the online sportsbook division. Addressing Wall Street analysts on Tuesday’s 2021 fourth-quarter earnings call, Reeg signaled that Caesars will curtail its spending on sports betting commercials considerably.
Full story here.
Missouri House Committee Debates Sports Betting Bills
The debate over whether to legalize sports betting in Missouri raged on Tuesday, as legislators and lobbyists spent about three hours discussing the potential benefits and drawbacks of the idea. Two Missouri House bills, HB 2502 and HB 2556, were the focal points of the discussions.
A third House bill aimed at legalizing sports betting in Missouri, HB 1666, was not discussed by the House Special Committee on Public Policy. Its meeting featured plenty of discussion and testimony for and against the bills, although no vote was taken. It’s unclear as to when the special committee may reconvene for a vote.
Full story here.
Mobile Sports Betting Poised To Launch In Arkansas In Early March
The Arkansas Joint Budget Committee (JBC) approved mobile sports betting rules Tuesday morning, meaning Arkansans should be able to place mobile wagers by March Madness.
Following the JBC’s approval, which didn’t include any debate, Arkansas casinos are allowed to launch sports betting apps after a 10-day waiting period, setting up a potential launch for March 4. Retail wagering has been legal in Arkansas since 2018.
Full story here.
Spinny Wheels & Altered Odds: PointsBet’s Tactics Angering Bettors
In his hit “Proud Mary,” John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival famously sang, “Big wheel keep on turnin’, Proud Mary keep on burnin’.”
Today, if he were writing that song for a certain Australian-based sportsbook, the chorus might go something like, “Spinny wheel keep on spinnin’, PointsBet keep on winnin’.”
Terrible misuse of classic rock aside, PointsBet, while maybe not “winnin’,’” is certainly – according to numerous tweets from aggravated customers – doing its best to keep its customers from doing so. From intolerable wait times to get a bet through, to limiting customers, to messing with odds, the company has, in recent months, been guilty of some of the worst sportsbook faux pas.
Full story here.
The 10 Most Annoying, Overused Types Of Sportsbook Tweets
Whatever the original hopes and dreams for social media might have been — a place to connect, share, amuse, and perhaps distract from heavy issues — it has all gone tragically awry. Disinformation, division, and disrespect will, unfortunately, be central to the legacy of Facebook, Twitter, and most of the other apps.
Every company trying to connect with the public needs to have a social media presence, however, and comparatively speaking, the online sportsbook accounts on Twitter are relatively harmless. They’re not trying to sow discord or uproot democracy, as far as we can tell. Sometimes the tweets are funny, and for customers who use the sportsbooks, they’re often informative in terms of knowing what promos and boosts are available on a given day.
But they can also be incredibly annoying — especially if you follow every major mobile sportsbook and begin to notice that there are certain Twitter tropes nearly all of them engage in. What follows is a countdown of the 10 most irksome types of sportsbook tweets, starting with the mildly irritating and overdone and building to the truly egregious and infuriating.
Full story here.
Dave Portnoy: Penn National And DraftKings Should Merge Sportsbooks
There has been a lot of chatter about consolidation in the sportsbook industry, but the “chatter” just put forward by Dave Portnoy, the face of Barstool Sportsbook … well, it would shake the foundations of American sports betting.
In short: Portnoy believes Barstool Sportsbook, which is owned by Penn National Gaming, would be an ideal merger with DraftKings. (Penn National is also part-owner of Portnoy’s media site, Barstool Sports, with plans to become full owner.)
Full story here.
