It’s Friday on SBC Americas so once more our colleagues over at SportsHandle and friends deliver another round-up of the week’s big developments in US sports betting.
Author Of Acclaimed Golden Gate Fields Book Not Upset By Track’s Demise
When the Stronach Group (aka 1/ST) announced last month that it would be shuttering Golden Gate Fields after the current meet, I immediately thought of Bill Barich.
Barich is a former New Yorker staff writer and the author of numerous books, including Laughing in the Hills, undoubtedly one of the greatest ever written about the sport of horse racing. Grieving the death of his mother, Barich checked into a motel near Golden Gate Fields in 1978 and committed to visiting — and wagering at — the hardscrabble Bay Area track almost every day, mingling with its regular bettors, jockeys, trainers, grooms, and thoroughbreds.
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Rogue Nation: Is A Uniform Regulatory Process Achievable In The U.S.?
Given Betfred’s history with the Nevada Gaming Control Board, seeing a representative from each entity largely agreeing during the course of a Wednesday panel discussion concerning “the obstacles preventing us from implementing and maximizing the value of new technologies for sports betting and beyond” might have struck some attendees as surprising. After all, Betfred’s sportsbook at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Las Vegas’ Virgin Hotel sat vacant for nearly two years before its state license was approved this January.
“I can feel your desire to comply,” board member Phil Katsaros told Betfred executives at a Jan. 25 meeting where he and his cohorts unanimously cleared the way for the sportsbook to accept its first wagers in the Silver State.
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Sports Betting Or Fantasy Sports? Conflict Growing Around What’s Legal Where
Hours before Wednesday night’s MLB games began, sports fanatics could log on to FanDuel Sportsbook and place a two-leg parlay of new Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jack Flaherty to throw more than 5.5 strikeouts and Atlanta Braves pitcher Max Fried to exceed his strikeout prop of 5.5.
A very similar type of market can be found on popular daily fantasy sports operator PrizePicks. So would that parlay be sports betting or fantasy sports? It depends who you ask.
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PENN Entertainment Projects Robust Market Share For ESPN BET
A day after PENN Entertainment announced its strategic partnership with ESPN, PENN CEO Jay Snowden proclaimed that the online sports betting operator is ready to compete with industry giants FanDuel and DraftKings.
“We’ve all watched market share and online sports betting continue to consolidate really amongst the top two players, and you’ve gotta have scale to compete,” Snowden said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. “There’s a certain recipe to get to scale … and we think that we check the boxes with that recipe. We’re ready to compete at a scale level.”
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Will ESPN BET Shake Up The Top Of The Sportsbook Rankings?
Two summers ago, ESPN appeared poised to shake up the sports betting landscape when reports surfaced that the Worldwide Leader In Sports sought up to $3 billion from a commercial partner for exclusivity to its sports wagering brand.
Since then, the sports world has changed dramatically. Last year, leading sports betting stocks plunged, in line with a broad market correction, as U.S. inflation hit its highest levels in two decades. At Disney, former CEO Bob Iger returned to his old position at the request of the board following the dismissal of Bob Chapek, his hand-picked successor. Around the same time, DraftKings reportedly came close to inking a deal for ESPN’s sportsbook brand, only to see negotiations collapse at the 11th hour.
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Flutter Anticipates Stiff Competition From ESPN BET, Is On Track For U.S. Listing
Flutter CEO Peter Jackson wasted little time Wednesday before addressing the elephant in the room.
Speaking with analysts on Flutter Entertainment’s 2023 second-quarter earnings call, Jackson acknowledged the changing landscape of the U.S. sports betting market. Hours earlier, the so-called Worldwide Leader In Sports dropped a bombshell in announcing a multi-year partnership with PENN Entertainment that will result this fall in the creation of ESPN BET. Fanatics, another multi-billion dollar, globally recognized enterprise, will also be vying for the football bettor’s wallet for the first time.
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