As the year winds down, the SBC Americas edtorial staff reflected on a year of news unlike no other. Every year we see new verticals rise to prominence and legal battles over where to draw the line between “gambling” and “not gambling”, but 2025 was a year where the location of that line turned completely upside down.
In a year of huge suprises and major headlines, what stuck out to our team as the biggest shocks of the year? Well, here are each of our choices:
Justin Byers: Circa’s choice MO sportsbook license
Circa Sports being awarded an untethered license in Missouri was not on my bingo card when the application process opened. The public approval of a constitutional amendment in 2024 paved the way for online sports betting to launch in Missouri earlier this year, making the Show-Me State the latest U.S. market to open its doors to the vertical. The measure allows the Missouri Gaming Commission to award two untethered sports wagering licenses. The regulator shook things up by awarding Circa Sports one of the highly sought-after licenses that does not require a revenue-share agreement with a land-based casino or pro sports team.
Circa Sports, a relatively small player compared to other Missouri license applicants, beat out FanDuel during an application process that included a hearing for the two untethered licenses. During the hearing, Circa Sports CEO Derek Stevens highlighted the company’s unique customer base of high-spending individuals and its hold rate of roughly 3.5%, compared to major sportsbooks that typically have a hold rate of more than 10%. The way Circa Sports solidified its footprint and made its case in Missouri was surprising but encouraging to see for smaller operators nationwide.
Tom Nightingale: Sportsbooks operators launching prediction sites
Had you told me on Jan. 1, 2025, that by Dec. 31, FanDuel would be offering prediction markets in numerous states that do not let sportsbooks offer legal sports betting, I would have asked you what the hell you were talking about. I also didn’t expect to write so many intros with the word “Kalshi” in them. How innocent I was. The gaming industry has been talking about prediction markets so often (several times a day, it’s seemed) that it’s easy to forget just how quickly things have moved since the summer to get us to the point where around half a dozen gaming operators already offer or intend to offer sports contracts. The sheer pace of it all has been astounding.
Jessica Welman: Prediction markets dividing the gaming industry
It feels like a cheat code to simply say “prediction markets”, so let me try to be a little more precise than that. What surprised me the most about prediction markets was how quickly this new vertical fully divided gaming back into the online and brick and mortar camps of 15 years ago.
I, perhaps naively, thought those particular dividing lines were no longer useful or relevant. However, with the continuing resurgence of the online casino cannibalization debate and the massive rift event contracts ripped through the American Gaming Association (AGA), it turns out real-life and online are still extremely different entities with extremely different agendas that could be at odds in 2026.
