This Week's Sports Betting Update

Hello, we’ve taken a look at what’s news, trending and being talked about in the sports betting world this week. Grab a coffee, take five minutes and we’ll fill you in on everything you need to know.

One big story 

Genius Sports keen to land extension to its betting data rights deal with the Premier League until 2029

Genius Sports has been picked by Football DataCo as its preferred bidder for the official betting data rights to the English Premier League. Genius Sports has worked with DataCo since 2019, supplying low-latency data from the EPL, EFL and Scottish Premier Football League.

Their current arrangement expires at the end of next season, with the latest negotiations surrounding an extension to 2029.

Any extension would see Genius Sports maintain its role of distributing data from over 4,000 British football fixtures each season.

Maintaining its partnership with DataCo builds on Genius’ successes in 2023, penning a string of data deals, most notably with Second Spectrum regarding the NBA and its new arrangement with the Canadian Football League.

Click here to get up to speed with the full-year 2023 performance of Genius Sports.

What you need to know

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• 🇺🇸  Sports betting handle in Indiana has risen year-on-year in February, despite the state experiencing a month-on-month fall. Overall handle totalled £319.6m, up 14.7% year-on-year - but a 14.9% decline on January. Although Super Bowl LVIII was the premier event of February, the bulk of bets placed were on basketball rather than American football. More

• 🌐  Full-year 2023 net profits for International Game Technology (IGT) fell year-on-year despite experiencing a 2% year-on-year rise in revenues to £3.37bn. This can be largely attributed to marginally higher operating expenses and the overall cost of services. More

• 🇺🇸  Geolocation specialists GeoComply believe there is real potential for a highly lucrative sports betting market in North Carolina. The industry went live earlier this week, with GeoComply gauging the early interest from residents across the state. Some 370,000 accounts were active between 12pm of 11 March and 12pm of 13 March. More

• 🇺🇸  Online sports betting handle in New York fell to £1.38bn in February, despite the presence of the Super Bowl LVIII. However, the figure was up 20.4% year-on-year. Gross gaming revenues were also up 21.3% year-on-year. More

Regulation

A new survey from the Young Gamers and Gamblers Education Trust (YGAM) and Gamstop revealed almost 50% of university students in the UK are betting more than they can afford to gamble. However, of the 2,000 students polled, 60% said they had gambled in the last 12 months, down from 71% in last year’s study. More

Technology

The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has disclosed the impact of overly-restrictive regulated markets on empowering unregulated black market operators offshore. Using data from 12 regulated sports betting markets, it found the markets with the fewest restrictions had 90% of the nation’s active user base. Khalid Ali, CEO, IBIA, said it was his belief that bet restrictions drove people to the unregulated market. More

People news

Mohegan confirm appointment of Ari Glazer as new CFO

Mohegan has appointed Ari Glazer as its new chief financial officer, starting on 1 May. Glazer will succeed Carol Anderson as the group’s CFO, who announced her departure from the role in October 2023.

Glazer’s remit will cover all of Mohegan’s finance activities, including accounting, tax, capital markets, procurement and cash management.

Glazer arrives with over two decades of expertise with investment bank Citigroup, having recently assumed the role of managing director and global head of gaming and hospitality client coverage.

Click here to get the thoughts of Glazer on his new role with Mohegan after the firm posted record revenues in 2023.

This week's talking point

Betfred, Entain and Flutter representatives named on UKGC’s industry forum

The UK Gambling Commission’s industry forum is now stronger than ever with the addition of nine new representatives from some of the UK’s largest gambling firms.

Mark Pearson, head of media at Betfred, Ashley Padgett, director of compliance and anti-money laundering at Flutter, and Leo Walker, customer operations director at Entain, are just three of the individuals invited onto the panel.

The forum is designed to give the UKGC fresh insights and perspective on the direction of the industry as a whole.

Last year, Nick Rust, former CEO of the BHA, was invited to chair the forum and enlist the guidance of senior executives within the sector.

Click here to learn more about the other successful entrants to the UKGC industry forum.

This week's insight

Why one operator is taking the social route to rejuvenating golf betting online

Some 39.6 million people are said to play golf as a hobby or pastime worldwide - 4.5 million of which are located in the UK. Despite the sport’s growing popularity, it’s clear that this isn’t replicated across the golf betting markets.

Turnover from golf betting markets is yet to reach pre-pandemic (2018/19) levels of £272.4m, with £243.9m recorded in 2022/23.

Looking more closely, gross gambling yield from golf betting markets had fallen sharply from £27.4m in 2021/22 to just £8.3m in 2022/23.

However, according to Billy Gowing, co-founder and managing director of social betting exchange, Fairplay Exchange, it’s been a very different story on their platform. In fact, Gowing said golf is the most popular sport to wager on, with more than half (51%) of wagers placed from friends betting against one another on the golf course.

Gowing believes the social betting route is a credible option as an acquisition and retention tool, allowing users to bet against their pals rather than the bookmaker itself.

Click here to learn more about the concept of peer-to-peer golf betting and how it could have an edge in the continuous battle for market share.

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