Online sports betting – Page 2

August 3, 2024

After rolling out proposed winners’ tax, DraftKings projects $1bn in 2025 profits, fails to meet estimates

DraftKings founder Jason Robins has so much confidence in his company's product, that he is willing to risk driving customers away by charging them for winning in some states. During the company's second-quarter earnings call on Friday (2 August) he doubled down on that belief.
On Thursday (1 August) DraftKings announced that, beginning 1 January 2025, it will charge a surcharge on winnings on customers in high-tax (more than 20%) legal gaming states. A day later, the company announced that it expects between $900m-$1bn (£781m/€917m) in EBITDA in fiscal year 2025, which began 1 July.

The new fee, Robins explained in the call, is a sort of insurance, which he calls a “nominal” fee to bettors.

“It makes a huge difference to our ability to make a reasonable margin,” he told investors on Friday. “And more importantly [it will help us] to compete with the illegal market that pays no taxes and can invest 100% of revenue into their products.”

Robins banking on consumers to “ulti..

August 2, 2024

Sporttrade, Plannatech awarded Arizona event wagering licences

On Friday (2 August) the Arizona Department of Gaming (ADoG) awarded two tribal-tethered event wagering licences. Sporttrade, currently live in Iowa, New Jersey and Colorado, and UK-based Plannatech are now approved to offer digital betting.
Both companies will be tethered to tribes. Sporttrade will partner with the Quechan Indian tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian reservation and Plannatech will partner with San Carlos Apache Tribal Gaming Enterprise.

The Quechan tribe was formerly partnered with Unibet, which exited the state earlier this year. The San Carlos Apache were partnered with WynnBet, which is unwinding its platform across the country.

Sporttrade offers exchange wagering in New Jersey and has technology that allows an experience similar to playing the stock market. But the company has struggled to convince other regulators to allow this type of betting. It is live in Colorado and Iowa as a traditional sportsbook.

It is not apparent that Arizona allows exchange wagering.
..

August 2, 2024

Mizuhara bookie Mathew Bowyer charged in illegal California wagering ring, set to plead guilty

Mathew Bowyer, an illegal bookmaker with deep connections to Las Vegas’ gambling scene, is set to plead guilty in a high-profile betting case involving a former interpreter for Major League Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani.
Bowyer is charged with multiple counts of illegal gambling activities. Among these charges are running an unlicensed sportsbook, filing a false tax return and money laundering. According to a US department of justice notice, federal prosecutors have outlined a case demonstrating that Bowyer facilitated and profited from a large-scale illegal sports betting ring, which implicated various figures in the sports world.

The illegal southern California wagering ring involved high-profile clients, including athletes and executives.

Most notable among those figures was Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara. He pleaded guilty in June to bank fraud and filing a false tax return. He has to return to court in October for sentencing.

If convicted, Bowyer could face up ..

August 2, 2024

Bettors, analysts say “no thanks” to DraftKings’ surcharge idea

US sports betting operators have long been grappling with ways to navigate increasingly high tax rates. But DraftKings' new idea isn't sitting well with bettors or analysts.
DraftKings spurred debated among the wagering community on Thursday (1 August) when it announced plans to implement a gaming surcharge for players in high tax states.

In its Q2 business update, the company said it has “plan to address high tax states”. That is to “roll out a gaming tax surcharge” starting 1 January 2025. This will be applied to winning bets “in any state with a tax rate above 20% that has multiple sports betting operators”. Those criteria currently apply to New York, Illinois, Vermont and Pennsylvania.

New York’s tax rate is 51%, Pennsylvania is 36% and Vermont is 20%. Illinois recently implemented a sliding scale that caps out at 40% for the highest-earning operators. The bottom of the scale is 20%.

DraftKings asserted the surcharge will be “fairly nominal to the customer”. The only ..

August 2, 2024

State of the Union: Olympics betting, Texas legalisation talk, Ontario’s latest idea

Welcome to iGB's State of the Union, a look at the biggest North American sports betting stories we've covered over the week and briefs on others we found interesting.
Here’s where Olympic betting is highest in US
According to a Forbes report, bettors in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania have a high interest in betting on the Olympics. Why? Per the story, a heavy interest in basketball – particularly the Celtics in Maine and Massachusetts and college basketball in North Carolina – is one driver.

Another is the number of athletes representing a state in Paris. Of the 592 athletes representing the US at the Olympics, which runs through 11 August, 143 are from California. The state with the next highest is Florida with 50, followed by Texas with 43. Of the three states, only Florida has legal sports betting. There are 31 athletes from New York competing and 20 from Pennsylvania.

Bettors in Massachusetts can bet on the Olympics, but not on judged..

August 1, 2024

Ohio: FanDuel passes DraftKings to retake the lead in June

Flutter Entertainment’s FanDuel retook the lead in the Ohio online sports betting market in June, a month in which statewide revenue and handle fell to a calendar-year low.
Players in Ohio spent a total of $529.8m (£413.6m/€490.7m) across online and retail during June. This is 46.4% ahead of last year but 13.4% behind May and lower than any month so far in 2024.

Online betting accounted for $516.1m of all bets in June, with retail contributing $13.7m.

Players won $473.6m while $5m worth of wagers were voided. This left $51.2m in gross gaming revenue, up 57.1% from last year but 24% less than May’s total.

Of all gross gaming revenue in June, $50.5m came from online betting and $724,376 retail sportsbooks.

June’s results mean for the year-to-date, gross gaming revenue in Ohio stands at $435.6m. This includes $428.5m from the online market and $7.1m the retail sector.

FanDuel leads the Ohio pack in June
Looking at individual operators, FanDuel recovered from its second-placed finish ..

August 1, 2024

Nebraska lawmakers seem unprepared to consider digital wagering; it’s not clear they must

A Nebraska legislative committee late on Wednesday (31 July) heard testimony on five bills about an expansion of gaming in the state. Committee members appeared uneducated on the subject, which may already be legal.
In 2020, Nebraska voters approved an expansion of gaming when they passed an initiative that made “games of chance” legal. At the time, there was some question as to whether or not a game of chance includes sports betting. But the legislature later determined it does. That fact begs the question as to why the legislature feels it needs to pass laws that would make digital sports betting legal.

In 2022, Nebraska’s Racing and Gaming Commission declined to include language about digital betting in its regulations. Stakeholders asked the commission to include such language. The current law defines a gaming device as any “electronic, mechanical or other device which plays a game of chance when activated by a player”. It goes on to explain that sports wagers may be placed on “..

August 1, 2024

UKGC data: Record quarter for gambling activity in Britain

Great Britain’s online gross gambling yield (GGY) increased by 12% year-on-year to £1.46bn (€1.73bn/$1.87bn) in Q2, with the total number of bets and spins reaching a record high for the second consecutive quarter.
Players in Britain placed 24.5 billion bets and spins in Q2 (April to June), representing an increase of 11% on last year and a new quarterly record since the UKGC began publishing player data in 2019.

Breaking down the UKGC data, online slots were the primary source of GGY at £642m, noting a rise of 10% from last year. May proved the busiest month for online slots gaming with GGY hitting £217.9m.

Consumers placed a total of 22.4 billion spins during the quarter, which is up 12% on last year. However, slot session length was marginally shorter at 17 minutes, compared to just under 18 minutes in the previous year.

As for how many people were playing online slots, total active players in this segment hit 13.3 million for the period. This represents a year-on-year increase..

July 31, 2024

Bill to repeal US gambling excise tax filed

On Wednesday (31 July) a pair of US senators filed a bill calling for the repeal of the US federal excise tax on gambling. The 0.25% excise tax on the amount of any legal wager is levied above and beyond state taxes.
Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (Mississippi) filed the bill. Called the “Withdrawing Arduous Gaming Excise Rates Act,” the acronym is “the WAGER Act.” The American Gaming Association (AGA), a trade group, almost immediately came out in favour of the bill. The legislation, the AGA said, would save operators tens of millions of dollars per year in taxes.

“The federal sports betting excise tax was enacted more than 70 years ago as a tool to prosecute illegal sports betting operators,” the AGA wrote in a statement. “Today, with sports betting legal in 38 states and Washington DC, this antiquated tax puts legal operators at a competitive disadvantage and rewards illegal offshore bookmakers that pay no federal or state taxes, offer no responsible..

July 30, 2024

Nebraska lawmakers could be first in US in 2024 to legalise or expand gambling

Nearly seven months into the year, no US jurisdiction has legalised or expanded gambling. Will Nebraska be the first?
Nebraska’s state legislature started a special session last week and, on Wednesday (30 July), the general affairs committee will debate five bills that could legalise digital sports betting and daily fantasy sports.

At the heart of the move to legalise digital sports betting is Nebraska’s high property taxes, which fund education. According to one of the bills, the state ranks among the top 10 in the US in “property tax burden” and “relies more heavily on local property taxes to support public education” than other states. The goal is reduce property taxes by using online sports betting revenue to defray the costs to homeowners.

Nebraskans approved an expansion of gaming in November 2020. At that time, it wasn’t clear whether or not that expansion included sports betting – retail or digital. But lawmakers eventually decided that in-person wagering met the criteria. ..

July 30, 2024

Analysts: Sports wagering calendar gives insight to markets, revenues

The US sports betting calendar is the same every year and handle and revenues typically follow suit. But there are other trends to be gleaned from the cycles as well, analysts said on a webinar on Tuesday (30 July).
The session, entitled “A Year in the Life of Sports Betting”, was presented by Geoff Atkinson and Matt Roob. Atkinson is the marketing research manager for Management Science Associates and Roob is senior vice-president of financial analysis for Spectrum Gaming Capital. Throughout the presentation, the analysts used graphs and data compiled using the Spectrumetrix data service.

Atkinson began the discussion by breaking down graphs from states that report wagering figures for individual sports. The examples included Illinois, Mississippi, Nevada, South Dakota, Oregon and Montana.

Overall, the states showed similar patterns according to the US sports schedule.

Totals are lowest in the summer when baseball is the only major sport in season. Then in the fall, the start o..

July 30, 2024

Improved online hold helps Colorado sports betting GGR soar in June

Gross gaming revenue from Colorado sports betting increased 206.5% year-on-year thanks to a much improved hold, while there was a significant increase in amounts wagered on soccer that coincided with the start of the second Copa América held in the US.
Handle for June increased 12.8% year-on-year to $350.4m according to the Colorado Division of Gaming. Online handle made up $348.9m of the total with $1.5m wagered through Colorado retail sportsbooks.

While baseball ($104.5m) and basketball ($59.2m) generated the highest handle, soccer enjoyed a particularly strong month. Amounts wagered on soccer more than doubled to $27.6m, with the Copa America kicking off from 20 June, while table tennis also increased significantly to $15.1m.

High hold leads to revenue spike for Colorado sports betting
After winnings of $322.2m were paid out, gross gaming revenue came to $28.2m for the month, an 8.05% hold. That far surpassed the $9.2m in GGR and 2.97% hold recorded for June 2023.

Once free bet..

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Tag: Online sports betting