Shenanigans!
Two states have prohibited prop bets on college athletes post factum, but could a match-fixing scandal make them go even further and ban all college betting?
The Bulletin Board
NEWS: Would a match-fixing scandal bring an end to legal college betting?
WEEKEND CATCHUP: The airing of grievances; FanDuel set to takeover DC sports betting; the latest Talking Shop Podcast episode.
NEWS: North Carolina mobile sports betting launch day.
BEYOND the HEADLINE: Underdog enters the sports betting pool.
BEYOND the HEADLINE: ESPN Bet gets its first shot at a level playing field.
AROUND the WATERCOOLER: West Virginia bill amendments cause a stir.
STRAY THOUGHTS: A random quote from a random Substack.
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The Fix Is (maybe, possibly) In
U.S. Integrity alerted casinos of unusual wagering activity on the UAB Blazers-Temple Owls men’s basketball game, with the line moving 6.5 points at one casino. “That doesn’t happen in March without injury or suspension,” Rex Beyers, the former US Head of Wagering at PlayUp, told Sports Handle.
Per SI.com, “A source in the gambling space says U.S. Integrity has been monitoring Temple games for a while.”
Forget about the veracity of the claims for a moment; the timing couldn’t be worse. Two states, Ohio and Maryland, have recently prohibited prop bets on individual college athletes at the NCAA’s behest.
At least one person believes the ultimate goal is a complete ban on college betting, which isn’t helped by match-fixing allegations, even if the alert is just smoke and not fire.
Dan Dodd, a former Ohio State Rep., tweeted the following in the wake of the Ohio ban:
“The NCAA is not appeased by this. This was a test case and they will undoubtedly press for a full ban on all college athletics both in Ohio and outside of it. Given lack of oversight in the process, operators are helpless to change it absent a change in rules/statute.”
In a recent flash note, Eilers & Krejcik Gaming (a newsletter sponsor) said it expects “additional states to receive, and seriously consider, requests to ban collegiate prop bets” due to the NCAA’s commitment to the cause. “Maryland and Ohio feel like the beginning, rather than the end, of a trend.”
EKG pointed to New York and North Carolina as candidates to follow Ohio and Maryland and anticipates prop betting bans in states considering legalization.
On the same note, EKG said, “There is a low chance that the requests cascade to other policy changes,” as the prop betting ban is a regulatory change and not a change to the overall law, which a comprehensive ban would likely require. However, the flash note was issued before the Temple-UAB story.
Of course, the obvious argument against a prohibition on college betting is the alert was sent because of legalization. If unusual betting activity occurred at offshore sites, it would be more likely to fly under the radar.
Weekend Catchup: Airing Grievances; FanDuel to Takeover DC Sports Betting; Latest Podcast
Airing of Grievances: My friend Richard Schuetz's most recent column is a must-read. It is a scathing takedown of the current state of the gambling industry and a defense against the people who feel he is down on the industry. As Schuetz writes, “I am not down on gaming. I love gaming.” He then airs his grievances against misogyny, junk science, an out-of-touch C-suite, outdated regulations, and misguided and wasteful campaigns.
GamBet Out; FanDuel In: Washington DC sports bettors will soon have a significant upgrade as the DC Lottery has approved Intralot’s request to work with FanDuel as a subcontractor in the DC market. “OLG and Intralot have evaluated the current platform and believe that FanDuel and its industry-leading platform will perform better within the highly competitive DMV region,” OLG executive director Frank Suarez wrote in a letter seen by iGaming Business. The change has been months in the making.
Podcast #2: The latest episode of the Talking Shop Podcast features Steven Salz, the CEO of Rivalry.com. Steven and I chatted about Rivalry, the issues facing next-gen games, and authentic marketing, which was my favorite part of the conversation.
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North Carolina Mobile Betting Launch Day
Eight mobile sportsbooks are expected to go live in North Carolina at Noon today.
Bet365 has partnered with the Charlotte Hornets.
BetMGM has partnered with Charlotte Motor Speedway.
DraftKings has partnered with NASCAR.
ESPN Bet has partnered with Quail Hollow Club (a PGA tour venue).
Fanatics has partnered with the Carolina Hurricanes.
FanDuel has partnered with the PGA Tour and the Carolina Panthers.
Underdog has partnered with Sedgefield Country Club (a PGA tour venue).
Caesars has partnered with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
The mobile betting launch will be THE event of 2024, as it is the only major expansion this year and the first since Massachusetts mobile operators launched a year ago, on March 10, 2023.
There are also two exciting subthreads, which I’ll cover below, as a couple of the anticipated operators are checking off some firsts.
Beyond the Headline: Underdog Doing It Different
Underdog Fantasy (a newsletter sponsor) will officially become a licensed US sportsbook at Noon today.
Last week, I talked to CEO and Cofounder Jeremy Levine, who said, “Preregistration has been really encouraging.”
What can Underdog users expect from the new sportsbook?
Underdog’s goal is to differentiate its product from the global products used by its competitors. According to Levine, the Underdog Sportsbook will be “clean, simple, and easy to use,” focusing on the US bettor.
According to Levine, Underdog is focusing on its existing DFS customer base.
“We [US bettors] are more about players and stats,” which is the app's focus. As Levine told STTP, there are more DFS players in North Carolina than sports bettors.
“One app will look far more familiar to them than the others,” Levine said. “It looks like our fantasy sports product.”
Underdog provided us with a sneak peek of the app (and its player focus) on X:
The app is three-plus years in the making, and as Levine pointed out, it will be the first US sportsbook to launch on a core tech stack completely built in-house.
Levine also said the best is yet to come. What customers see on Day 1 is just “a kernel,” they can expect more features and functionality in the coming months, Levine told STTP.
A number of enhancements will be made by the 2024 NFL Season, and by the 2025 NFL season, “Underdog will be the best way for fans to engage in sports,” Levine said.
If things go half as well as Levine believes they could, we may finally realize the long-awaited but rarely-seen disruption.
Beyond the Headline: ESPN Bet on Equal Footing
North Carolina is also a first for ESPN Bet. The state marks the first time ESPN Bet will launch concurrently with other operators in the market. Thus far, ESPN Bet has come in after the fact and spent copious amounts of money to announce its arrival.
As reported in Earnings+More last week, analysts at Deutsche Bank are closely monitoring how ESPN Bet fares in the market. They note that if it can hit a 10% market share, “The logical conclusion would likely be that other states will eventually migrate towards this level.”
Penn isn’t placing as high an importance on the North Carolina results and is instead waiting for the expected product improvements (SGPs and ESPN integrations) ahead of the NFL season.
There is plenty of room for improvement on the integration front. The user journey from the ESPN app to ESPN Bet is so difficult that in a recent market monitor report (paywall), Eilers & Krejcik Gaming wondered if it was to preserve the ESPN app’s low age rating. The path from the ESPN mobile web page to ESPN Bet per EKG is only slightly better.
Despite the early-stage integration, ESPN Bet is putting up solid numbers in key categories. Penn reported 1 million ESPN Bet sign-ups between its mid-November launch and the end of 2023 and beat its one-year first-time depositor forecast in just two months, per EKG.
Around the Watercooler
Social media conversations, rumors, and gossip.
An amended bill in West Virginia is getting aired out on social media, with critics calling the amended portions a bait-and-switch.
The bill's core remains the same: operators are required to submit player data for research purposes. So, the idea that the bill has been gutted doesn’t track, at least not in my opinion.
The changes that have caused a commotion are (the original bill and the amended bill):
The creation/expansion of college programs to include “courses, training, certificates, initiatives, or other methods designated to foster innovation in gaming technology development and prepare students for careers in racing, gaming, gaming operations, hospitality management, guest relations, entertainment, and other amenities typically offered in conjunction with gaming operations.”
Replacing the Department of Human Services with the State Lottery Commission as the agency in charge of preparing the annual report.
Critics have mentioned that the first bullet point could be addressed in a separate bill. However, states with gambling industries should offer these programs (Nevada and New Jersey do). Developing in-state industries and jobs around gambling seems better than exporting that work.
The second feels like in-fighting over who is in charge and whose department will get the funding and money. The research will still be done, but 1-800-GAMBLER opposes it because DHS isn’t in charge. The claim (and this is quite the claim) is that letting the Lottery Commission and WVU prepare the report will not prevent more West Virginians from experiencing problem gambling, but identical research carried out by DHS and WVU will.
The main paragraph on data collection was also slightly reworked (h/t Steve Brubaker). It requires operators to send the data to the West Virginia Lottery, which would then send a hashed version to West Virginia University. The original bill had operators directly sending the hashed versions to WVU. I don’t believe it fundamentally changes the research that will be conducted.
Stray Thoughts
“Any orthodoxy that isn’t challenged or interrogated will tend towards stupidity over time.” ~ Ian Leslie, The Ruffian
The above is something people across the industry should keep in mind when they receive pushback or criticism.