Pulse
Sports Betting North America NORTHCO STRATEGY
for a spot in the top four. ESPNBet has marketing muscle, but I don’t think that’s enough for them to achieve consistent double digit market share.
While Betfred is a household name in the UK, it isn’t in the US. That proved to be a significant challenge when going against multiple 800lb gorillas with decades of brand building powering their marketing efforts. We attempted to combat that by signing local partnerships with the Denver Broncos and Cincinnati Bengals to add local credibility to the brand. That certainly helped, but without the ability to meaningfully amplify those partnerships via traditional advertising, I don’t think we saw the full benefit.
While Betfred is a household name in the UK, it isn’t in the US. Tat proved to be a significant challenge when going against multiple 800lb gorillas with decades of brand building powering their marketing efforts. We attempted to combat that by signing local partnerships with professional sports teams like the Denver Broncos and Cincinnati Bengals to add local credibility to the Betfred brand. Tat certainly helped, but without the ability to meaningfully amplify those partnerships via traditional advertising, I don’t think we saw the full benefit.
In retrospect, I wouldn’t do those expensive deals and instead take the slow and steady approach of entering fewer markets and focusing almost exclusively on performance marketing early on. With the benefit of hindsight, I think Tier 2 operators have to be extremely selective when deciding which markets to enter.
How arduous was the licensing for online and retail operations? Did the team become more savvy with licensing complexities over time?
Licensing in the US is done on a state by state basis with some states being significantly easier than others. However, it doesn’t just stop with the actual granting of the licence. Te regulatory framework in the US is very different than in other jurisdictions. Once you have a licence, there is also a variety of other compliance hoops to jump through from internal controls to responsible gaming to ongoing reporting and such.
I think the UK team would sometimes get caught up in thinking that once the entity and personal licensing documents were filed, that the compliance piece was done. Tat’s not true
in the US where ongoing compliance can also be extremely time consuming for the organisation. Tat’s another reason why a slow and steady approach would have been better in hindsight. Te process of trying to get licensed in multiple states while also managing the ongoing compliance hurdles of starting and continuing operations proved difficult for a small team.
Taking a holistic view, how do you see the North American iGaming and sports betting operator landscape evolving over the coming year?
I’ll leave the legislation and regulation piece to others in the industry with much more knowledge on what’s going on in the various statehouses. From a business perspective, I don’t think we’ll see much change in the competitive landscape with DraftKings and FanDuel continuing to dominate overall. I think the companies that I’m most interested in seeing how they can shake things up are Bet365 and Fanatics. Both have product differentiators which I think is a requirement for challenging
In the iGaming space, DraftKings’ recent acquisition of Jackpocket to go along with their existing operations will be a difference maker. I think FanDuel has to reciprocate with an acquisition of their own to improve their iGaming operations. Everyone has their eye on BetRivers which is obviously the most logical target. It wouldn’t shock me to see other acquisitions and/or market exits in 2024 to shrink the overall operator pool.
From a product persecutive, what does the US punter want that is currently being underserved? What avenues do you see for revenue generation and user monetisation?
As a resident of the great state of California, I’ll start with access. While 37 states have legal sports betting, three of the largest (California, Texas and Georgia) representing over 80 million people do not. It’s obviously much less for iGaming with only six states offering regulated casino games. Outside of the regulatory environment, I think streaming is probably the biggest product improvement we’ll see across all of the major operators. European bettors probably take it for granted, but it’s not that common to be able to watch games within betting apps here in the US.
Finally, are you looking forward to SBC North America in May? What are your plans for the event?
I always look forward to the SBC North America event as it’s one of my favourite conferences of the year. Tis year will be no different as I have a speaking slot and will be hosting one of the rooms one day during the conference. In terms of plans, it will be more of the same with a lot of meetings a lot of coffee and several nights of drinks and dinner to catch up with colleagues and friends.
While 37 states have legal sports betting, three of the largest (California, Texas and Georgia) representing over 80 million
people do not. It’s obviously much less for iGaming with only six states offering regulated casino games. Outside of the
regulatory environment, I think streaming is probably the biggest product improvement we’ll see across all of the
major operators. European bettors probably take it for granted, but it’s not that common to be able to watch games within betting apps here in the US.
NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE / MARKET DATA P99
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