Sports Betting Beat - May 25, 2021
This is your sports betting industry news for Tuesday May 25, 2021.
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Arizona
Governor Ducey signed a bill that makes sports betting legal in Arizona's tribal casinos. The bill will allow tribal casinos and teams to offer sports bets and wagering on fantasy sports. Tribes will also be able to offer new table games.
The signing followed news on Monday that the Feds had OK'd the Arizona compact deal with the state that includes sports betting.
Canada
Sports betting in Canada traveled a relatively uneventful path in the past few months, but there could be some speed bumps ahead, according to a report filed by the Canadian Press.
The legislation has now been sitting in the Senate since April 22 with only one reading.
Saskatoon-based Conservative MP Kevin Waugh believes that if the legislation does not make it through the Senate by the end of June, it is likely done....at least for this year.
"Even though I got it through the House, it's in the Senate and the Senate is a little bit different. They go to their own beat. Is it going to come out? Who knows, especially a backbencher's PMB (private member's bill) and a Conservative at that."
Waugh's measure would amend the Criminal Code and legalize single-game sports betting in Canada.
Connecticut
Thousands of Connecticut residents who play fantasy sports for money will be left out in the cold come this summer.
“I think there was probably a mindset that this industry is just FanDuel and DraftKings. It’s so much bigger than that,” said Peter Schoenke, owner of RotoWire.com and a board member of the association, which is calling on lawmakers to make changes to the bill.
The Association claims to have been blindsided by the bill, which prohibits fantasy sports as of July 1. The state would then have to set up a licensing structure, which is likely to favor the two big players, FanDuel and Draftkings.
Fox Bet
Flutter is facing a growing number of problems as it considers an IPO of a portion of its FanDuel asset in the US. Brad Allen of Legal Sports Report notes that Fox Bet assets are not included in any IPO.
That may not sound like such a big deal on the surface. Fox Bet/PokerStars had just under $100 million in revenue in 2020 with Allen estimating a $2 billion valuation for the combined Fox Bet/PokerStars assets.
There are other considerations, as highlighted by Allen:
Fox has also threatened to stop advertising the FanDuel brand across its networks, so what is that worth? Flutter again played down the importance of that at its Q1 results, but we can get an approximate value from similar deals.
The PointsBet deal with NBC, for instance, was worth around $500 million over five years. The announcement also added around $1 billion to PointsBet market cap.
Additionally, Fox controls the Super 6 game. Given Action Network and its 1.5 million customer database just sold for $240 million, Super 6 alone could be worth potentially $1 billion.
Taken altogether, the Fox assets that would be excluded from a FanDuel IPO could reasonably be worth $3+ billion.
- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
