Betr Beaten for $10 Million When Book Only Took in $220,700 During May in One State?
Betr claims to be a microbetting site, meaning it thrives on small wagers in the pennies. Yet, OddsJam Co-Founder, Alex Monahan, says he hit Betr for $60k on a single bet recently.
Monahan then claimed the following: "I estimate we took at least $10 million based on all the people who bet this exact same thing. In one night. Which is absolutely insane."
There is one small problem with that wild assertion. Betr only operates in seven U.S. states at the moment. In one of those states, the math simply does not add up. If it did, Betr would be in some serious trouble we suspect.
Betr reported a $24,600 loss in May, its largest since launching in Ohio. It finished with a minus-11.1% hold on $220,700 worth of wagers. So throw in a $60,000 loss this month in one state - we don't know where Monahan placed this bet - that would amount to a pretty brutal loss for this U.S. regulated sportsbook. A $10 million hit? Ummmm.
Betr is co-owned by YouTube influencer-turned boxer Jake Paul. One thing we can guarantee is that when either brother fights, it's big bucks for the books. One would assume Betr could capitalize on this reality too, although that also opens up a whole can of worms we won't get into here.
Monahan says he won the money via Paul's fantasy sports app, which appears to be available in more U.S. states than the sportsbook. Betr hitched its wagon to the pick' em model Underdog Fantasy and PrizePicks are making a killing off of in recent years. It's a model that has come under fire in some states for too closely resembling player parlay prop wagers found at regulated sportsbooks. Betr does not pay the high licensing fees required of sportsbooks in most of the states where its product is offered.
They claim to be in 24 U.S. states:
Alaska
Arkansas
California
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Kansas
Kentucky
Minnesota
Nebraska
New Mexico
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Wisconsin
Washington DC
Wyoming
We should note there is a TikTok page dedicated to big PrizePicks wins. Many of the folks refer to their picks as "bets". PrizePicks claims to have paid out over $130 million in winning lineups in 2021 alone.
No offense to Betr but they are certainly no PrizePicks. The latter is now the largest daily fantasy sports site, overtaking both FanDuel and DraftKings. They pride themselves on being one of Atlanta's top employers these days. Web searches for PrizePicks are astronomical based on our own internal data.
Once again, all these sites blur the line between today's DFS offerings and regulated sports betting.
The Betr numbers and claims of "insane wins" don't seem to jive with the actual numbers coming out of states like Ohio, but readers of Gambling911.com can do their own math.
This Betr story comes at a time when one behemoth in sports betting, Betway, announced it is pulling out of the U.S. market.
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