The Legal Sports Report (LSR) gathered to talk about the recent withdrawal of MaximBet from the US market.

In a back-and-forth discussion, hosts Adam Candee and Dustin Gouker delved into the situation, hinting that its venture was doomed from the start.

Candee commented: “You had ‘Sportsbetting.com’ and you turned it into MaximBet. I can’t imagine having essentially the ‘McDonald’s’ brand and turning it into ‘ClownBurger’. That’s what they did. 

“A couple of things that this points out in particular. One, the two sportsbooks that we’ve seen call it quits recently – Fubo and MaximBet – both tried to come at this from a completely sideways angle.

“Fubo understandably wanted to be able to do integration with its broadcasts. That makes a lot of sense, it’s just the technology isn’t nearly ready to be able to do that, and the latency issues alone makes it near impossible.

“You talk about what’s going on with MaximBet and all the communications that we got from them was always about the ‘lavish parties’ and the ‘lifestyle brand’ that it was going to build. Where’s the sportsbook? Where’s the core product that is going to keep people there? People are not showing up to a sportsbook for the party at the Super Bowl.”

Candee then used his youth as an example of the demographic that the company is trying to address: “I’ll admit, when I was in my early 20s, I was a Maxim magazine subscriber and I had a number of issues stacked up looking like a library in my house. 

“And I say that all to make the point that I think you’re talking about a very narrow demographic that you’re trying to appeal to in the first place. And, a narrow demographic that doesn’t have a lot of money. There are just many different ways where this deal never made a whole lot of sense.”

Co-host Gouker chipped in, saying: “We have the numbers. They were only operational in Colorado. If you’re not committed, and clearly they were not committed to growing because they weren’t launching in other states. 

“It just underlines how hard it is. You’re competing against well-known brands and if you don’t have anything different, it’s just not enough. You have to either have a lot of money or something really differentiating you, and neither was in play here for MaximBet.”