Developments in New York have continued to grab the attention of the gambling industry, as the state looks set to open its markets to online sports betting.
A well known, and somewhat criticised development, however, has been implementation of joint-bids. Due to only four sportsbook licences being made available in the Empire State, some major betting operators have joined forces to launch ‘superbids’ in order to secure a foothold in the jurisdiction.
So far, FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM and Bally’s have launched a joint bid as well as Flutter, whilst an additional two rumoured alliances has Kambi link with Caesars and PointsBet team up with Rush Street Interactive, with bet365 reportedly the only operator looking at a solo bid in the state.
Additionally, New York legislators have repeatedly expressed their desire for the state’s emerging betting industry to generate public revenues with a tax rate 50%.
Discussing the matter on the latest episode of the Legal Sports Report podcast, Dustin Gauker said: “It’s almost as if we’ve cried wolf before at 50%, but DraftKings, FanDuel, MGM and Ballys, with these superbids have said ‘we can make this work at 50%,’ or at least they want to be in the market that badly they will give the 50%, even though its not ideal.”
He continued: “They’re going to have programmes that attract players, if they’re in the state they’re not just going to open up shop and not try to do anything. They’re going to try and get players in the door and see what happens. We’ve had a lot of caution here, but for the end consumer there will be multiple sportsbooks, you’re not going to get bad lines, it’s not the end of the world here at least.
“There’s still room for New York to mess this all up, but from what we know and from what these bids look like, it looks fairly promising. You’re not going to get dozens of sportsbooks, but you’re going to get some of the big ones.”
Moving on, Gauker and Co-Host, Matt Brown, examined the decision by data and analytics company Sportradar to pursue a public listing of its ordinary shares on the NASDAQ Global Market via an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
“They were looking to maybe go the route of the SPAC, we’ve seen those become a very popular thing here – especially with gaming companies – over the past six to eight months, and it looked like they were on track to get that done – that did not happen, and it looks like they’re going to go a different route,” Brown summarised.
Gauker noted: “These are the companies that hold the levers and are a big part of the ecosystem, not just in gambling but in data in general, which is now a huge part of sports and how we consume them.
“We don’t have a price, we don’t know valuation or what they’re seeking, we just know this IPO is coming, and will learn more about that as time goes on, but this is a huge company that has been valued at billions in the past.”
Source – Legal Sports Report YouTube Channel
