Posts by cara@bettingjobs.com
Pales in comparison
Nothing compares 2 U: The reason why Flutter opted for change at the top of FanDuel appeared obvious overnight after rival DraftKings delivered what CEO Jason Robins described as a “fantastic” set of quarterly numbers. Q1 revenue came in up 17% YoY to $1.65bn while adj. EBITDA soared 64% to $168m. The company said that…
Read MoreXO Market raises $6M to build the “YouTube of prediction markets”
The news: XO Market closed a $6 million seed round led by 20VC, Picus Capital, and Coinbase Ventures to build what it’s calling the “YouTube of prediction markets,” or in simple terms, a platform where users create and run their own markets rather than trading on a curated list set by the platform. Since its…
Read MoreNon stop
Stop, start: The Australian regulator announced yesterday that an investigation into Entain Australian brands, Ladbrokes and Neds, has uncovered more than 500 breaches of the country’s national self-exclusion rules. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) probe found that self-excluded customers were able to keep gambling, in one case for more than a year. In…
Read MoreSpirited away
Gas guzzled Running out of runway: The first US airline casualty of the Iran war hit at the worst possible moment for Las Vegas. Spirit Airlines, the bright-yellow ultra-low-cost carrier that for years drove leisure fares into the basement, ceased operations just after midnight on Saturday (May 2). The news comes at a time where…
Read MoreEating out
Clear and present danger: Even as a new report from ARK Invest positioned sports as being irrelevant to the long-term story of prediction markets as financial institutional play, the debut edition of EKG’s new market monitor suggested the current sports-led offerings hit 11% of sportsbook handle in March. Adding noughts: The ARK Invest report made…
Read MoreLucra scores $20M to help brands build P2P experiences
The news: Lucra, the plug-and-play loyalty SDK powering competition with real-money and rewards, has raised $20M led by Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest Venture Fund, with participation from Alumni Ventures, Astralis Capital, Harlo Equity Partners, Simplex Ventures, SeventySix Capital, and WTI. The company’s SDK lets brands embed peer-to-peer challenges, tournaments, and live competitions inside their own…
Read MoreScary monsters
Keep me scared: UK Gambling Commission executive director Tim Miller has pushed back on “ill-informed” criticism of financial checks, while signaling openness to crypto payments and a wider review of regulatory burden. At the Ethical Gambling Forum held in Leeds this week, Miller corrected what he characterized as widespread misinformation of financial risk checks. He…
Read MoreNot buying it
One man on a lonely platform: Sportradar came armed yesterday with a new quarter-of-a-billion share buyback, a personal $10m commitment from CEO Carsten Koerl and plenty of answers to the analysts’ questions when it presented its Q1 earnings, but it left investors unmoved. The shares fell a further 11% yesterday, leaving them down nearly 50%…
Read MoreNo holiday in Scambodia
It’s time to taste what you most fear: Cambodia has dramatically escalated its crackdown on cyber scam operations, announcing the closure of 91 casinos found to be operating as fronts for online fraud syndicates. The move came just days after the US Treasury sanctioned a sitting Cambodian senator over his alleged control of a sprawling…
Read MoreA Cambrian moment
Liquidity events Life on Earth: Proponents of prediction markets are talking them up as the next stage of the evolution of institutional finance, even as the regulated gaming sector and the CFTC seem destined to continue the legal slugfest all the way to the Supreme Court. A recent posting from prediction markets investor a16z made…
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