Something for the Weekend - 3rd March 2023

This week began like many others.?BoyleSports and Yggdrasil?struck a new distribution deal, and there were rumblings in the LatAm market as?NeoGames and Intralot do Brasil launched LotoMinas?– a new lottery solution for the Minas Gerais state’s official lottery, Loteria Mineira.

However, things quickly ramped up as full-year results season hit full force. Perhaps one of the most interesting results stories of the week came from?Flutter, whose FanDuel brand essentially dominated the US market in 2022 – becoming number one in 15 of the 18 states it operates in. (There’s much more about?FanDuel’s dominance in the US sports betting market?here, courtesy of our data partner H2 Gambling Capital – and look out for the iGB/H2 standalone report on the state of play in US sports betting coming soon.)

As the week wore on, a trend emerged wherein operators were attributing revenue declines to increased marketing spend. This was the case with both?BlueBet?and?Playtika. Playtika also revealed that it would be suspending its games development pipeline until such operations became “economically viable” again.

As expected, the full-year results didn’t end there.?Scout Gaming?boasted of its “most eventful” year ever, while?Zeal?projected that sustainable investments made throughout the year could have a positive effect on its 2022 revenue.

Before we recap on the rest of this blockbuster week, we start – as ever – with something slightly less serious.

iGB Diary: Grains of truth, More money in the grave and Gator from the gallops

Happy Friday igamers! This week the Diary receives a rogue email of agricultural proportions, recounts rapper Drake’s latest missed opportunity and follows the journey of one misplaced Floridian alligator.

Grains of truth

One of the joys in manning a news desk is all the weird and wonderful things that end up in your inbox. Many a business will earnestly write in with nary a thought that we are a B2B gambling publication, looking at the Diary expectantly as we ponder whether we should be covering the world ping-pong championships or the recent socio-economic history of the Qatari nation.

This time round it was the exciting, fast-paced world of agriculture that ended up in the Diary’s inbox, with FactMR seeing fit to send us a market study of the combine harvester competitive landscape – and by golly it’s some interesting stuff.?

Did you know that this year the global combine harvester market is expected to be worth $51.2bn (only about $10bn off the size of the online gambling market!), and – growing at a compound annual growth rate of 3.8% – is set to reach $74.5bn by 2033? Well, you do now.

Whether or not online gambling is successful at holding off the combine harvester juggernaut for the next decade is perhaps the central question of our age, but maybe it would be good to remember Mark Simmons’ timely warning at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe on this topic:

“Combine Harvesters – and you’ll have a really big restaurant!”

More money in the grave

The infamous Drake curse continues as the rapper’s $400,000 bet on Jake Paul to beat Tommy Fury became yet another loss in the star’s rather dismal betting record.

The bet placed with Stake.com would have seen Drake pick up over $1.4m in winnings, but as the Diary learnt on Sunday night, along with Jake Paul’s teenage following and the teary-eyed Love Island fans, Tommy Fury was no old-age pushover.?

The Diary surmises that Drizzy’s curse can’t be entirely blamed on his wealthy shoulders. His partners at Stake should be reprimanded for clearly offering the rapper no guidance.?

If reports are to be believed, Drake has spent over $800m in cryptocurrency bets with Stake.com. Unfortunately, he seems to lose more than he wins despite casting his net far and wide in search of some extra coin. UFC, boxing, F1, NBA, football… it seems no sport is safe from the man who surely finds himself deeper in his feelings.

Drake’s biggest bet to date is still the $1m placed on Argentina to win the World Cup, which he lost due to the game being won beyond normal time. He would have seen a $2.26m payout from that particular gander.

What’s next? A dabble on the horses? We wouldn’t put it past the man notorious for making headlines being down at Cheltenham in a few weeks.

With so many losses on his record it’s clear to see that Drake really doesn’t have any friends in the industry.

Gator on the gallops?

Where else but good ol’ Florida would you expect a fully grown alligator to infiltrate a horse race?

On what the Diary imagines to be a typical day in the Sunshine State, Tampa Bay Downs racecourse unintentionally opened up its entries to new species during a mile-long race late last month.

Hilariously, it seems this is not the first time a gator has crawled onto the straight at the iconic racetrack – and the resident reptile snapped at the chance to compete.?

In true alligator form, the scaly interloper made a few sneaky attempts to snack on the legs of the nags galloping by. However, thanks to some whipsmart jockeys and a bit of luck, the creature failed to nab a midday meal.

Whether or not the Downs is going to embrace multispecies racing after the incident is still unclear. But with alligators apparently inhabiting the water feature that sits directly in the middle of the racetrack, will anyone be surprised if this one day becomes reality?

That’s your lot! Same time, same place, next week!

The week on iGB

As already mentioned, this was a results-heavy week. But it wasn’t all net losses and EBITDA.

The week began with two stories focusing on the world of gambling-related harm. YGAM reported that one in four students could be suffering with problem gambling behaviours, while an independent study commissioned by GambleAware found that stigma is stopping people seeking help for gambling harm in Scotland.

Later in the week, GambleAware also announced a ￡2m commitment to long-term support for gambling harm recovery. The money will be distributed to 10 organisations spread across the UK in two funding bands: up to ￡150,000 and above ￡350,000, depending on the size of the body and/or the complexity of the use case.?

Next to esports and specifically to Oliver Niner, head of sales at PandaScore, who wrote a piece for iGB reflecting on how the esports industry continued to see impressive numbers during 2022. To paraphrase Oliver, gone are the days when esports was the next big thing. Today, it’s very much in the mainstream, and with actual viewing audiences still on the up and a more stable calendar of events now in place, he says the sector can look forward to a period of sustainable growth.

Staying with esports, we witnessed a pair of ever-present operator deals. Beter scored a deal with Fortuna Entertainment Group, strengthening a partnership between the two organisations that stretches back to 2020, while Better Collective signed a media agreement with online football brand Goal. It’s the Denmark-based super affiliate’s first such arrangement with a digital-only news brand and will see it provide Goal with sports betting content, as well as technology and data insights.?

We? move to lottery and news that soon-to-be UK National Lottery operator Allwyn has secured €335m in accordion loan facilities with a syndicate of national banks, which includes both existing and new lenders. Allwyn will assume control of the National Lottery on 1 February 2024, ending Camelot’s 28-year tenure as operator.

And we finish the news run-down with a quick look at some other results heavy-hitters, including IGT, which hit its projected figures despite a decline in its Global Lottery division. Chief executive Vince Sadusky was on bullish form following the announcement. “We achieved all our financial goals last year while strengthening product leadership positions across our Global Lottery, Global Gaming and PlayDigital activities,” he said. Things weren’t quite so rosy at PointsBet, which reported growing losses in the first half of its financial year despite seeing revenue rise 28% over the 12 months.

Turning to the US, and several states released their expected monthly updates. DC’s sports betting market declined once again in January, when players wagered $18.5m. Gross gaming revenue for the month came in at $1.5m, a steep 25% decline on the same period in 2022.?

It was a totally different story in New Hampshire, though, which saw record sports betting spend for the month, while Nevada also recorded a revenue rise in January. The state reported an 18.0% year-on-year increase, with growth being noted across all key markets.

Just before we go, a quick plug for the latest episode of the World Series of Politics podcast, which features the irrepressible Brandt Iden and Brendan Bussmann analysing the latest goings-on in Missouri, Georgia, New York and more.

That’s it from iGB this week. Tune in on Monday for another week of the industry’s best and brightest news.

Have a fantastic weekend!